Component Harvesting for Enterprise Portals: Speeding up React Development

The most expensive mistake in enterprise architecture is starting a React modernization project with an empty

folder. For decades, organizations have poured millions of dollars into business logic embedded within legacy JSP, Silverlight, or Delphi portals. When the time comes to migrate, teams often attempt a "greenfield" rewrite, only to realize that the "simple" data grid they are replacing contains fifteen years of undocumented edge cases.

According to Replay’s analysis, 70% of legacy rewrites fail or significantly exceed their timelines because the tribal knowledge required to rebuild these systems has vanished. Instead of starting from zero, high-performing engineering teams are turning to component harvesting enterprise portals—a strategy that extracts the DNA of existing systems to accelerate the delivery of modern React applications.

TL;DR: Component harvesting is the process of extracting UI patterns and business logic from legacy systems to jumpstart modern development. By using Replay, enterprises can reduce modernization timelines from 18 months to just weeks, achieving a 70% time savings by converting video recordings of legacy workflows directly into documented React components and Design Systems.

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What is Component Harvesting for Enterprise Portals?#

Component Harvesting is the systematic extraction of UI patterns, functional requirements, and state management behaviors from legacy systems to seed a modern frontend architecture. Rather than guessing what a "User Profile" screen should do, architects harvest the exact interactions from the live legacy environment.

In the context of component harvesting enterprise portals, this means looking at the sprawling, often fragmented internal tools used by insurance adjusters, bank tellers, or manufacturing floor managers and identifying the reusable "atoms" and "molecules" that make them function.

Video-to-code is the process of recording a user interacting with these legacy workflows and using AI-driven visual reverse engineering to generate production-ready React code, CSS, and documentation.

Industry experts recommend this approach because it bridges the gap between the "as-is" state and the "to-be" state without requiring the original source code, which is missing or undocumented in 67% of legacy systems.

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The $3.6 Trillion Technical Debt Problem#

The global technical debt burden has reached a staggering $3.6 trillion. For a typical Tier-1 financial institution or healthcare provider, this debt manifests as "zombie portals"—applications that are too critical to shut down but too fragile to update.

The traditional manual approach to modernization looks like this:

1. •A business analyst watches a user.
2. •The analyst writes a 50-page requirements document.
3. •A designer recreates the UI in Figma.
4. •A developer writes the React component from scratch.
5. •The QA team finds 20 bugs because the "new" component doesn't handle the legacy data format correctly.

This process takes an average of 40 hours per screen. With Replay, that time is slashed to 4 hours. By recording the workflow, Replay’s Flows feature maps the architecture automatically, allowing for component harvesting enterprise portals at a fraction of the traditional cost.

Comparison: Manual Modernization vs. Replay Harvesting#

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Implementing Component Harvesting with React and TypeScript#

When performing component harvesting enterprise portals, the goal isn't just to copy the HTML. It’s to extract the intent. A harvested component should be modular, type-safe, and integrated into a broader Design System.

Industry experts recommend starting with the most complex "anchor" components—usually data grids, multi-step forms, or nested navigation structures.

Example: Harvesting a Legacy Data Entry Component#

Imagine a legacy insurance portal with a complex "Claim Entry" table. Using Replay, you record the interaction, and the AI Automation Suite generates a functional React component. Here is how that harvested component might look after being refined in the Replay Blueprints editor:

typescript
import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
import { Button, Input, Table, Badge } from '@/components/ui'; // From Replay Library

interface ClaimRecord {
  id: string;
  policyNumber: string;
  status: 'pending' | 'approved' | 'rejected';
  amount: number;
  lastUpdated: string;
}

// Harvested from Legacy 'ClaimPortal_v2_Final'
export const ClaimEntryGrid: React.FC<{ initialData: ClaimRecord[] }> = ({ initialData }) => {
  const [data, setData] = useState<ClaimRecord[]>(initialData);

  const handleStatusChange = (id: string, newStatus: ClaimRecord['status']) => {
    // Replay captured this logic from the legacy 'onBlur' event
    setData(prev => prev.map(item => 
      item.id === id ? { ...item, status: newStatus, lastUpdated: new Date().toISOString() } : item
    ));
  };

  return (
    <div className="p-6 bg-slate-50 rounded-xl shadow-sm border border-slate-200">
      <h2 className="text-xl font-bold mb-4">Active Claims Processing</h2>
      <Table>
        <thead>
          <tr className="bg-slate-100">
            <th>Policy #</th>
            <th>Status</th>
            <th>Amount</th>
            <th>Actions</th>
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
          {data.map((claim) => (
            <tr key={claim.id} className="hover:bg-white transition-colors">
              <td>{claim.policyNumber}</td>
              <td>
                <Badge variant={claim.status === 'approved' ? 'success' : 'warning'}>
                  {claim.status.toUpperCase()}
                </Badge>
              </td>
              <td>${claim.amount.toLocaleString()}</td>
              <td>
                <Button onClick={() => handleStatusChange(claim.id, 'approved')}>
                  Quick Approve
                </Button>
              </td>
            </tr>
          ))}
        </tbody>
      </Table>
    </div>
  );
};

Building the Harvested Library#

A key feature of Replay is the Library. Once you harvest components from various enterprise portals, they are centralized into a unified Design System. This prevents "component sprawl" where different teams build the same button five different ways.

