GOLEMS G.A.B.B. OÜ

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a book and blog author and an open-source developer. For the last decade, my career and technical interest have been in open-source databases. Openlife.cc is my personal blog where I blog about these topics. You can also read my book from the site.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GOLEMS G.A.B.B. OÜ, and what were your goals?

To upgrade openlife.cc from Drupal 6 to Drupal 8. Also, for the site design to be completely changed. 

SOLUTION

How did you select GOLEMS G.A.B.B. OÜ and what were the deciding factors?

I know Oleksandr maintains some Drupal modules, including one that I was previously a maintainer of. This gave me confidence that he knows Drupal well and I also prefer to "support" Drupal maintainers by hiring them for commercial projects.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

At the beginning of the project, Golems scanned/reviewed the existing Drupal 6 site to discover a few customizations that I had made. Some of these were selected to also be applied to the new site, but the others were no longer relevant. For the active development phase, we had a weekly cadence of reviewing progress and testing new functionality.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I don't know. I assume it was 1 developer but I don't know if it was the same developer the whole time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

I'm very pleased with the new site. It was good to finally get it upgraded and also bring the visual appearance up to date. One important aspect is that the site now works well on mobile devices. I should say I appreciate how professional and dedicated Golems was to this project given that this was a relatively small project.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

There were weekly status reports and sometimes there were releases of new functionalities. All discussions happened through email, which was convenient and efficient for me. Golems flexibly made any fixes or changes that I requested after testing. In some cases, changes had additional costs, which were swiftly communicated by them and approved by me.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

It was a flexible and hassle-free project; very lightweight in paperwork and project management.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not really. In hindsight, I think we over-engineered some GDPR related functionalities, but on the other hand, it made sense to go with their well-known and lawyer-reviewed concepts.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Communication Manager for the French institute of Denmark (Institut français du Danemark), a French public organization promoting French culture and French language in Denmark. French institutes exist alxl over the world and form a cultural international network for France.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GOLEMS G.A.B.B. OÜ, and what were your goals?

We hired GOLEMS G.A.B.B. OÜ to proceed to the makeover of our website (development, but no design conception), which had been outdated for a long time then.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We wanted to develop our new website on DRUPAL - our former website being on wordpress. We then looked for companies directly referenced on Drupal website. We compared offers and conducted interviews, that led to a great impression from Golems G.A.B.B. OÜ.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We agreed on a mixed formula: the website would be based on an existing DRUPAL template but enhanced with functionalities specifically created for our activities: integration of third-party form, newsletter, special display of our classes ("cards") and of our team members. Elements of web design were to be provided beforehand by the French institute.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Our main contact was the Head of Project management office, but we always had developers in the loop of emails.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We just launched the new website - it's difficult yet to draw conclusions. But we experience a very good first-impression both from our team members and from visitors.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We were in a continuous conversation - the Project manager being really efficient and available. We communicated essentially by emails, sometimes gathering information in Excel for reports (test of the product, notes on possible changes to make, and finally notification after modification by the developers) for example.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

A very good cooperation with the Project manager, who was very thoughtful, patient and who never failed to guide us through the different phases of the development process. Developers were also obviously efficient, there was very few delay between report and asked-modifications.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Appart from our own delays in organization from time to time - that they bared with remarkable patience-, I would only recommend to be a little more thorough/precise on design (some recurrent visual bugs that were in the end resolved!).

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of a company which provides Hiking, Cycling and Mountain Biking experiences in Andalucia, Spain. We supply single day and multi day tours with and without guides.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GOLEMS G.A.B.B. OÜ?

Our original website was outdated and had many issues which was holding back our ability to improve rankings on search engines.

What were your goals for this project?

Improved SEO ranking, more adapatable and a better user experience

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We spoke with the team at GOLEM via video conference and were happy with their approach to working with us. Their pricing and payment structure was also very helpful to us as a small business.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Updating of website to Drupal 9. Implemeted new look and styling of the website whilst keeping the original concept of the website. Improved security, speed and mobile friendly compatability.

What was the team composition?

I was kept informed of progress with the team via email regularly and any quiries were dealt with quickly.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

With our original website we could not improve our website score to go above 60% on the GT Metrix analysis website. Once our new website went live we have been achieving 96% as an average with no errors. We also consistently attain first page results with google searches. The look and feel of the website is much more attractive and has a profesional feel to it.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

All deadlines and the overall timeline of the project was edhered to which was a really great result from GOLEM. When I found issues in the website their communication and response was fast and effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We continue to work with GOLEM for further development of the website. When comparing them to our previous experiences with other developers we have found them to be very effective in working with us. We are a small company so budgets are tight and time is of the essence, GOLEM have been affordable, efficient and proffesional. We also like their approach towards helping us with advice and ongoing discussions for future development.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We have been pleasantly surprised how well the project went with our new website and the ongoing support for maintaining and developing the website is an added bonus.