The number of of customer touch-points is growing rapidly every day. How do we architect systems of integrations and platforms to enable the co-creation of value and enable the best possible customer experience for our users? In this talk, we will discuss approaches to leverage micro-services and GraphQL to enable the ability to support unlimited customer experiences.

1. Support unlimited and ever
changing customer
experiences with GraphQL
GraphQL Day Toronto
Feb 28, 2019
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2. Please stand up if
you build (or are involved in building) web, mobile,
commerce, smart device… applications or products
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3. Stay standing if
You build or support multiple types of customer
experiences (web, mobile, iot, home, vr, ar, etc…)
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4. Stay standing if
You find that you are tasked with supporting more
and more different types of products & applications
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5. Stay standing if
The products / applications that you support change
a few times / year
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6. Stay standing if
The products / applications that you support change
more than 10x per year
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7. Stay standing if
The products / applications that you support change
more than 100x per year
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8. Stay standing if
The products / applications that you support change
more than 1000x per year
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9. Stay standing if
The products / applications that you support change
more than 10,000x per year
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10. Unlimited, and ever changing
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11. Support unlimited and ever
changing customer
experiences with GraphQL
GraphQL Day Toronto
Feb 28, 2019
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12. Andrew Kumar
Head of Product Development,
Digital Platform @ TELUS
Distinguished Instructor, Product
Management @ General Assembly
Twitter: @kumar
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13. Bill Li
13
API Developer, Digital Platforms
@ TELUS
Collector of LEGO bricks and
Islay single malts. And write
code sometimes.
Twitter: @billxinli

14. Websites, web apps, mobile apps, tablets,
watches, cars, home, fridge, chatbots, social
media, smart sock, smart everything...
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15. The number of customer
interfaces is growing yearly.
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16. Personalization, availability, reliability, security,
accessibility, curation, tailored experiences...
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17. Customer expectations /
demands are high.
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18. Developers.
Developers.
Developers. (And Designers)
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19. Talent experience is high.
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20. Speed to market.
Team member effort reduction.
Re-use.
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21. Business demands are high.
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22. GraphQL enables capabilities,
prototypes, developer experience,
speed to market.
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23. Adding new functionalities to existing RESTful APIs
REST API RESTful Endpoint
GET /products/:id
{
"common_1": "...",
"common_2": "...",
"common_3": "...",
"web_1": "...",
"web_2": "...",
"web_3": "...",
"mobile_1": "...",
"mobile_2": "...",
"mobile_3": "...",
"voice_1": "...",
"voice_2": "...",
"voice_3": "..."
}
- Just add it to the existing API?
- Web app doesn’t need all the attributes from the voice or
mobile experience
- API versioning?
- GET /v1/products/:id
- GET /v2/products/:id
- Start to fragment the API to expose multiple endpoints? One for each
user experience?
- GET /products/:id?view=mobile
- GET /products/:id?view=voice

24. Introducing GraphQL
Microservice 1 Service AdapterSchema/Resolver
type Product {
common_1: String!
common_2: String
common_3: String
web_1: String
web_2: String
web_3: String
mobile_1: String
mobile_2: String
mobile_3: String
voice_1: String
voice_2: String
voice_3: String
}
type Query {
products: [Product]
}
query Products {
products {
common_1
common_3
voice_1
}
}

25. Adding new functionalities to existing GraphQL API
Microservice 1 Service AdapterSchema/Resolver
type Product {
common_1: String
common_2: String
common_3: String
common_1_2_3: String
web_1: String
web_2: String
web_3: String @deprecated(reason:
"Field is deprecated!")
web_4: String
mobile_1: String
mobile_2: String
mobile_3: String
voice_1: String
voice_2: String
voice_3: String
shoe_1: String
shoe_2: String
shoe_3: String
}
query Products {
products {
common_1
common_3
voice_1
shoe_2
}
}

26. GraphQL Gateway With Schema Stitching
GraphQL GatewayCustomer Experiences Microservices/3rd Party APIs
Web Experience
Voice Experience
Mobile Experience
Gateway
Contentful Microservice 1
Shopify Microservice 2

27. GraphQL Gateway With Schema Stitching
GraphQL GatewayCustomer Experiences Microservices/3rd Party APIs
Web Experience
Voice Experience
Mobile Experience
Gateway
Content/Marketing Billing/Payment
Product/Services CSR/etc

28. GraphQL Gateway With Schema Stitching
GraphQL GatewayCustomer Experiences Microservices/3rd Party APIs
Web Experience
Voice Experience
Mobile Experience
Gateway
Contentful
Microservice 1
Shopify
Microservice 2
Microservice 3

29. Demo

30. Demo
GraphQL GatewayCustomer Experiences Microservices/3rd Party APIs
Web Experience Gateway
Contentful
Shopify

31. Demo
GraphQL GatewayCustomer Experiences Microservices/3rd Party APIs
Web Experience Gateway
Microservice (Review)
Contentful
Shopify

32. Conclusion
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1. GQL allows arbitrarily selecting data that one needs from the schema, so
nothing extra is returned. This is a small, but still significant reduction in
computation and transfer cost.
a. GQL also allows for querying of arbitrary nested relationships with in any given type.
b. GQL (the spec) itself enables the above, this is not really possible out of the box with
RESTful endpoints. (Unless if you write a ton of custom code.)
2. Finally, the gateway allows for linking between separate GraphQL schema,
thus enabling loading of data in a nested manner via remote schemas.
a. And the usual properties of an API gateway for centralized discovery, orchestration,
caching, tracing, and rate limiting, etc.

33. Thank You
Andrew Kumar & Bill Li
GraphQL Day Toronto - Feb 28, 2019
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@billxinli@kumar