AndPlus, An Ensono Company

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an IT manager for a sports entertainment company. I lead projects and work with external vendors. I’m a business relationship manager for our facilities’ safety and fire systems.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

AndPlus is the only vendor that has ever been allowed to integrate mobile applications into two massive fire control systems. Their engineers worked with all of our vendors to create a solution that helped our building managers control mission-critical alarms and fire control systems.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The most recent project we’ve been working with them on is infrared sensor integration. We needed a mission-critical app to watch a light that would indicate if there were a fire alarm occurring in a remote location. All our buildings are currently wired to notify the local fire departments, but our facilities team is only notified after the fire department responds, resulting in loss of critical response time for our team. AndPlus developed a solution that checked each alarm via infrared on every campus around the world so that a desktop notification goes to the appropriate people of any campus that we chose. They also wrote the app in a way that will be transitioning it to mobile devices in the future. The user can also acknowledge the alarm and view a historical archive of alarms on any of the campuses that we own as well.

What is the team dynamic?

I usually communicate directly with their project engineer. One or two engineers join our phone calls.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

They came highly recommended by one of our facilities managers. AndPlus was the only one that’s ever been able to do a mobile integration to these massive firm alarm control systems. We felt we had the right fit from the beginning.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent a little over $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2013, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

If we save five to ten minutes each time we catch a false alarm before it forces an evacuation, that’s an hour of airtime that equates to eight figures worth of savings.

On the most recent project, there was a bug in the system. When we brought it in to test with a power outage or a fire alarm trigger, we noticed there were multiple notifications that were popping up. We notified AndPlus and they made changes immediately. Within a week, they had an updated batch of code that resolved the issue.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a project management team of certified scrum masters. These are the guys we entrust to ensure that our investment is being spent in the right places. We’re technical and like to speak directly with the engineering team. The project managers are great at allowing great conversations to occur without derailing off topic too much.

We communicate primarily by phone and email. During the initial project kickoff, they came onsite to work with us directly in order to clearly understand what they’ll be working on.

They’re using the Agile Scrum methodology and so they know exactly the amount of work that is needed in order to complete the particular project, as well as specific timing on when the project deliverables are needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team learned our vocabulary and our technology immediately with zero experience in this specific industry. They got started and adopted our way of thinking. That was pretty impressive.

With their most recent release, we needed a historical archive of when fire alarms were tripped and who acknowledged the fire alarms or power loss. They were able to get this out into a historical report that allowed us to filter easily. We only asked for a table to show all the information. They went above and beyond.

Are there any areas they could improve?

A couple of times we had to follow up to find out the status of the project. It would be great if they had some sort of dashboard or email notification system that would let us know where the project is as it passes each phase. This would make it easier for us to report to upper management.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the president an online sign company that provides banners, decals, and other custom products for customers across the United States.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We were looking to build an online design studio that customers could go into and either upload their current files or design their files online. We had originally worked with a company for about a year but they hadn’t made it work, so we left that company and built a relationship with AndPlus.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Over the last five to six years, we’ve converted almost everything that we had to AndPlus's platform. We use them for almost all of our website needs. They actually just built us our first app as a company. 

In terms of this project, AndPlus started from scratch and built a brand new, custom HTML5 platform. They built an internal processing system that incorporates our customer service and our internal production workflow. It also includes our employee check-in and check-out system so that we can monitor the hours that people are logged in. Our whole business operates on it today.

What is the team dynamic? 

Depending on the complexity of the project, we have different people working with us. Chris, an intern at AndPlus has been our lead since we started. When we have new projects, the project manager, JD gets involved as well. I don’t know how many developers there are behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

We looked online for companies. I spoke to the owner, Sean, while interviewing several other companies at the same time. What set AndPlus apart was that Sean put in the extra effort to come out and see our business. We mutually felt comfortable and they showed genuine interest that they wanted to work with us. 

How much have you invested with them?

Around $400,000 to $450,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2012 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We have been an Inc. 5000 company for the last three years as a direct result of the work that AndPlus has done for us. Without their platform, we would not be able to be growing at the speed that we are. The quality of the coding has been very good. They completely custom built it to exactly how we wanted it. We’re continuing to make usability better all the time. They’ve made the user interface very custom in that functions like checking into work in a production area is a simple user experience.

