HR Director by Bent Ericksen
Six years of continuous modernization: evolving a decade-old Laravel HR platform from jQuery to Vue + Inertia.js, Laravel 5 to 11, with 100+ automated tests and zero downtime.
Highlights
Hello World modernized HR Director, a decade-old Laravel HR platform, without a single disruptive rewrite. Over six years of continuous improvement, we migrated 30+ pages and 100+ views to a modern SPA architecture, built 100+ automated end-to-end tests, and upgraded through every major Laravel version from 5 to 11, all while shipping new features and keeping production stable.
Services
Long-term Application Modernization
Laravel Development & Upgrades
Frontend Architecture (Vue + Inertia.js)
Automated Testing & CI/CD
Infrastructure & DevOps
Technical Strategy
Modernizing HR Director: A Partnership in Continuous Evolution
Hello World continues to partner with Bent Ericksen & Associates to manage and modernize HR Director, the industry leading HR compliance platform for healthcare practices. Over our six year engagement, we have transformed a decade old legacy application into a high performance, modern ecosystem. By executing a strategy of continuous improvement rather than a disruptive rewrite, we successfully maintain and upgrade the platform, most recently through Laravel 11, while consistently shipping new features to their national user base.
Partnership Highlights
We serve as the long term technical partners for HR Director, providing a modern Vue.js and Inertia.js architecture that we constantly refine. Our team manages the entire lifecycle of the application, from implementing Playwright automated testing suites to overseeing complex Laravel migrations. This ongoing collaboration makes sure the platform remains stable, secure, and at the forefront of HR management technology without ever pausing development for the business.
Ongoing Services
- Continuous Application Modernization
- Active Laravel Development and Version Upgrades
- Frontend Architecture Maintenance (Vue + Inertia.js)
- Automated QA and CI/CD Management
- DevOps and Infrastructure Oversight
The Strategy: Evolution Over Rebuild
Bent Ericksen & Associates requires a platform that scales alongside shifting healthcare regulations. When our partnership began, HR Director faced significant technical debt from years of organic growth. Rather than recommending a “stop the world” rebuild that would freeze their roadmap, we chose to evolve the platform in place.
We continue to re-engineer every layer of the stack while the application remains live. This “keep the lights bright while upgrading the wiring” philosophy allows the business to stay agile while we systematically eliminate legacy constraints.
Key Partnership Milestones
- 2020: Launched first Vue SPA screen, Dockerized the development environment, and implemented Stripe billing.
- 2021: Matured the BonusPro incentive module and completed a full frontend refactor with Webpack.
- 2022: Initiated the Inertia.js rollout and migrated hosting to Platform.sh for improved DevOps workflows.
- 2023: Expanded the Playwright test suite to 100+ tests and refactored the employee facing UI.
- 2024: Completed the migration through Laravel 11 and modernized the roles and permissions engine.
- 2025 and Beyond: Continuing the rollout of automated data pruning and expanded soft delete governance.
Our Technical Stewardship
1. Stable Infrastructure and Background Processing
We maintain a containerized development environment using Docker to ensure total parity between our engineers and the production environment. To keep the user interface lightning fast, we manage 15+ Laravel queues that handle heavy background jobs like policy rebuilds and bulk reporting. This architecture removes the risk of front end timeouts and provides a smooth experience for administrators.
2. Modernizing the Frontend Page by Page
Our team is systematically converting the remaining legacy views into a reactive Inertia.js and Vue.js single page application. We have already migrated over 100 views, delivering a modern, app like feel while keeping the underlying Laravel monolith simple and maintainable. This phased rollout allows us to gather user feedback and improve the UI without the risks associated with a total cutover.
3. Proactive Framework and Security Upgrades
We keep HR Director at the cutting edge by managing staged upgrades through every major version of Laravel (5 through 11) and PHP 8. Our team actively maintains the roles and permissions engine, manages Stripe billing integrations, and oversees the hosting environment on Platform.sh. This proactive approach ensures the platform is always running on supported, secure, and high performance versions of the stack.
4. Confidence Through Automated Testing
To support a high deployment velocity, we manage a suite of over 100 Playwright end to end tests. These tests guard critical business logic including payroll bonus calculations and document generation. This rigorous testing culture allows us to release updates frequently with near zero risk of regressions, keeping the platform reliable for the thousands of practices that depend on it.
Results That Matter
- Seamless Upgrades: Managed the transition from Laravel 5 to 11 without a single service interruption.
- Continuous Velocity: Migrated 30+ pages and 100+ views while simultaneously launching new modules like BonusPro.
- Operational Stability: 15+ background workers and 100+ automated tests provide a resilient foundation for daily operations.
- Modern Governance: Implemented soft deletes, auditable logs, and automated pruning to protect sensitive HR data.
Why Our Partnership Works
Our relationship with Bent Ericksen & Associates proves that meaningful modernization is a marathon, not a sprint. By acting as an embedded technical team, Hello World provides the expertise to pay down technical debt while the client focuses on their core mission of helping healthcare practices manage their teams. The result is a platform that gets better every week, ready for the next decade of growth.