Learn more about building automated design systems

typescript
// Replay Library Structure: src/design-system/index.ts
export * from './atoms/Button';
export * from './atoms/Input';
export * from './molecules/FormField';
export * from './organisms/LegacyDataBridge'; // A harvested complex component

/**
 * According to Replay's analysis, standardizing harvested components 
 * into a central library reduces maintenance overhead by 45% 
 * in the first year post-migration.
 */

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Why "Record-to-Code" is the Future of Enterprise Portals#

The traditional method of interviewing users to understand a portal's functionality is flawed. Users often forget the small, "muscle memory" actions they take to bypass bugs in the legacy system.

By using Replay to record these sessions, you capture the ground truth. Replay's Flows feature visualizes the architecture of the legacy application, showing how data moves from screen to screen. This is critical for component harvesting enterprise portals because it allows architects to see the "invisible" dependencies.

The Replay Workflow#

1. •Record: A subject matter expert (SME) records a 2-minute workflow in the legacy portal.
2. •Analyze: Replay’s AI identifies UI patterns, layout structures, and data bindings.
3. •Harvest: Components are extracted into the Library as clean, documented React code.
4. •Refine: Developers use the Blueprints editor to tweak the code or apply a new corporate theme.
5. •Deploy: The new React portal is deployed, often 70% faster than a manual rewrite.

For more details on this process, check out our guide on UI Reverse Engineering.

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Security and Compliance in Regulated Industries#

For Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government sectors, component harvesting enterprise portals isn't just about speed; it's about security. You cannot simply send legacy screenshots to a public LLM.

Replay is built for regulated environments:

• •SOC2 & HIPAA Ready: Data handling meets the highest standards of enterprise security.
• •On-Premise Availability: For organizations with strict data residency requirements, Replay can run entirely within your firewall.
• •PII Masking: Automatically redact sensitive customer data during the recording and harvesting process.

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Overcoming the Documentation Gap#

67% of legacy systems lack any form of up-to-date documentation. This is the primary driver of the "18-month average enterprise rewrite timeline." When developers don't know why a feature exists, they spend weeks reverse-engineering the source code.

Component harvesting enterprise portals solves this by creating "Living Documentation." When Replay generates a component, it also generates the documentation based on the observed behavior. If the legacy system had a weird validation rule where a "Postal Code" must be 6 digits but only for "Type B" claims, Replay captures that logic in the generated TypeScript types and comments.

"We spent three months trying to understand the validation logic of our 20-year-old underwriting portal. With Replay, we recorded the workflow and had the React equivalent—complete with the edge-case logic—in an afternoon." — VP of Engineering, Global Insurance Firm.

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The Economics of Harvesting vs. Rewriting#

Let's look at the math for a mid-sized enterprise portal with 50 screens.

Manual Rewrite:

• •50 screens x 40 hours/screen = 2,000 hours.
• •At $150/hour (fully burdened cost) = $300,000.
• •Timeline: ~10 months (with a 2-person team).

Replay Harvesting:

• •50 screens x 4 hours/screen = 200 hours.
• •At $150/hour = $30,000.
• •Timeline: ~5 weeks.

The 70% average time savings isn't just a marketing stat; it's the result of removing the "discovery" phase of development. By harvesting components, you move directly to the "implementation" phase.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

What is component harvesting enterprise portals?#

It is the process of using visual reverse engineering tools like Replay to extract UI elements and business logic from legacy enterprise applications. This allows developers to quickly generate modern React components that mirror the functionality of old systems without needing the original source code.

Can Replay harvest components from non-web applications?#

Yes. While Replay excels at web-based legacy systems (JSP, ASP.NET, PHP), its AI-driven visual engine can capture workflows from desktop applications (Citrix, Delphi, VB6) and convert those visual patterns into modern React/Tailwind code.

How does Replay handle complex business logic?#

Replay’s AI Automation Suite analyzes the state changes and user interactions within a recording. It identifies patterns—such as conditional rendering or form validation—and generates the corresponding TypeScript logic. This logic can then be refined in the Replay Blueprints editor.

Is the code generated by Replay "clean"?#

Yes. Unlike older "low-code" tools that produce "spaghetti code," Replay generates modular, readable React components using modern standards (TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Functional Components). The code is designed to be owned and maintained by your engineering team.

How does this integrate with an existing Design System?#

Replay’s Library feature allows you to map harvested components to your existing design tokens. If you already have a "Primary Button" in your new React system, you can tell Replay to use that component whenever it identifies a button in the legacy recording.

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Conclusion: Stop Rewriting, Start Harvesting#

The era of the multi-year "Big Bang" migration is over. The risks are too high, and the $3.6 trillion technical debt mountain is growing too fast. By adopting a strategy of component harvesting enterprise portals, organizations can reclaim their legacy logic and move to React in a fraction of the time.

Whether you are dealing with a 20-year-old insurance portal or a complex banking dashboard, Replay provides the tools to record, harvest, and modernize without the manual grind.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay and see how we can turn your legacy recordings into a production-ready React library in days.

Read more about reducing technical debt