Rethinking How Services Are Managed in the Helmholtz Cloud

Every service in the Helmholtz Cloud supports research in a different way. As the Service Portfolio continues to grow, so do the expectations around clarity, transparency, and quality. New service providers bring valuable diversity, but they also increase the need for consistent structures and meaningful comparisons.

As the team operating and evolving the Helmholtz Cloud, HIFIS continuously works to improve how services are documented, discovered, and maintained. Over the past months, we have taken a close look at how service information is managed — and decided it was time for a fundamental redesign.

Why Change the Existing System?

Until now, service providers have maintained their information in the HIFIS database “Plony,” built on a Plone framework and continuously extended over the years. While this system has served the community well, a technical review in June 2025 revealed that its architectural complexity significantly slowed down the development of new modules and features.

At the same time, discussions within HIFIS and across the Helmholtz Association raised important questions:

• How can service quality be described in a measurable and transparent way?
• How can we better reflect differences between similar services, such as HAICORE?
• How can we reduce friction for service providers while improving clarity for users?

After evaluating multiple alternatives, HIFIS decided to rebuild the Service Portfolio Management directly within the Helmholtz Cloud portal.

The changeover requires many new features and views in the Cloud Portal. This is what our developer team is currently working on.

Designing Before Developing

Before writing a single line of code, we invested significant time in concept and design. Detailed mockups were created for every view and workflow. We asked fundamental questions:

• Is the sequence of steps intuitive?
• Are field types and labels still appropriate?
• Where can we create logical connections between pieces of information?
• Which questions can be eliminated because the structure already provides clarity?

These ideas were discussed with different stakeholder groups, including service providers and other members of the Helmholtz community. Their feedback directly shaped the final design concept.

Improvements for Service Providers

One of the biggest improvements is the integrated preview of the service card. Because the new module is built directly into the Helmholtz Cloud portal, service providers no longer experience a system break between editing and publishing. Changes can be reviewed instantly.

A step progress bar guides service providers through the Onboarding process and clearly indicates where they are within the workflow. This improves orientation, reduces uncertainty, and gives control over the multitude of service profile fields.

By simplifying the structure and integrating the system more tightly into the Helmholtz Cloud, we aim to reduce administrative overhead while increasing consistency across the entire Service Portfolio.

Stay Tuned - Explore Services

👉 If you have any important comments or requests, please write to us in the chat channel HIFIS Community/helmholtz.cloud.
👉 Have a look at the diverse range of services available in the Helmholtz Cloud.
👉 Tell us which services you enjoy most and which you miss at support@hifis.net.