I own another company as well, and a different company built that platform. I find AndPlus to be way easier to work with than that company. Even though it’s more expensive on the frontend with AndPlus, we spent less for the results that we’ve gotten because they don’t have to go back and rebuild things over and over. It’s part of a learning process for us. We're finding that what looks cheaper initially, probably isn’t cheaper in the long-term.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a really great relationship with AndPlus — they are very responsive. We have a shared document that we work together on. We have a weekly call that my marketing department, office management, and external marketing team are all on with AndPlus. There’s a window each week that they tell us the things that they’re working on, things that they’re pushing, and things that are on the test site for us to test.

We currently work in two-week sprints where we assign tasks and they put values on it based on time. That allows us to control what we think are the most important new features for our system. If there are any pushes or changes, we can let our team know that the changes are going to happen and when it’s going to become live. There are no surprises for our customer service team or our production team or whomever that push may affect. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They genuinely care about the success of our business. I care about their success so they can be a vendor for us long-term and they care about our success. That’s the most distinguishing of the key vendor relationships that I have in our business. It’s a ‘we’re in this together’ feeling.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They seem to keep up to date with things that are happening in the industry. They come to us with solutions that could speed up the website or that Google or some other SEO advantages might happen because of this. At this point, I can’t think of anything they could do differently. Their communication is good. Their development is good. I’d recommend them to everybody if I wasn’t so selfish that I want them just to do our work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the director of software engineering at Onset Computer. We develop data loggers, weather stations, and environmental sensors in four different markets, and we develop all of the software for our end users.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We released an iOS mobile application three years ago. We didn't have the bandwidth to handle the Android development so we reached out to AndPlus to do the Android development of our two mobile applications.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have worked with AndPlus a couple of different ways. We started with a model where we would develop the iOS version of the application and then they would take that application and develop the Android version. Effectively, they were mimicking the functionality of our iOS version. This process worked well for the original versions of the app, but the delay was significant by not just weeks, but several months.

Next, we moved towards a model where we would start developing the iOS version and we would get some of the work done before giving work to them. This would make the delay about a month. We took care of the high risk items and worked things out so as to not expose AndPlus to the complexity of the product. We are now offset by a month on the Android release for our two mobile apps.

Recently, we have engaged with them in two other different avenues. First, we had them do the custom development for a brand new Android-only application; we couldn't actually do this particular application on iOS because of some limitations by Apple. They developed the completely custom app with specs from us. This application involved a lot more rigor as far as requirements definition, UI reviews, etc., and it worked pretty well. There have been some bugs in the app but they've continued to work on fixing the bugs and getting the app out to the customers.

Most recently, we have taken one of their developers and brought him into an active development project that we have going on from the onset. It's an embedded project, which this specific developer at AndPlus has experience with. We pulled him into our team and we've fully integrated him. He has been a fantastic addition to our team and the product is finishing up this week.

The main purpose of the applications is to interact with a set of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) products. The standard Bluetooth is a little different from BLE; with BLE, there is no human interaction component. BLE is the way that all of our new line of data loggers work, and AndPlus has developed expertise in that area. They're focused on helping us get BLE connectivity working on Android specific devices with Bluetooth connectivity. There is also a cloud integration component - once the data is pulled through Bluetooth we push it up to the cloud. So, AndPlus has been working on cloud integration, but most of the project has been focused around interaction connectivity with our Bluetooth devices.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

I manage the relationship now but I did not start off the relationship. The president of our company was the one who initially reached out, and I'm not sure how he found them.

How much have you invested with them?

On a yearly basis, we spend several hundred thousand dollars.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together three years ago and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

There are two metrics to measure, and one is schedule. They have gotten significantly better than where they were before with regards to being on schedule. There was a big learning curve in understanding how our products work and making sure that our teams were aligned, especially in regards to QA. Recently, they've been within 5 percent of the estimates for schedule.

The other metric is the amount of post-release bugs present in their software, which I know has gotten better, but I don't have any specific metrics around it yet.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

They do well from a project management standpoint and they're extremely responsive. I work with one particular project manager on a daily basis. If something needs to be escalated I can escalate it up to the CBO very easily. We have a daily meeting every morning at 9 AM. For the meeting, we get on the phone for a quick 10-minute call to make sure everybody's on the same page and get the day going.

