PLANEKS

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the NLP & Software engineer of Lightning ERP

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Semantic search services for specific, closed-domain datasets.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire PLANEKS to accomplish?

• Build a web service to host our semantic search service
• Teach us how to maintain this web service

SOLUTION

How did you find PLANEKS?

Online Search

Why did you select PLANEKS over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from PLANEKS were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

Build a web service from scratch. The service is supposed to host an arbitrary number of search engines (transformer model + in-memory ANN index), provide a UI for end user and UI for admin.

Key deliverables were: Django backend server, system for managing, persisting and quick reloading of search engine instances, React UI, API + drag-and-drop upload of files, exhaustive documentation, processing and storing (in PostgreSQL) customer-uploaded data.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

A fully functional site [ https://ai.lightning-erp.com ].

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

Everything was delivered very fast, any requests and questions were discussed usually within hours. There were no problems with fixing or redoing things if the vision changed. The person assigned to our project was available for us full time until we notified PLANEKS that from now on there will be only minor changes. Wait time for minor changes was in days maximum.

What was your primary form of communication with PLANEKS?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Pace of delivery and ease of communication - there has been no problem aligning our ideas.

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

Everything was fine.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the COO of Health Force GmbH.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We deploy Ai Agents to increase operational efficiency in healthcare institutions

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire PLANEKS to accomplish?

• Software development
• Create data pipelines
• Build automation framework

SOLUTION

How did you find PLANEKS?

Online Search

Why did you select PLANEKS over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from PLANEKS were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

The project aims to automate the end-to-end process of submitting insurance claims to insurances, leveraging HealthForce's smart automation capabilities. The scope of work includes:

• Analysis of the current manual claim submission process to identify opportunities for automation
• Development of a customized automation solution using machine learning and expert systems to simulate user interactions with the insurance stack
• Design and implementation of a seamless integration with hospitals' existing systems to extract relevant patient data and generate accurate claims
• Configuration of the automation workflow to handle the entire claim submission process, from data extraction to successful submission confirmation
• Testing and quality assurance to ensure accuracy, reliability, and compliance with regulatory requirements
• Deployment of the automation solution in a production-ready environment
• Knowledge transfer and training for hospitals' personnel to ensure smooth operations and maintenance

Key Deliverables:

• A fully automated claim submission process 
• A smart automation solution integrated with hospitals' systems, ensuring seamless data exchange and accuracy
• A comprehensive testing report, verifying the solution's performance, accuracy, and compliance with regulatory requirements
• A user guide and training program for hospitals' personnel, ensuring effective operation and maintenance of the automation solution

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

• Automation Rate: 90% of claims submitted were automated, reducing manual effort and minimizing errors.
• Claim Submission Cycle Time: Average claim submission time reduced by 75%, from 3 days to 18 hours, resulting in faster reimbursement and improved cash flow for Humanitas.
• Error Rate Reduction: Automation has reduced claim submission errors by 95%, resulting in fewer rejections and resubmissions.
• Patient Satisfaction: Improved claim submission speed and accuracy have led to increased patient satisfaction, with a 25% reduction in patient inquiries and complaints.

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

Planek's project management was exceptional, demonstrating a deep understanding of our needs and requirements. They delivered high-quality items on time, ensuring a seamless collaboration with our team. Their proactive approach and transparent communication ensured that our needs were consistently met, and our goals were achieved. Their flexibility and adaptability in response to our changing needs were impressive, making them a trusted partner in our project's success.

What was your primary form of communication with PLANEKS?

Virtual Meeting

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

I was particularly impressed by the company's exceptional communication style, which fostered transparency and collaboration. The team's commitment to delivering high-quality work was also evident in every aspect of their operations, from the attention to detail to the passion for innovation. This combination of effective communication and dedication to excellence truly sets this company apart.

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

While I was extremely impressed with the team, I think one area for improvement could be to continue to expand their talent pool to accommodate growing needs from the customer. This would allow us to reinforce our partnership by having always the opportunity to meet the increasing demands of the projects. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Co-founder, COO of Spontivly

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Spontivly empowers teams to create simple data dashboards without needing a data engineer

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire PLANEKS to accomplish?

• Helping us close gaps on front-end
• Get our product to a point where we can take it to market
• Set core infrastructure to support customers and clients

SOLUTION

How did you find PLANEKS?

Referral

Why did you select PLANEKS over others?

• High ratings
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from PLANEKS were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Ongoing project with API integrations, building a FE that can drag-and-drop various charts onto data dashboards Leveraging API's to connect data for clients

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Completion of sprints, epics, and design frameworks as outlined

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

They did deliver projects on timeand we are extremely happy with our services to-date. Not only has Anton been extremely kind in helping us navigate many time zones and work cultures, the engineers assigned have always been extremely professional and complete their work relatively as requested and on time.

What was your primary form of communication with PLANEKS?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

This is the most thorough and considerate engineering team we have ever outsourced by far. While there are still some gaps around communication and expectations for deliverables,this has been our best experience with offshore work yet.

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

None, if the communication and collaboration continues as in, they will be completely fine

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?
Definitely leverage the PLANEKS team :)

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a family medicine physician working for a private practice in San Diego, California and participate in corporate wellness.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire PLANEKS, and what were your goals?

We needed custom software created for our corporate wellness program.

SOLUTION

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

I was introduced to PLANEKS through a friend who had worked with them before and decided to move forward with them given their attention to detail, incredible response times, and genuine good nature.

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

We had several meetings early on in order to discuss the goals of our project which went very smoothly - PLANEKS was able to conceptualize what we needed in a very short period of time. They were able to produce our software in a very short period of time for a very reasonable price and were very accommodating to any modifications that needed to be made.

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

3 people from the vendor's team worked with me. The CEO, the CTO, and a developer. All were great to work with.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to launch the project earlier than expected. They were able to create exactly what we envisioned. Our team is extremely satisfied with the final product.

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

The project management was fantastic. They communicated quickly, efficiently, kindly and were a pleasure to work with. I would recommend them to all.

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

I was most impressed by their ability to quickly create exactly what we envisioned. We were able to get on the same page immediately.

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

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the QA lead at a SaaS startup, where we provide information and insights to the middle market for various investors looking for private companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire PLANEKS?

We are constantly developing our platform, and need to make sure that our clients don't see any downtime/regression issues. We started to work with Planeks to support our testing efforts. Our goal was to have a bug-free app with quick feedback cycle for seamless and frequent production deploys.

SOLUTION

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

We were looking for quite some time for a suitable vendor, but at the end we were recommended to use Planeks by colleagues/friends at other companies already using them. After interviewing them, we chose them based on their technical abilities and cost estimate.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We needed immediate manual QA coverage, and wanted to continue building our in house NodeJs/Selenium/CucumberJs test framework. Finding test automation engineers who have the competence to work in nodejs and write acceptable code proved very challenging, but Planeks had some great candidates, and we were able to put together a team who can support our automation needs.

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

We are working directly with 2 manual and 2 automation testers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Automated tests save us a ton of manual effort. We're developing 2 set of tests, one acceptance for quick feedback (~100 tests in 5 minutes after each deploy) and one overnight regression (all tests running). Our goal is to have enough coverage for a proper CI/CD workflow, and with the team I'm confident we will get there soon. In the meantime manual QAs help out and make sure we're delivering a bug free product.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The QAs from Planeks are integrated to our staff engineering teams, they are part of our stand ups, providing daily feedback on the progress of each new feature the devs are working on. We also have separate meeting with QA where we talk about what are the main priorities, what they need to focus their attention on for the given week. Apart from the meetings we are using Slack, Jira and GitHub for communication.

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

They offered high-level QA testing at an affordable price. Finding competent automation engineers who produce a high quality code was very challenging, most other candidates just automatically started to add timeouts when they faced an issue. Candidates who Planeks offered had a much more mature approach, started with understanding the challenge and then provide a proper solution.

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

Most of their candidates were only experienced with Cypress when it came to Js FE testing, and that's the technology that we wanted to leave behind. Getting used to native Js asynchronous behavior wasn't a huge problem, as they have competent engineers, but added a little bit of extra time in the beginning for the ramp up period.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company is one of the world's largest third party ship managers. We provide Technical, Crewing, Opex, Emissions and Performance Management. My position is a Digital Project Specialist in the Data and Performance Management Team, focusing on creation and execution of digital and performance related projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire PLANEKS, and what were your goals?

