Building an Online Issue Operation Platform: From Rundeck to Custom UI Solution

This article introduces how Youzan's technical support team built an online issue operation platform to improve troubleshooting efficiency. The platform addresses several pain points: complex permission structures across business domains, fragmented internal tools (databases, log system Tianwang, data platform DP, and various business-specific tools), outdated tool maintenance, and customer service limitations in database querying.

The initial solution utilized Rundeck, an open-source tool, to interface SQL queries by connecting to read-only databases. Using a SQL conversion plugin with Groovy scripts, they transformed SQL queries into user-friendly interfaces. For example, a two-step query can find the order confirmation operator: first by order number to get user ID, then by user ID to get the phone number.

However, Rundeck had limitations: poor Chinese language support, inability to display results in table format for multiple fields. To overcome these, they built a custom platform on top of Rundeck with improved UI/UX, featuring a left menu matching the merchant backend and frequently-used queries displayed on the homepage.

The platform uses API integration to pull Rundeck jobs (each representing a query function), with configurable field display. Security features include permission control, operation auditing, and watermarks. The solution can convert both database queries and Dubbo interfaces into UI-based tools, with plans to expand to more internal query scenarios.

Results show significant improvements: the workflow shortened from "merchant → customer service → technical support → development" to "merchant → customer service", cutting the chain in half. Data analytics helped identify frequently-asked queries (e.g., one query was used 100+ times), driving product improvements to let merchants self-service their queries.

Future plans include using RPA (Robotic Process Automation) to connect information silos across different systems, following the principle of "Cross the Wall, See the World".