Creating Interactive Documentation for Legacy CRM Workflows Using Replay Data

The most expensive document in your enterprise is the one that doesn’t exist. In the world of enterprise architecture, we call this "Tribal Knowledge Debt." When your core business logic is trapped inside a 20-year-old Siebel instance or a custom-built PowerBuilder CRM, you aren't just dealing with old code—you’re dealing with a black box that no one knows how to open.

According to Replay’s analysis, 67% of legacy systems lack any form of up-to-date documentation, and the cost of manually mapping these systems contributes significantly to the $3.6 trillion global technical debt currently stifling innovation. Traditional methods of documentation—static PDFs, blurry screenshots, and outdated Confluence pages—fail because they are decoupled from the actual execution of the software.

By leveraging Replay, organizations are shifting from manual discovery to automated Visual Reverse Engineering. This process allows teams to record real user workflows and instantly generate documented React components, effectively creating interactive documentation legacy systems desperately need to be modernized.

TL;DR: Legacy CRMs are often undocumented "black boxes." Manual documentation takes ~40 hours per screen and is prone to error. Replay uses Visual Reverse Engineering to convert video recordings of legacy workflows into documented React code and Design Systems, reducing modernization timelines from 18 months to weeks and saving up to 70% in engineering costs.

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The Documentation Crisis in Legacy CRMs#

Legacy CRM systems (Customer Relationship Management) are the lifeblood of financial services, healthcare, and insurance sectors. However, these systems were often built before the era of agile documentation and component-driven development. When a Senior Architect leaves the company, they take decades of workflow logic with them.

Industry experts recommend that before any rewrite begins, a "Discovery Phase" must occur. In a standard enterprise environment, this phase alone can take 6 months. Why? Because developers must:

1. •Shadow users to understand hidden business rules.
2. •Inspect obfuscated DOM structures or legacy terminal outputs.
3. •Manually recreate UI states in Figma or Storybook.

This manual approach is why 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their original timeline. The gap between what the user does and what the developer builds is too wide.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the automated process of capturing UI interactions, state changes, and workflow logic from a running legacy application and translating them into modern, documented code structures.

By creating interactive documentation legacy workflows become visible, searchable, and—most importantly—executable.

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How Replay Automates Documentation Extraction#

Replay replaces the manual "screenshot and guess" method with a high-fidelity capture engine. Instead of writing a 50-page functional requirement document, an analyst simply records a video of the CRM workflow.

Video-to-code is the process of utilizing AI and computer vision to analyze video frames of a legacy UI, identifying patterns, components, and data flows, and outputting production-ready React code.

The Replay Workflow:#

1. •Record: A user performs a standard task (e.g., "Onboard New Wealth Management Client") in the legacy CRM.
2. •Analyze: Replay’s AI Automation Suite identifies buttons, input fields, tables, and nested navigation structures.
3. •Document: The system generates a "Flow" which maps the architectural path of the user.
4. •Export: The output is a documented React component library and a Design System (the Library).

According to Replay's analysis, this reduces the time spent on a single screen from 40 hours of manual work to just 4 hours.

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Creating Interactive Documentation Legacy: A Technical Comparison#

When deciding how to approach your CRM modernization, it is vital to look at the data. The following table compares traditional manual documentation methods against the Replay-driven approach.

For more on how to structure your transition, see our guide on Legacy Modernization Strategies.

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Implementation: From Video Data to Documented React Components#

To understand how creating interactive documentation legacy workflows works in practice, let’s look at the data structure Replay generates. When you record a legacy CRM screen, Replay doesn't just take a video; it captures the metadata of the interaction.

Step 1: Extracting Workflow Metadata#

Replay identifies the "Flow" of the application. In a legacy CRM, a "Search Customer" action might involve three hidden redirects and a modal. Replay documents this as a JSON-based blueprint.

typescript
// Example of a Replay Blueprint Metadata Object
interface LegacyWorkflowDocumentation {
  workflowId: string;
  sourceSystem: "Siebel_v7" | "Mainframe_3270" | "Custom_ASP_NET";
  steps: {
    order: number;
    action: "CLICK" | "INPUT" | "NAVIGATION";
    componentDetected: string;
    description: string;
    capturedState: Record<string, any>;
  }[];
}

const customerSearchFlow: LegacyWorkflowDocumentation = {
  workflowId: "CRM-SEARCH-001",
  sourceSystem: "Custom_ASP_NET",
  steps: [
    {
      order: 1,
      action: "INPUT",
      componentDetected: "LegacyTextField",
      description: "User enters Customer SSN into the primary search bar",
      capturedState: { value: "XXX-XX-XXXX", validation: "numeric" }
    },
    {
      order: 2,
      action: "CLICK",
      componentDetected: "LegacyButton",
      description: "Triggers the 'Fetch_Data' stored procedure call",
      capturedState: { label: "Search" }
    }
  ]
};

Step 2: Generating the Documented Component#

Once the metadata is captured, Replay generates a modern React component that mirrors the legacy behavior but uses modern best practices (Tailwind CSS, TypeScript, and Accessible UI patterns).

tsx
import React from 'react';
import { useForm } from 'react-hook-form';
import { Button, Input, Card } from '@/components/ui';

