After our client’s business was acquired, we adapted the existing Rails application to serve both brands. At the same time, we started moving parts of the frontend from AngularJS to React.
Established identity & customer journeys
New identity & integrations
Hostname → brand configuration → routing constraints
Brand-specific routes and integrations
Shared components, distinct styles and behaviour
Feature switches with Rollout
Following the acquisition of our client’s business, the existing application needed to serve both the original brand and the new one.
The transition introduced new domains, API integrations, routes, and visual designs. Each domain needed its own branding and behaviour, while existing customer journeys continued to work.
Alongside this transition, we also began migrating selected frontend journeys from AngularJS to React. The challenge was to evolve both experiences within a single Rails application.
We separated brand-specific configuration and introduced a shared domain detection module. It identified the brand from the incoming request’s hostname, giving the application a consistent way to select the appropriate experience.
Rails routing constraints used that detection logic with separate route files for each brand. The same application—and, where needed, the same URL path—could serve different behaviour depending on the requested domain.
Controllers and views selected layouts and JavaScript entry points, passing configuration into React through the page. Shared components adapted their presentation and behaviour, with brand-specific styling and components where required.
We introduced React into selected journeys while retaining AngularJS elsewhere. This allowed frontend modernisation to progress incrementally alongside the branding work.
We divided the work across multiple releases and used Rollout feature switches to control activation. Changes could be deployed ahead of launch, enabled in line with marketing requirements, and disabled if problems emerged.
Both brands could run in the same application, with their own routes, layouts, and behaviour.
Existing customer journeys continued alongside the new brand, while selected journeys moved to React and releases could be activated independently of deployment.