We both work using the agile methodology. We work not only in the same overall process but we work in the same toolset, which makes things easy. We have access to their system, and they have access to ours. We use Jira, a tool for managing agile software development. We incorporated JIRA into our processes after seeing how well it was working for AndPlus. Consequently, we have modeled some of our new processes off of theirs and that has worked quite well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What has impressed me the most is their ability to understand and internalize the needs of our customers without us providing specific use cases or user profiles. We have a very diverse set of users and we make a unique, niche product. AndPlus’ development team understands that well and part of the reason that they can do that is that they have maintained consistency in their development team. We've had two developers who have been working consistently with us now for at least a year. One developer in particular, the tech lead, has been with us the entire time. They struggled a little bit with consistency and QA for a while, but in the past six months they have maintained really good consistency on QA and it has showed in the quality of their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If we have struggled with anything it has been QA. We have an internal QA team, and the expectation is that AndPlus will do full QA and then we'll do a little bit of smoke testing here before we release something. We were struggling at times because our team would do a smoke test and find things. The question was then why didn't their team find it. We have put some additional checks and balances in place to try to make sure that that doesn't happen. Because of this, it's happening less than it used to. That said, it was never an egregious problem.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was a senior product manager at Bloomberg. I was part of a group called Bloomberg Vault. We focused on data management analytics that focus on regulated industries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

The platform that we built out and the products and different models that we offer our customers are built on a full web application stack that is different than the standard products model that Bloomberg delivers its solution as. So, we had our own engineering team within the Bloomberg Vault group that I worked in. We didn't have the bandwidth or the expertise in-house to build what we needed in the speed in which we needed it. I was looking for a third-party partnership agreement with an outside company to become an extension of our in-house engineering team. The team I was looking for needed web building experience and web implementation experience.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

As an extension of our engineering team, AndPlus felt as if they were part of our organization. As a product manager, I helped to translate a lot of the product and customer requirements for what we wanted to build out to AndPlus. We had that conversation with the design and the engineering team to make sure they knew exactly what to build and what to develop.

We had in-depth meetings; every week we would have a detailed meeting between me, the Bloomberg team, and AndPlus to sit and walk through the requirements to be dealt with over the next week. We also had daily stand ups periodically, which is a daily check-in with the engineering team. Additionally, we had a Slack channel and other methods of real time communication to make sure that there were no blockages or speed bumps in getting things completed on time. Our work was a mixture of routine conversations and real time QA between AndPlus and Bloomberg as necessary.

We had them focused on our Bloomberg Vault file analytics suit. There were two kinds of end users that we built applications for. One set of users was compliance and front office business managers, and the other, more technical side, was focused on IT managers and IT administrators. So, we had two separate applications we needed to build. We trusted AndPlus to handle the IT-focused application, which we provided the requirements for. The entire project of designing and developing the project was left to AndPlus. The application allowed our customers to create a data mapping and data inventory of all files and documents that sit within their customer repository. This could be through file shares or Dropbox or SharePoint.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

AndPlus came to me as a suggestion from someone else that we were working with at the time. They filled a need and they had the type of working style that fit well with ours; it seemed like it was a good match.

There are plenty of third-party web application engineering teams out there. Bloomberg works with 10 to 12 different partners at any point in time; we looked at some of those before we choose a vendor to support our project. In total, we looked at 10 different options.

How much have you invested with them?

It has been $3 or $4 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in early 2014. The relationship is ongoing because they are going to continue to provide maintenance and support once the product is complete. The first version was rolled out in 2015. Since then, we have made some major enhancements and they are now working on the second version, which should be complete by the end of 2017. From there, it will move into maintenance, support, and enhancement mode. They’ve been dedicated to us for at least three years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The product they built contributed to multiple millions of dollars of revenue for us. We wouldn't have been able to sell the products without their support

I was very impressed that they were flexible to change their work methodology to fit what our needs were. For the first year, there were some points in time where we felt that we could make improvements in the working style of our partnership with regards to how often we talked about who was responsible for what. They were always willing to change everything at the drop of a dime to make sure that they satisfied our needs. We profited from that type of relationship.

The quality of the work got better over time, which is a product of their understanding more over time of what we were trying to build and what our coding style is like. We really needed a partner who could offer us consulting on how things can be done efficiently and that is something that they were able to do for us as well.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

They had their own project manager that they assigned to the project that worked directly with me from the beginning. They had someone who kept everyone in line and made sure items were finished on time. The project manager was my point person if I ever had a question; I would reach out to receive a response within an hour.

We liked that the CEO of the company was also very involved with us. He would call me every few weeks to make sure things were running smoothly. Any time I couldn't get in touch with someone on the project team (which was rare) I would reach out directly to him and he would facilitate communication back to us in a very timely manner. We really got the feeling that they were committed and dedicated to us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed with their ability to learn and understand the product. We worked with a lot of different vendors in different capacities and the amount of time it took AndPlus to understand what we were trying to build and the quality of the developers they gave us was spot on to our needs. They are a true partner rather than just a vendor.

Their coding capabilities are also high-quality. The quality of their work was very strong. It's hard for me to say whether they are the best vendor we have worked with because that’s hard to measure, but their coding was very strong, as well as their overall communication. The way they treated us as a customer goes above and beyond the other vendors we work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There is nothing explicit. If we ever had any issues, they were resolved very quickly. For example, in the beginning of the project they didn't respond for a few days. Once we made that known, the problem quickly went away; there wasn't another two day period that they didn't respond. If there was a particular coding principle that we needed to be changed, didn't agree with, or had an issue with, it was quickly changed. Nobody is perfect. What is valuable is that they are willing to change, get better, and improve.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior vice president of global commercial operations for Cold Chain Technologies. We provide thermal packaging solutions for shipment and distribution of temperature sensitive drug products and therapies within the life sciences industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We were trying to develop a tool to help our clients with some challenges they’re experiencing in the market. We needed a tool that was user-friendly and easy-to use, that also had calculations and science behind it so that it could make a complicated, manual process into a simple, automated tool. Such a tool did not previously exist.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a vision and sketches made on paper and Excel. They held a kickoff process where they outlined what we would experience from start to finish. That was nice so that we knew how and when everything would be done. I’ve worked with other developers and none of them have taken the time to walk through the details as thoroughly as AndPlus did. They developed a solution specifically for our application based on our internal knowledge. 

The app ties into forecasting software weather throughout the life of a package. We built in algorithms that were developed internally and are proprietary to our company. AndPlus was able to work with our engineering team, take those algorithms, and develop a tool that was extremely simple and straightforward for the client. It’s a very clean-looking, very simple, easy-to-use, and quick app.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

They were referred to me by a partner company of ours who had used them in the past for application development. AndPlus met with us to learn about what we were trying to accomplish. They seemed to understand what we were looking for and gave us a proposal. It was very easy to work through the proposal process and negotiations. They saw the bigger picture and the future potential of working with us. We were so impressed with the initial discussions with them that we didn’t search anyone else out.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent $20,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in February 2017, and the app has been completed. We’re in the process of re-engaging them for future projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The tool just launched, so I don’t have a lot of data. We had a market specific conference at the beginning of May where we showed a dummy version of the app. Everyone was very interested in it. We’ve done a couple of walkthroughs of the final version with some departments and everyone thinks it’s very slick. We demoed it yesterday for our commercial team, and they were very excited and asked what more could be done with it. It’s very simple, clean, and easy-to-use.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

They have excellent project management. We assigned someone from our side, and they provided a single point of contact on their side. The process was very smooth. They set up an internal system to share things with us. We communicated in-person, through email, and web meetings. I really appreciated their CCO because he made it a point to follow up with me at the beginning, middle, and end of the project to make sure our needs were met. They wanted feedback on how to do better next time, which was nice.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their knowledge was top notch. They’re one of the easiest providers to work with. Their development process was really effective. We talked to them about training our internal team on some of the processes they use to make ours more efficient.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When we had our final meeting to provide feedback, it was difficult to find anything negative to say. We told them they could educate us on some of the industry lingo and statistics. When making decisions, we were novices in the realm of app development. If they could give data around certain features or buttons that are better to use, that would help us make an informed decision. That was really a minor point. We’re happy with the way the project went overall.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our corporation is a machine vision and barcode reading company, which is essentially a high-tech camera type of equipment that is used on assembly lines of various things, in almost all industries, for identifying barcodes and getting that detailed information.

I am the global web marketing manager of the global marketing team. I am responsible for our online presence. As part of that role, I manage the technical web development team, all the developers that work on our site, and any of the applications and services that are used on our site

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

At the time I had reached out to AndPlus, we had an existing mobile sales assistance app that we had been using. Essentially, this was an app that would allow our sales people, with no connectivity, to be able to go through our portfolio of products as a sales assistance tool.