/**
 * @name CustomerSearchComponent
 * @description Modernized version of the Legacy CRM Search Workflow (ID: CRM-SEARCH-001).
 * Generated via Replay Visual Reverse Engineering.
 * 
 * Original System: Custom ASP.NET CRM
 * Capture Date: 2023-10-24
 */

interface SearchProps {
  onSearch: (data: SearchFields) => void;
}

type SearchFields = {
  ssn: string;
};

export const CustomerSearchComponent: React.FC<SearchProps> = ({ onSearch }) => {
  const { register, handleSubmit, formState: { errors } } = useForm<SearchFields>();

  return (
    <Card className="p-6 shadow-lg border-l-4 border-blue-600">
      <h3 className="text-lg font-bold mb-4">Customer Search</h3>
      <form onSubmit={handleSubmit(onSearch)} className="space-y-4">
        <div>
          <label className="block text-sm font-medium text-gray-700">
            Social Security Number (SSN)
          </label>
          <Input 
            {...register("ssn", { required: true, pattern: /^\d{3}-\d{2}-\d{4}$/ })}
            placeholder="000-00-0000"
            className={errors.ssn ? "border-red-500" : ""}
          />
          {errors.ssn && <span className="text-xs text-red-500">Valid SSN required.</span>}
        </div>
        
        <Button type="submit" variant="primary">
          Execute Search
        </Button>
      </form>
    </Card>
  );
};

By creating interactive documentation legacy components like this, developers no longer have to guess what a button does or what validation logic was applied in the 1990s. The documentation is the code itself.

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Why Interactive Documentation is Critical for Regulated Industries#

For sectors like Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government, documentation isn't just a "nice to have"—it's a regulatory requirement. When an auditor asks how a specific insurance claim is processed, "it's in the code" is not an acceptable answer.

Replay is built for these high-stakes environments. It is SOC2 compliant, HIPAA-ready, and can be deployed On-Premise to ensure that sensitive PII (Personally Identifiable Information) captured during the recording phase never leaves your secure network.

Benefits for Compliance:#

• •Audit Trails: Every modernization decision is backed by a recording of the original system.
• •Knowledge Transfer: New hires can watch "Replays" of legacy workflows to understand business logic without needing access to the fragile legacy environment.
• •Consistency: By using the Replay Library, every team uses the same documented design system, ensuring a unified user experience across the enterprise.

Industry experts recommend moving away from "Big Bang" rewrites, which have an 18-month average enterprise timeline, toward incremental modernization. Replay facilitates this by allowing you to modernize one workflow at a time. You can find more details on this in our article on Incremental Modernization with Replay.

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Scaling Your Documentation with AI Automation#

The Replay AI Automation Suite takes creating interactive documentation legacy data to the next level. It doesn't just stop at React components; it builds a full architectural map of your legacy application.

1. •Flows: Automatically generates flowcharts showing how users move from screen to screen.
2. •Blueprints: Provides an editor where architects can tweak the extracted logic before it's committed to the codebase.
3. •Library: A centralized repository of all your legacy components, categorized and searchable.

Imagine a scenario where a large insurance provider needs to document 500 different screens across three different legacy platforms. Manually, this would take 20,000 engineering hours (roughly $2.5 million in labor costs). With Replay, that same project can be completed in 2,000 hours, a 90% reduction in resource allocation.

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Overcoming the "Black Box" Syndrome#

The biggest hurdle in creating interactive documentation legacy systems is the "fear of the unknown." Legacy code is often brittle. Developers are afraid to touch it because they don't know what might break downstream.

Replay removes this fear by providing a "Visual Source of Truth." When you can see the component, its state, and its modern React equivalent side-by-side, the risk of the migration drops significantly. You aren't rewriting; you are transposing.

According to Replay’s analysis, teams that use Visual Reverse Engineering report a 45% increase in developer confidence during the first 90 days of a modernization project.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

Does Replay require access to the legacy source code?#

No. Replay uses Visual Reverse Engineering, which means it analyzes the rendered UI and user interactions. This is ideal for systems where the original source code is lost, obfuscated, or written in an obsolete language that modern developers cannot read.

How does "creating interactive documentation legacy" help with testing?#

By capturing the exact inputs and outputs of a legacy workflow, Replay allows you to generate automated test cases for your new React components. You can ensure that the modern version produces the exact same results as the legacy version, providing a built-in regression suite.

Is Replay compatible with mainframe applications or terminal emulators?#

Yes. As long as the application can be displayed on a screen, Replay can record and analyze the workflow. This includes green-screen terminal emulators, Citrix-delivered apps, and legacy web applications.

Can we export the documentation to other formats like Storybook?#

Absolutely. Replay is designed to integrate into your existing developer workflow. The components generated can be exported directly into Storybook, allowing your design and engineering teams to collaborate on the new Design System immediately.

What is the typical ROI for a Replay implementation?#

Most enterprises see a return on investment within the first 3 months. By reducing the "Discovery Phase" by 70%, teams can reallocate their most expensive engineering talent to building new features rather than documenting old ones.

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Conclusion: The Future of Enterprise Architecture is Visual#

The era of manual documentation is over. As technical debt continues to climb toward the $4 trillion mark, enterprises must find faster, more accurate ways to understand their legacy core. Creating interactive documentation legacy workflows with Replay isn't just a shortcut—it's a fundamental shift in how we approach software evolution.

By turning video into code and workflows into blueprints, Replay allows you to reclaim your business logic from the clutches of obsolete technology. Don't let your legacy systems remain a mystery. Turn your recordings into your future.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay