Longi Engineering

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a CPA company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Longi Engineering?

We hired Longin Engineering to convert our in-house network to Microsoft 365. Our team wanted to solve issues that came up with as minimal headaches as possible. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Longi Engineering has helped us migrate from an in-house network to the cloud. They’ve also cleaned up our computer-related assets, such as laptops and other hardware. The team provides on- and off-site services, and they take care of our periodic maintenance needs and questions. 

What is the team composition?

We work with at least three teammates from Longi Engineering, including Adnan (CTO). 

How did you come to work with Longi Engineering?

I found Longi Engineering on Google and talked to some of their references. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the engagement in February 2023, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The cloud-based system works as well or even better than my old one. Our costs have been dramatically reduced by around 90% from when we had an in-house network. Because of that, I will always use Longi Engineering and recommend them if any clients with issues need their help. 

How did Longi Engineering perform from a project management standpoint?

Longi Engineering is always on time and delivers work below the budget. They do exactly what they say from start to completion. The team delivers on time and is always responsive to anything we need. They take care of our problems immediately — they’re absolutely fabulous. Working in the business for over 15 years, I’ve never dealt with a firm as good as Longi Engineering. They’re the best computer consulting firm I’ve worked with by far. 

For communication tools, we use phone calls, emails, and on-site visits. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Everything they do is excellent. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. They’re great and shouldn’t change anything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Talk to Adnan. Tell him what you want to do and describe your goals. He’ll listen carefully, and their team will take care of everything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Chief Information Officer of a nonprofit company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Public sector labor union providing representation and benefits to civil service workers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Longi Engineering to accomplish?

• Managed Services

SOLUTION

How did you find Longi Engineering?

Online Search

Why did you select Longi Engineering over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Longi Engineering were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Contracted the firm to serve as our new managed services provider. We use them for server monitoring, security protocol review and implementation, capital projects, python programming, and many more things.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

In many cases, we were deficient in certain aspects of the infrastructure, so their team provided realistic solutions to fix that. I appreciated that they understood the scope of our environment along with the work that we did. Instead of trying to sell us on all Enterprise grade items, they scaled the correct solution for our needs. 

Overall, they have always provided a stellar product whether that be the implementation of a new tool or programming modules for a different project.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Everything was always delivered to us on time and if there was ever an issue with timing, I was notified way in advance. I appreciated how frequently we communicated about both normal business and special projects. There was never a time that I felt unsure of where something was, they always kept me on point and feeling confident.

What was your primary form of communication with Longi Engineering?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

How responsive and inclusive they were. At times, I could come up with a really left-field idea and they never shot it down. They always gave me the time of day to talk about my concerns along with brainstorm new ideas that would help the overall organization.

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

Nothing.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a nonprofit that works in economic empowerment. We have three global locations in addition to our headquarters in New York, and I am the knowledge management specialist.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Longi Engineering?

Prior to my role at the company, SharePoint was implemented but there were quite a few things wrong with how we were using it. It became clear that we needed a partner to help us sort out those technical issues.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a lot of problems around backup permissions, tag grouping, and a general lack of governance. The setup wasn’t user friendly at all, and really didn’t reflect our organization or provide the flexibility to allow the organization to go where we wanted in the future.

Longi Engineering started by sorting out all of those issues, helping to reorganize our website and servers to make the information clear and accessible on both the front and backend. From there, they helped with in person trainings to make sure that everyone was up to speed on how to use the new systems properly.

What was the team composition?

Two of their team members interacted with us primarily, including a project manager and one of their engineers.

How did you come to work with Longi Engineering?

We had done a lot of searches for companies that were close to our New York office, and they were one of a few options that we considered. We interviewed them and decided that they would be the best fit for us.

How much have you invested with them?

In total, our work with them cost $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from May 2019–January 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The newly designed site is so much more user-friendly than what we had before working with them, and it’s being rolled out to different departments in our organization and has received a lot of positive feedback so far.

As the SharePoint administrator, I still feel comfortable reaching out to them for help with anything even though our engagement has officially ended. I’m confident that they are committed to helping me develop the skills I need to keep up the maintenance of everything they built for us.

How did Longi Engineering perform from a project management standpoint?

They did a great job managing the project overall. We had some setbacks in our work, but they were very flexible in helping us address those and working with us to make decisions that were necessary for our organization.

In terms of their responsiveness in our communication, everything was excellent. We could reach out to them with any question or request, and they would respond with a half an hour, at least to let us know that they would look into the problem if not with a solution already implemented.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One thing they definitely do very well is that they go above and beyond to understand your business needs. Their team had several meetings with our senior management team, not only to show them how to use SharePoint but to understand the issues they were having and explain solutions for those problems specifically. There was a general distrust of SharePoint when I came on board, so for them to dispel some of those issues really helped us to better utilize the system overall.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think it could help a little to develop more of a system for regular check-ins and storing all of the progress in one place because some of our project management was scattered a little bit between a few different platforms, but it didn’t cause us too many problems in the actual execution.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just be as specific as possible in documenting the progress that’s being made and having a standard system for communicating about it. What was really helpful for us was laying out the deliverables that we wanted from them as clearly as possible and setting clear boundaries in terms of that relationship. As long as everyone is on the same page, it will go very well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing director of a luxury travel startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Longi Engineering?

We were a few years old but still behind on basic systems for the team, such as using Gmail instead of Outlook. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Longi Engineering moved all our mail off of Gmail and onto the Outlook platform. The process wasn’t just creating Outlook accounts. It took a lot of work and thinking. They’ve continued to support us since with any issues we may have.

What is the team composition?

We work with Adnan (CTO) and Giorgi (System Administrator)

How did you come to work with Longi Engineering?

My intern last summer looked up companies for me. We narrowed it down to five different companies, looked at websites and prices, and had conversations with three. Adnan was very forthcoming. It didn’t seem like he’d price-gouge us. Before our final decision, he came by our office to discuss the timeline and everything. He came off as trustworthy, and it turned out to be true.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $5,000–$6,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in July 2019. The migration is done, but Adnan gave us a certain number of hours for us to reach out regarding the migration or any questions. We’ve continued to use them to solve any issues we have on a monthly basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Longi Engineering’s work helped us reshape the way we organize our teams with inboxes and correspondence. It reduced fragmentation in our client service. They’ve also saved us a lot of time per week. I’ve gained 5–10 hours of my time per week, which allows me to spend time on growth. 

How did Longi Engineering perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re usually on top of it. During the bigger project, they’d stay on top of it even when we weren’t meeting our deadlines. They chased us in a respectful manner to make sure the job was complete. We have constant touchpoints, and they’ll even check in to make sure everything is going okay. 

Even now for smaller items, if we reach out about an issue with a Microsoft system, we can go to them. If they don’t know how to fix it right away, they’ll respond within a couple of hours and walk the team through the issue or tap into our employee’s computer to do it themselves. They make sure things are done in an immediate manner. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The diligence, transparency, and patience they have with us have been great. They’ll patiently follow up even when we don’t get things done that we need to get done.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I wish they could’ve done differently.

Any advice for potential customers?

If you’re looking at a larger project, do the way we did it. We had a set price and timeline with them, and they honored the price even though the work went a little bit over what we intended. Have that conversation early about how the working relationship was going to go so that there are no surprises.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We're a Health Maintenance Organization [HMO] providing Medicaid, Family Health Plus and Medicare services to low income families. We're a non-profit organization based in New York, in the five boroughs and other counties.

What is your position?

I am a computer operations analyst.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Longi Engineering?

We were using the original version of SharePoint, and wanted to upgrade to SharePoint 2013. We brought them on board to help us in that transition. We didn’t necessarily have the resources or skills in-house to make the transition by ourselves. We wanted to ensure the transition was smooth and also that all of our data and content remained intact. That’s why we decided to find an external partner.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

They were able to scope all the necessary work and everything that we would need to license, and worked with us on migrating the data successfully between hosting environments.

After we'd worked with them on the initial project, we gave them numerous backend customization work for our sales organization.

Right now, they're working on maintenance, monitoring our system, and we've contracted them to develop a sales project consisting of a kiosk site. They've used SharePoint for everything they've done for us.

How did you come to work with Longi Engineering?

We searched the internet for SharePoint consultants. We interviewed a few different vendors, and chose Longi Engineering based on their experience with SharePoint, and cost effectiveness. We met with them face-to-face and saw demos of sites they'd built in the past. They were very hands-on and personal, which was another major reason for choosing them. They held our hands and made us feel important.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

In total, we have spent over $100,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

Presently, we have a monthly maintenance contract with them. It’s a service level agreement [SLA] and we basically pay for maintenance or support hours for tasks.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We went from using SharePoint only within a couple departments, to having it being implemented company-wide. It's one of the go-to applications in our high availability disaster recovery. With a lot of the functionality of SharePoint 2013, and what Longi have done in the backend, it has become a mission-critical system. We’re extremely reliant on it now, much more so than before.

How did Longi Engineering perform from a project management standpoint?

If an issue arises, for which we send them an email, we'll get a reply immediately. It's not like calling in to a support desk and getting a ticket; they're extremely hands-on, with a quick turnaround, help-wise. Our communication is done exclusively through email.

What distinguishes Longi Engineering from other providers?

As I mentioned, they have a personal touch. They're knowledgeable, and have been able to address any issue we've brought to them.

Is there anything Longi Engineering could have improved or done differently?

I've never felt they needed improvement. I've always gotten more than was expected.

For any prospective clients, I would recommend having a clear idea of their goal, and getting the right in-house people to make exact specifications. The people at Longi are good at pulling out the relevant information from their partners, and getting the project done.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Garrett County Community Action is a nonprofit serving the rural county in Maryland, with a range of social services, including Head Start and Early Head Start, and aging services like Meals On Wheels, senior centers, transportation, rental assistance, and first homebuyer programs – a full range of services for helping people to move toward economic security.

What is your position?

I am the vice president for strategic initiative.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Longi Engineering?

Our strategic plan included an interest in becoming paperless. We were looking at ways to store documents and manage the document flow within the organization. The right people needed to have access to the right documents easily, without having to drive across the county since we have multiple locations.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Longi Engineering set up our SharePoint solution broadly. They set up the site collections, libraries, and security.

They did much more specific work around a timesheet solution that needed to operate within SharePoint. They also worked on a solution around our clients' documents that would be brought in for eligibility purposes. These two were in-depth projects that lasted over time.

How did you come to work with Longi Engineering?

I interviewed several firms. We were using SharePoint and looking for related developers.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

This is a little hard to assess. It spans over time and multiple projects. Any project individually was less than $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2010, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

One of the goals was making sure that documents were made available to the right people  without them having to drive. We have a client document library and another one that is used based on general setup. This has been very successful. Both libraries have made it much easier for staff to get what they want, when they want it, without a lot of effort.

The timesheet project was more about getting people to use SharePoint generally. Because everyone has to do a timesheet, they all have to be in the system. In total, 100 percent of our staff gets into our system because they have no choice.

How did Longi Engineering perform from a project management standpoint?

When we were clear about objectives, they performed well. They gave us a good price because we are a nonprofit. Their larger projects were probably the priority, but they let us know this. Because price was a more important factor for us, I think it was the right call.

What distinguishes Longi Engineering from other providers?

I don't know many other SharePoint designers and developers. Longi Engineering listened to what we needed, challenged us, and made sure that they understood us. Whenever anything went wrong or there was any miscommunication on our side, they were very responsive. I appreciate this attention, especially since we were a small client.

Is there anything Longi Engineering could have improved or done differently?

It would go back to the fact that I consider the trade-off to be a right decision. In terms of projects, we were never at the top of the list. This isn't necessarily something they could improve on.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

QueBIT is dedicated to helping organizations improve their ability to make intelligent decisions that create value. An IBM Premier Partner, QueBIT has conducted hundreds of successful implementations of IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos BI and IBM SPSS – we are one of few partners that offer such a broad range of analytics solutions.

What is your position?

I am the director of marketing and training delivery.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Longi Engineering?

Being 100 percent virtual, one of our main challenges is with communications, and keeping our employees connected with one another. We do not have the SharePoint expertise in-house, and we wanted to use it for the company intranet that we were deploying.

We considered a few other solutions, but we are also a Microsoft partner. SharePoint was easier for us to incorporate as we already had access to it. We were also looking for many of the collaboration features that SharePoint offered.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Longi Engineering helped us set up the whole process from implementation to configuration. It was a similar process to building a website. We had numerous calls discussing the content that we wanted and what could be accessed by specific employees. They helped us work out the workflow needed to build the internal site as well as the administrator settings and permissions. We had access to the system, but didn't handle the specifics.

The second project we worked on focused on implementing custom features to satisfy our growing needs and provide the virtual tools that the company needed for streamlined collaboration.

The third project involved moving our dedicated server from SharePoint 2010 to 2013 and Office 365. Not only did we upgrade the entire site, its features and its look and feel, we also moved to a new system.

I worked with an admin and two of his developers for the first project. The second one had one developer and the admin, and the last one had a whole team. I only spoke directly with two people – the admin and his main developer. I left the staffing up to them. It's worked out fine.

How did you come to work with Longi Engineering?

I did research on the web and asked other people that had used SharePoint. We went through about five potential vendors and started working with Longi on small projects to see how the fit was.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've had three large projects with them during the course of three years. The first one took about three months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Everything is for internal use, so it's not easy to give a benchmark. Collaborating over a virtual environment has definitely increased productivity. Being virtual, we have several different systems. Being able to pull them together has definitely sped things along. We haven't encountered any major issues or defects yet, which is great.

How did Longi Engineering perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very much on time with all three projects.

One of our drawbacks is that we are a technology consulting firm as well. I would go to them a lot with what I thought I wanted, which may not have been the correct solution. They would always propose different options, both positive and negative, to make the appropriate decision.

We didn't use any specific project management tools. Before adopting SharePoint, we used Groove for communication. Our workflow worked well and conveying feedback was never a problem for us.

What distinguishes Longi Engineering from other providers?

The main thing that I've appreciated through the years is their accessibility. They're not general support providers, but rather developers. Still, no matter what issue I had, I would get a same-day response, and they understood the urgencies of our requests and were always available. Much of the work wasn't billable for them, and they still did the research and gave you options. This is why I think that our relationship has grown during the three years.

Is there anything Longi Engineering could have improved or done differently?

I have no complaints with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Administrative Team Leader of HPA LiveWell

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Therapy for eating disorders and other mental health concerns

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Longi Engineering to accomplish?

• SharePoint creation and management

SOLUTION

How did you find Longi Engineering?

Other

Why did you select Longi Engineering over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from Longi Engineering were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Created a SharePoint center for our office staff

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Unsure

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They had great management and always responded to questions and requests in a timely manner. We loved working with them!

What was your primary form of communication with Longi Engineering?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We've been impressed by their quick response time and availability to meet virtually to walk through the product

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

None that I can think of

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Human Resources Operations Coordinator of Columbia University

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Human resources in a hospital and university

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Longi Engineering to accomplish?

• To create an user interface that was productive and an improvement on what we had already
• To force accountability on our HR employees and track that they are doing their jobs
• To streamline a complicated process while simultaneously creating more transparency with onboarding

SOLUTION

How did you find Longi Engineering?

We were using them in a different capacity already and I asked if they could help our cause

Why did you select Longi Engineering over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from Longi Engineering were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We wanted to use more of the MS Office Sharepoint functionality then we were. Adnan, Wyatt and Jonathan, assisted in providing deliverables that showed us what additionality functionality was even capable. We then worked together to build a dashboard, with much of the background work being done by Adnan and team. Along the way, they would provide updates

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Longi Engineering provided weekly updates and weekly meetings showed the progress of the project before we had to stop it entirely. Our stopping our HR dashboard portion, had nothing to do with Longi Engineering performance.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Items were delivered on time. When we saw an update or something new (a color, font, etc) that we didn't like, Longi Engineering provided us different options or changed it to our suggestions in a very timely manner

What was your primary form of communication with Longi Engineering?

Virtual Meeting

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

From what I can tell it's a small private company that was very responsive and open to our suggestions, thoughts, etc. They provided a great service in a comfortable, almost informal environment

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

none