We acquired the app from one department and were looking to add some features to it. Our in-house development team was in its infancy, and we were looking to pair up with an agency as a partner to help assist in building the app, and at the same time, learn from them how the apps are essentially developed.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have a very confident team of developers here, and I was looking for a vendor to become an extension of my team. I wasn’t looking for a third-party vendor that I would have to consistently reach out to in order to get updates. Once we sign an agreement with a vendor, I expect to hear from them as frequently as I would hear from a member of my team. I was looking to pair up with a vendor that would be an extension of our team, who was going to be super responsive and proactive in providing updates and details.

AndPlus initially put together a kick-off meeting, traditional project management, and business analyst expectations that you would get if someone was in-house. AndPlus proved to me that they were a third-party agency that truly stepped into the role of being part of our team. The team provided weekly updates and more frequent updates depending on where we were in the project.

I passed along our current app to them and told them what we were looking for. We asked that they give us the best way to build out what we were looking for in the app. Their involvement was pretty much focused on this entire project at the time. I had a developer here that worked with them to help negate any gating factors on our end for information that they might need. They did a great job in stripping the app apart, breaking it down, and rebuilding it. AndPlus provided some really good user experience as far as getting information in there.

The app we had in place was very archaic. It was self-sustaining, but AndPlus was very instrumental in helping us build out a better content management system that was used directly in the app. The basis of the app is that it serves as access to the suite of over 40 products that we have, and we are consistently adding new content there. As soon as a new product is rolled out, we want the product to be available in the app so that our sales team has that information on hand. AndPlus brought that code up to what we would expect it to be and made it much easier for us to add content into the app

The app is only for iOS at the moment. I will likely be reaching out to AndPlus within the next few months to see if they can assist us in building an Android version as well.

What is the team dynamic?

We had 4 regular team members, from the project manager to the business rep, all the way down to the developers. We had 1 developer, in particular, that was our point developer. They were very helpful and proactive in responding to anything we were concerned about. It truly felt like they were part of the team.

How did you come to work with ­AndPlus?

I found AndPlus by doing a Google search for mobile and iOS app developers. Not having a lot of experience within my team, I was looking for a company that was close by. AndPlus is about 5-6 miles away from our office, which made it very helpful to us for in-house meetings.

How much have you invested in them?

Over $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with AndPlus in January 2016, and have an ongoing relationship with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The app is an internal-only app; however, the feedback that we’ve received from within our company has been great. There are constant kudos on functionality that has been brought into the app itself. The app is entirely better now, compared to the original. Plus, AndPlus brings a big value add, because they understand how apps are developed, and understand how users connect with an app. They brought a lot of value in that way, which has been extended not only to my department and my developers, but the sales team as well.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

On a scale of 1-10, I would say 8, because there is always room for improvement. AndPlus is always very receptive when working on projects, responsive to ideas, and proactive in providing feedback. Sometimes, it is making sure that we keep tight to what we are looking for in terms of guidelines. In some cases, there were times when they’d give their suggestions, trying to add value. During the design element phase, they had good ideas, but I had to reel them back, as we needed to keep tight to the timeline in order to get it out on time. That’s not a negative—I like the fact that they were always looking to add value.

I didn’t necessarily always have to work through the project manager, I could go directly to the developer if I had a question about something, and they were very responsive. Anytime I had a question, regardless of what it was, I always had the response from the proper person. They are always very receptive, jumping into any issues or enhancements that we might need to add within a particular period of time. They are very responsive and provided timelines anytime I asked about building a particular feature.

What did you find the most impressive about them?

A core theme is that they have been very receptive. Of all the vendors that I’ve worked with, I find that AndPlus consistently reached out, even during the quiet times, asking if there was anything additional that they could do with the app itself. AndPlus is a base of knowledge and information when it comes to apps. If something is cutting-edge, I am going to hear from AndPlus about the new technology that might be useful for us.

It is refreshing that they stayed tied to the project they worked on, and continue to nurture it and offer up ideas. It hits the nail on the head as far as having a third-party company that I know is an extension of my team, and super responsive from the business partner all the way down to the developer.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there is nothing I can see that they would need to improve on. With the scope of the projects that we have worked on, there weren’t any frustrations at all working with AndPlus.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of product management for a not-for-profit membership organization for scholarly publishing. Our goal is to make content easy to find, cite, link, and assess.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We wanted to overhaul an outdated 15-year-old application that was developed internally. To do that, we needed frontend developers to build a modernized app from scratch. The app would enable our publisher members to deposit metadata for their publications. Some of our users come from non-English speaking backgrounds and may not be technically savvy, so it was critical to have a clean user interface and streamlined workflows.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The overall scope of the initiative was to build the frontend piece of the web application based on existing designs. The backend was developed in-house. AndPlus managed all parts of the development life cycle for the frontend build. The project lasted around 3 months.

