From Manual Entry to Modern Workflows: A UX Modernization Story

The average enterprise legacy system is a black box held together by muscle memory and post-it notes. When we talk about "Manual Entry," we aren't just talking about data input; we’re talking about the $3.6 trillion global technical debt mountain built on the backs of undocumented workflows. For a CTO, the "Manual Entry" trap is the single greatest barrier to agility. You want to modernize, but 67% of your legacy systems lack documentation, and the original architects retired a decade ago.

The traditional path is a "Big Bang" rewrite. It’s also a suicide mission. Statistics show that 70% of legacy rewrites fail or significantly exceed their timelines. You start with an 18-month roadmap that balloons into a three-year odyssey, only to find that the "modern" system missed 40% of the edge-case business logic hidden in the old UI.

TL;DR: Modernizing legacy "Manual Entry" systems no longer requires manual code archaeology; visual reverse engineering allows teams to extract documented React components and business logic directly from user workflows, reducing modernization timelines by 70%.

The High Cost of "Manual" Modernization#

In most Financial Services or Healthcare environments, the "source of truth" isn't the code—it's the screen. The business logic lives in the way a claims adjuster navigates a 15-tab green-screen terminal or how a loan officer overrides a validation error.

When you attempt to modernize these workflows manually, you spend 40 hours per screen just to understand the requirements. You are performing "software archaeology." You hire consultants to sit behind users, take screenshots, and write Jira tickets that developers then misinterpret. This is why the average enterprise rewrite timeline sits at a staggering 18 months.

The Modernization Matrix: Comparing Approaches#

From Black Box to Documented Codebase#

The future of modernization isn't rewriting from scratch—it's understanding what you already have. This is where Replay changes the trajectory. Instead of reading stale documentation or brittle COBOL, we use video as the source of truth for reverse engineering.

By recording a real user performing a "Manual Entry" workflow, Replay’s AI Automation Suite identifies the underlying data structures, state changes, and UI components. It transforms a recorded session into a structured, documented React codebase.

💰 ROI Insight: Manual screen documentation takes roughly 40 hours per complex enterprise screen. With Replay, that same screen is extracted, documented, and converted into a functional React component in under 4 hours.

The Technical Reality: Extracting the "Manual Entry" Logic#

When we modernize a legacy form, we aren't just moving pixels. We are extracting state transitions. Consider a legacy insurance portal where certain fields only appear if a specific "Override Code" is entered. In a manual rewrite, this logic is often lost.

Using Replay, the visual recording captures these transitions. The platform then generates a clean, modular React component that preserves the original business intent while utilizing a modern tech stack.

Example: Generated Component from Visual Extraction#

The following is a representation of what Replay extracts from a legacy workflow recording. Note the preservation of business logic transitions and the integration with modern validation libraries.

typescript
// Generated by Replay Visual Reverse Engineering
// Source: Claims_Entry_Module_v4.exe (Legacy Windows App)

import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
import { useForm } from 'react-hook-form';
import { Button, Input, Alert } from '@/components/ui';

export const ModernizedClaimsEntry = ({ initialData, onComplete }) => {
  const [isOverrideActive, setIsOverrideActive] = useState(false);
  const { register, handleSubmit, watch, setValue } = useForm({
    defaultValues: initialData
  });

  // Replay detected this logic from the legacy 'Field_72' behavior
  const claimValue = watch("claimAmount");
  
  useEffect(() => {
    if (claimValue > 50000) {
      setIsOverrideActive(true);
    }
  }, [claimValue]);

  const onSubmit = async (data) => {
    // API Contract generated by Replay based on legacy network traffic
    const response = await fetch('/api/v2/claims/submit', {
      method: 'POST',
      body: JSON.stringify(data),
    });
    if (response.ok) onComplete();
  };

  return (
    <form onSubmit={handleSubmit(onSubmit)} className="space-y-4">
      <h2 className="text-xl font-bold">Claims Processing</h2>
      <Input {...register("claimAmount")} label="Claim Amount" type="number" />
      
      {isOverrideActive && (
        <Alert variant="warning">
          <Input {...register("supervisorCode")} label="Supervisor Override Required" />
        </Alert>
      )}
      
      <Button type="submit">Submit to Legacy Backend</Button>
    </form>
  );
};

The 4-Step Workflow to Modernize "Manual Entry"#

How do you actually take a 20-year-old system and turn it into a modern React application in weeks instead of years? We follow a structured pipeline within the Replay platform.

