Grata Software

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Caretime. We offer a homecare software that is used by home care agencies to help themselves run more efficiently.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Grata Software?

We’ve had a hard time finding good maintenance support and development abilities. We’ve worked with an outsourced group and we’ve hired a dedicated developer, and neither worked out. We were looking for a vendor who could do both for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, they went through a code review and produced an integrity report of how all the systems were working. That was helpful to figure out where we stand and what we needed to take care of. Moving forward they started working on the development - both on bug fixes and new feature development.

Our application is a web-based, cloud application that's a mixture of JavaScript and PHP and runs on a MySQL database. We've also worked with our Modal web-application, which serves as our mobile app for now. They're also helping us with project management for the outsourced development of native mobile apps.

What is the team composition?

I work with two people pretty consistently: the owner of the company and the Executive Director of Sales. I’ll hear from a project management resource and a programmer every once in a while, as well.

How did you come to work with Grata Software?

I’d reached out to them and gotten to know them before ever working with them. I’d gone ahead and hired someone, but, when we realized it wasn’t going to work out, we went our separate ways. I decided to go back and engage Grata after that.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent between $30,000–$35,000 so far.  

What is the status of this engagement? 

We've been working together since April 2018. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The biggest thing is that I sleep better at night knowing that they're watching over all the systems. It's more of a reduction of stress factor more than any specific KPIs. They've been able to put some things in place that allow our systems to be more resilient, which is a huge improvement from where we were before.

How did Grata Software perform from a project management standpoint?

The owner will provide me with e-mails and updates on where we are as far as hours and project milestones – and that's outside of the roughly weekly calls that we're having. A lot of times, I'm in communication with them more frequently, depending on the workload and what's going on.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The responsiveness to requests of the group is a big help. The breadth of ability on the team—knowledge of different programming languages and architectures—is amazing. Lastly is the quality and detail that they undertake in all the work that they do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One suggestion would be to have a little bit more visibility into project milestones on request. I would love to log on and see a dashboard where I could keep track of budgets and hours.

Second would be having different engagement style options: all onshore resources or offshore resources plus their oversight.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the general manager for a marketing technology agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Grata Software?

We had outsourced development, but needed consulting services when we decided to transition to an in-house team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They assessed our technology and recommended process improvements. Rey, (Founder and CEO, Grata Software) focused on team development and our platform’s Symphony migration. In addition to the transition, he’s helped with software management and the optimization of partner integrations. Rey has also revamped a series of products and enhanced our processors. We now have a minimum viable product (MVP) and are in the process of selling the tool.

What is the team composition?

We work with Rey, a project manager, and an outsourced developer that Grata Software recommended.

How did you come to work with Grata Software?

A mutual connection—a VP of technology—referred them. We looked at several companies but chose Grata Software because their proposal, feedback, and budget made the most sense for our needs. Rey also demonstrated a throughout knowledge of the scope requirements.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $200,000–$300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June 2017 and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve sold 2,000 units after previously having none in our system; our team sold several accounts last month alone. Although the software has had bugs, the team completes fixes in a responsive manner.

How did Grata Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We have daily standups and weekly project meetings. Rey takes on most projects and ensures their completion. Overall, communication is good.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve built a personal relationship with them. The team works hard to produce quality results and only take on projects they believe in.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Since all projects are slightly different, what they do varies for each product.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Six Seconds, a 501 c3 nonprofit focused on helping people practice emotional intelligence.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Grata Software?

We have regular contractors and internal team members devoted to managing our web services and apps, but we didn’t have an actual IT team. We needed a partner to help improve the uptime and reliability of our products and services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

At a high level, Grata Software has helped put our various websites and apps into one place on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and also configures and manages them. They created a process for testing and deploying changes to sites while also maintaining and updating the servers on AWS. They provide architecture guidance for our web apps, letting our contracted developers know if they’ve missed something or need to fix a problem.

Our system uses Laravel, .NET, PHP, mySQL, and Microsoft SQL. Grata Software has written various scripts for AWS to help with things like load balancers, the deployment process, and backups.

What is the team composition?

We mainly work with the owner, but we have occasional interaction with other team members when he’s not available and we need something urgently.

How did you come to work with Grata Software?

The CTO of another business recommended Grata Software and said they could solve our problem, so we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We partnered in March 2016, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our website and important apps were having fairly frequent outages before we hired Grata Software. It used to be around 18–20 hours of downtime a year, but now we’ve only had a couple in the past year. They’ve hugely reduced the complexity of solving our problems, which makes my job much less stressful.

How did Grata Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Our method of communication changes depending on the project. We've used Jira in the past, which they helped us configure.

What did you find most impressive about them?

As a nonprofit, we don’t have extensive funds, but Grata Software has worked hard to provide services we probably couldn’t afford otherwise. They’re incredibly dedicated to our project, sending emails even as early as 1 a.m. their time. We get a lot more attention than what we’re paying for.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be nice to have more available team members to work with, but that’s mainly due to cost restrictions on our side.