They did the software development and tested it. The software was first deployed into a staging environment where the clients were able to jump in and test out the features. AndPlus used React to develop the solution. They released the code into our GitHub repository and provided release notes. This was the cycle that we did as a practice.

AndPlus provided all of the project management as well as the engineers. They ran the sprints and Scrum sessions, from planning to the review of the content management system. They maintained and updated the sprint planning board through their ticket management system, JIRA. We had 4 full sprints together and 1 touch-up sprint, which took 2 days.

We now have a new contract with them to have 1 developer augment our development process. Aside from that, we’ve taken everything in-house. We’re running all of the processes, but we still have their expertise on the engineering end.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

I did online research. I am not located in the Boston area, but my office is, and they wanted someone with whom they could work with together in person when needed. We selected AndPlus based on experience, cost, and geography. We had a number of face-to-face meetings in the beginning and certainly at the end, where they did all the knowledge sharing and transitioning. AndPlus’ team stood apart from other vendors in consideration because of their friendliness and professionalism.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working together since April 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We have not launched the app yet, but we did a software review at the end of the project. Everything was solid. The quality of the code was very solid too. They were also very responsive. The Agile process went very smoothly, thanks to a capable Scrum master.  

While we have not completed building the system, AndPlus provided incredible service. Most of the initial deliverables in the original proposal were delivered.  Unfortunately, there were some delays on our end with the backend API. Both AndPlus and our team also underestimated some aspects of the project.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management system we used was run by them. We used their JIRA system, and it documented all of the tickets. We had daily stand-ups through a web conferencing tool because we were working in different places. We also used our own Slack account and brought their team into a specific channel. A lot of back-and-forth questions, answers, and notes were exchanged there.

What did you find most impressive about AndPlus?

The app required domain-specific knowledge of publishing metadata, which AndPlus’ team learned quickly. They were a pleasure to work with. The developers were extremely friendly and professional without being stodgy.

Are there any areas AndPlus could improve?

One area of improvement for them is attention to detail — making sure that the design is completely followed. Over the course of the 4 sprints, there were some details that dropped off when we were doing the development work. It’s not carelessness per se, but I would say high attention to detail should be part of their service.

When they first crafted their business proposal, it had quite a lot of detail to it. Most of the details were relevant. By the time we started work, most of the designs on our end had been fleshed out. There were some changes as we continued to work on this project on our end. However, we noticed that there was somewhat of a difference between the original proposal and what was built.

For example, the time estimates were off. They thought they could launch within 3 sprints, which did not happen. We not only tacked on a fourth sprint to extend the work, but we’re still working on it now to clean up some stuff. Also, we were missing the automated regression testing, which was laid out in the original proposal.

This isn’t a big criticism because the work that they provided, once the project officially started, was great. If anything, not expecting that the original proposal would be followed exactly is perhaps the only area of improvement that I can provide.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an audiovisual production agency servicing customers with live events. We are approximately 30 people, with frequent travel and quick turnaround on customer projects. Our customers are typically all in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries. My role with the company is as creative director and director of marketing and communications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We were trying to address the need for an internal communication system, that had features immediately helpful to our business. We needed faster turn-around times on creating estimates for customers, a way for employees to track time in and out of the office, a message board, and company directory.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’d been doing everything with Excel and email. We met with AndPlus to lay out what we thought we needed and determine how to turn it into software that would make everything more efficient for us. We came to them with a loose wireframe of what we thought this thing is, and what it should do. Essentially, it’s a project management system for our entire company.

The first couple meetings were them introducing us to the scrum methodology because we had no idea. We thought "scrum" and "MVP" were sports terms, if that illustrates how much they walked us through the process.

They walked us through it step-by-step, outlined the language and the team. It was a rudimentary introduction to how they work and how they’d work with us. It was important enough for us to fly out there and meet with them. At that point, there were three of us and five of them. Four of the developers who would be working with us were also in that room.