Step 1: Visual Capture#

Record a subject matter expert (SME) performing the actual "Manual Entry" tasks. This isn't just a screen recording; Replay captures the DOM changes (for web) or UI automation hooks (for desktop) alongside the video. This creates the "Source of Truth."

Step 2: Blueprint Analysis#

The Replay Blueprints editor analyzes the recording. It identifies recurring patterns—tables, buttons, input groups—and maps them to your organization’s Design System. If you don't have a design system, Replay’s Library feature generates one for you based on the legacy UI's functional requirements.

Step 3: Logic Extraction & API Mapping#

This is the "Archaeology" phase, automated. Replay monitors the network calls or database triggers that occur during the manual entry. It generates:

• •API Contracts: Swagger/OpenAPI specs for the legacy endpoints.
• •E2E Tests: Playwright or Cypress scripts that mimic the user's recorded path.
• •State Maps: A visual flow of how data moves from Screen A to Screen B.

Step 4: Component Synthesis#

Replay synthesizes the final React components. These aren't just "wrappers"; they are clean, TypeScript-based components ready for a modern CI/CD pipeline.

⚠️ Warning: Do not attempt to modernize without a generated E2E test suite. Without a baseline of how the legacy system actually behaved, you will introduce regressions that the original developers spent years fixing.

Solving the Technical Debt Audit#

The $3.6 trillion technical debt problem exists because legacy systems are "Black Boxes." You can't fix what you can't see. Replay provides a Technical Debt Audit that visualizes the complexity of your legacy workflows before you write a single line of code.

• •Flow Complexity: Identifies "Spaghetti Workflows" where users jump between 10+ screens for a single task.
• •Redundancy Detection: Finds 50 different versions of the same "Manual Entry" form across different modules.
• •Dead Code Identification: Highlights screens that are in the codebase but are never touched by users in the recordings.

Built for Regulated Environments#

Modernization in Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government isn't just about speed; it's about compliance. You cannot send sensitive PII (Personally Identifiable Information) into a public cloud AI for analysis.

Replay is built for these constraints:

• •SOC2 & HIPAA Ready: Data handling meets the highest security standards.
• •On-Premise Availability: Run the entire extraction engine within your own VPC or air-gapped environment.
• •Audit Trails: Every generated component is linked back to the original video recording, providing a clear "Why" for every line of code.

📝 Note: In highly regulated sectors, the "Video as Source of Truth" serves as a compliance artifact, proving that the modernized workflow matches the approved business process.

The Future of Enterprise Architecture#

The role of the Enterprise Architect is shifting. We are moving away from being "Gatekeepers of the Monolith" to "Orchestrators of Modernization." By using Visual Reverse Engineering, we eliminate the highest-risk phase of any project: the discovery.

When you can see exactly how "Manual Entry" happens, when you have the API contracts generated automatically, and when your React components are 70% complete before the sprint begins, the 18-month timeline disappears. We are seeing enterprises move from "Black Box" to "Documented Codebase" in days or weeks.

Frequently Asked Questions#

How does Replay handle complex business logic that isn't visible on the UI?#

While Replay excels at visual extraction, it also monitors the data layer. By correlating UI actions with network requests and state changes, Replay infers the underlying logic. For deep "hidden" logic (like a server-side COBOL calculation), Replay generates the API contract so your modern UI can communicate with that existing logic without needing to rewrite the backend immediately.

Can Replay work with desktop applications (Citrix, Java Swing, Mainframe)?#

Yes. Replay’s engine is designed to handle various legacy environments. For web-based legacy, it uses DOM-level extraction. For desktop/thick-client, it utilizes OCR and UI-automation hooks to map the workflow to modern components.

What is the average time savings compared to manual rewrites?#

Our partners see an average of 70% time savings. A project that would typically take 12 months for discovery and initial UI development is often reduced to 3-4 months, with the initial "Visual Extraction" phase taking only days.

Does the generated code require significant refactoring?#

Replay generates clean, TypeScript-ready React code. While you may want to tweak styling to match a specific brand guide, the component structure, state management, and API integration are production-grade. It follows standard patterns (hooks, functional components) that any modern React developer will recognize.

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Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay - see your legacy screen extracted live during the call.