Because this was going to be a company-wide software, they helped us determine a couple modules that would be a good introduction to their process. Also, when they were finished, it would be a good introduction for our employees to get used to the system. The first couple features were just a simple in-and-out board and a place to leave messages for one another. It was really just, at a glance, who is in the office and who is not. It seems simple, but for us, half of our staff is traveling at any given moment. We needed something more efficient than email to handle that.

The second module we focused on was a portal for people to request time off. It would calculate people’s time, how they accrued time depending on how they were hired. People accrue vacation and PTO at different rates. AndPlus helped us devise a system that would allow all that to be automated. Instead of an employee sending an email to their manager to request time off, it was all online. They just go a simple page, request a day off, and it would go to the manager for approval. It made everything a lot easier for us.

The third module was probably the most helpful. It’s an estimate generator. Our clients call and give us the details about an event. Before, we were literally pulling up Excel templates from 2005 and deleting everything we didn’t need, saving it as a PDF, taking it through various departments, and then sending it to our clients. AndPlus walked us through a complete restructuring of how that whole quoting process worked on our side. In the end, our clients were getting quotes in a matter of minutes as opposed to a week.  They took that long process and crammed it into a couple hours. They assessed how we were doing things and white-boarded the whole process for us. They provided a good, outside perspective as to how we were doing it and how it could be made more efficient.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

One of our long-time associates in Boston introduced us to AndPlus.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work is ongoing. We’re currently refining some of those first three modules. We have modules planned in the future for an additional travel calendar system, assigning teams, and an employee directory. It’s probably going to be ongoing for a couple years. It’s been a good relationship for us, and we don’t really see an end yet.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

My role with the software is more of a design liaison for the aesthetics and the functions. I don’t have anything beyond knowing that it’s faster and my clients love it. Clients have seen an improvement in how things look. Our quoting process went from one week to two hours. I can’t pull up a spreadsheet that shows that, but I can pull up 30 people who attest to it.

Customer satisfaction has increased dramatically with the estimate generator they built for us. Customers are very pleased with the look, clarity, and quickness of project estimates. The employee in/out board has alleviated several redundancies in employee email.

The system runs absolutely smoothly. AndPlus does a release on a private server that only four or five people can access. They bang on it and try to make it break. It’s kind of a manual bug-reporting on our end. They develop it, test it themselves and release it to us, and then we test it. They go back and fix it, and then it gets pushed live. We don’t get any bug reports.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s pretty good. I think they have about 20 to 30 people. Throughout the whole process, we’ve had two people as the main face, Brian and JD. One is more client-side, and one is project management. JD has always been very transparent about what they’re doing, how long things are taking. We’ve always been pleased with the progress they’ve made, probably because they’ve been so transparent in the timelines.

What did you find most impressive about AndPlus?

We’re not development-savvy, and they’re able to temper what we’re talking about just using language we understand, which we appreciate. Unique about this service provider is their ability to explain in very plain language the nature of the work they do, in a way that makes it easier for us to make decisions along the way. They see the broader scope of what we are trying to accomplish and help facilitate some decisions at the present that will be non-issues in the future.

Are there any areas AndPlus could improve?

My only wish is that we were in the same area. That might just be a communication style on our side, but we prefer a face-to-face meeting. It’s just our corporate culture here. That’s a hard ask, to have them come down from time to time and see us. I guess location would be one thing I would change. As far as how they handle the project, this is the first time we’ve used a company like this, so I couldn’t do a good compare and contrast. We’ve been pleased so far.

BACKGROUND

We are a transportation company that in the last few years has built an entrepreneurial business unit which provides international e-commerce fulfillment to consumers through an online application.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Business Challenge:

We approached AndPlus after having to fire an offshore frontend development team, and we were on a timeline for launching our updated platform. We needed a partner who could respond quickly, understand the gaps in what had and hadn't been done so far, and innovate to overcome the technical challenges that the previous team had failed to surmount.

Technical Challenge:

Our platform was designed around a full SOA [service-oriented architecture] where all business functions were handled through RESTful APIs. We wanted to use Drupal's CMS [content management system] functionality to allow our marketers to edit content. The challenge was incorporating Drupal.

SOLUTION

In order to solve the business challenges, AndPlus worked very closely with me to understand our current situation and what was desired. I was looking specifically for a company that could operate in an Agile framework, knowing how difficult it would be to get up to speed, learn the technology stack, and successfully develop a single aspect of a multi-tiered system.

AndPlus was such a company. Their Agile methodology kept all stakeholders informed and allowed an unobstructed flow of information between parties. This even included hosting me at their facility where I spent many hours working alongside the development team to ensure that they understood the APIs that they were integrating with, and to make sure I had ample opportunity to provide feedback so as to maximize progress.

From the technical side, AndPlus had the right expertise assigned to the project and they were quickly able to develop a pattern which incorporated various JavaScript libraries to manage the SOA communication. This not only got the work done but provided a frontend architecture that was later easy to expand upon.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Given the Agile and iterative approach we took with the project, AndPlus was able to complete each set of tasks on time, including a huge number of refinements that were incorporated based on what we learned through the development process. This is all thanks, not only to the technical prowess of their developers but even more so to their implementation of Agile methodologies.

I've worked with many organizations that have claimed to adhere to one Agile methodology or another but have yet to see one that took it as seriously and practiced it as effectively as AndPlus. I think this certainly sets them apart.

BACKGROUND

We are a national non-profit foundation that accelerates the search for cures for children’s cancer by driving innovation, transcending research barriers, and solving the field’s most challenging problems. We fight every day to make treatments and cures possible for the 43 children diagnosed with cancer each day. We do this in three ways:

• We accelerate the search for cures by posing essential challenges to scientists and inviting teams to overcome them with innovative research approaches.
• We transcend the barriers of a broken research system by establishing new pathways to end children’s cancer.
• We provide resources and education, so no child faces a cancer diagnosis without a fully equipped support team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

When a there’s a cancer diagnosis, the family faces substantial stress and shock. The acute phase of treatment—when children are in the hospital and often undergo intensive surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy—is especially distressing for parents and caregivers. Any parent struggles with how to cope with the complex and unfamiliar details of cancer treatment, including doses, medications, blood counts, and scheduling.

In a 2012 survey of our constituents, almost 85% of respondents said if a mobile application had been available, they would have used it to track their child’s treatment. However, fewer than 15% said that they found a functional mobile application that helped them manage any aspect of their child’s treatment.

Studies show that disease management apps can play a crucial role in helping families and patients cope with illness and communicate with their healthcare professionals. Self-management apps can also empower families by providing information and skills that enable them to manage the challenges of treatment. Recent research on apps for managing diabetes and chronic pain have shown that when patients take on greater responsibility for their own care, their treatment outcomes improve and they report better health overall. Chemotherapy and medication schedules can be incredibly complex, and parents need a convenient and accurate way to monitor their child’s treatment, blood counts, and any related side effects. For young adults, who are at a higher risk of relapse than younger patients because of poorer adherence to treatment schedules, an app that tracks medication schedules could improve overall treatment outcomes. In addition, an app could help families communicate reliably with their health care professionals about side effects like nausea, migraines, or pain, so treatment and dosages can be adjusted to ease harsh side effects. Early studies show that when patients have access to tools with a range of monitoring and tracking functions, these patients adhere to treatment better and have improved clinical outcomes.

There was no comprehensive mobile application designed for families of children with cancer. The medical application market can be broken down into two camps: applications that provide education, and applications that track symptoms and medication. No application provides both resources and healthcare management. Further, there is no application specifically for pediatric cancer, even though over 40,000 children are treated for cancer each year. While some generic medical mobile applications are available for a fee, they are not designed for families of children with cancer and they are poorly suited for the demands of a major illness. Further, most of the medical apps currently on the marketplace were developed without input from a medical professional and provide only basic tracking of health histories and doctors’ appointments. When families face a major illness like cancer, they need far more complex resources for tracking and education. Our organization aims to fill this need and provide a free, comprehensive mobile application that will provide education, resources, tracking, and management.

SOLUTION

We decided to develop a comprehensive care manager mobile application to aid parents and caregivers in navigating treatment for a child with cancer. We were able to obtain a grant that provided funding to develop the app. We selected AndPlus to develop the mobile app for us due to their experience with developing mobile medical apps, app design, ability to deliver it quickly, and favorable pricing. AndPlus created a development plan, designed the architecture, developed the front and backend, designed the user interface, and completed testing. They also helped us through the process of making the completed app available on both the Apple and Play stores. The overall project lasted about three months and they have continued to assist us with some additional small modifications to the app.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Overall, our experience with AndPlus has been very positive. They worked well with our team through the development process, delivered an award-winning app, and did it within the stated timeframe. They have also been very helpful and patient with us as we transitioned through eliminating our in-house IT support position, being responsive to our questions and support requests.