We were planning a major web application to provide performance services to our customers (Essentially helping customers with how their ships are performing at sea). We do not have any developers in house, but we do have tech-related staff that has specific set of skills and we were looking for developers who can cater to this.

SOLUTION

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

We searched through multiple platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr for potential developers. We wanted to work someone with a good track record, and have the specific set of skills we were looking for.

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

We worked in an Agile environment. So we had iterations of development of the projects. The project kicked off with a meeting and rough plan of the whole process of the project. We had a few prototypes up and we discuss on how it will be executed. The project then turned into an iterative format where we had weekly/bi-weekly updates on the progress and changes required. The project was developed in Python with Django Framework.

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

We were working directly with one of the managing partner, as well as the Chief Technology Officer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project is currently still being worked on and improved. But we now have more and more customers and end users using the web application. and the number is continuing to grow as we speak.

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

We communicated mostly through Slack and this was a good enough form of communication for updates. The team were very detailed with the work they do and the updates they give and it is always on time. On top of that, we will have team's video meetings for higher level discussions, and if there are any major changes required. They do their best to cater to whatever technology that we are more familiar with.

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

Planeks is very 'Agile' in the sense where they are willing to adapt to the customer's needs even if it is something outside their comfort zone. Alot of partners we work with will try to do things their preferred way, especially if the customers are not familiar with the work they do, but PLANEKS will take the extra step to ensure that customers are comfortable and in the know of the work and once the work is completed, it can be handovered to customers with ease and no confusion.

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

- Nil - They definitely deserve more customers, but at the same time I want to be selfish and want them to spend more hours on us and future potential projects that we have.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO and founder of a digital health company that offers our doctor clients software to deliver clear and actionable health data to patients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire PLANEKS, and what were your goals?

Initial spec was to build the backend application for a POC prototype, with the following spec:

1. Create basic DRF / Django application
2. Create authentication + SSO
3. Establish test driven development pattern for BE
4. Create and test SendGrid and Twilio integration
5. Migrate content database to Airtable and reintegrate with private connection and route through backend 
6. Dockerize and deploy to Heroku

However, the project has since evolved around the needs of the business, and Planeks' team has served as our backend engineering pod responsible for a variety of workstreams including:

• our data enablement function (using RPA, OCR)
• our communication suite (Twilio, SendGrid, custom engagement)
• the underlying programmatic algorithm we use as our core product offering

SOLUTION

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

Found them through upwork and vetted them against many others - they were by far the best.

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

Stack Used:

• Python
• React
• Django
• Heroku
• AWS
• Twilio
• Sendgrid
• Open AI (for some of our neural net stuff)

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

We're a small team so I'm acting as Head of Product - in that capacity, I interact nearly daily with our backend devs, and on a regular weekly basis with Tony and Oleh, our sponsors who support some of the higher level tech strategy convos.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Beta launched in <100 days
• 1000's of patients served in just first few months
• 90%+ product access rate
• hyper-fast product development process

Without them, there's no way we'd be anywhere near where we are today (seed, prepping for a series A in next 6 months)

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

They're malleable to whatever you want to use - we use Shortcut and Slack mostly. In the early days they had kanban boards they were managing themselves to keep the team organized (I never asked them to do this, they just did).

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

The team comes to the table every week prepared with specific ideas on how to overcome the challenges at hand. They also presents new ideas on how we could be doing things better. Translated to startup lingo, they're hungry to solve problems with you, and come to the table prepared. As an example, I recently asked them to make a change to our authentication flow that would remove collecting certain parameters.

This was a change requested for user flow simplicity, but we did not fully appreciate the downstream impacts of this change in having to refactor the backend db. Team came to the meeting on Monday prepared with 3 options we could pursue that still solved our business goal, but simultaneously appreciated the complexity for the system we'd already built.

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

We share feedback open and honestly and they quickly incorporate, so not really. I think we could stand to document more regularly, our cadence at the moment is roughly quarterly. I'm sure if I told the guys this was the priority, they'd do it more often, but we have bigger fish to fry.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're a diversified media company, where I work as the general manager on a number of editorial and software projects

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire PLANEKS, and what were your goals?

We acquired a legacy infrastructure with little documentation, and were having trouble finding a specialized engineer that knew the certain framework intimately. The system was already in production, so it was important to find a vendor that could methodically document all the moving parts and carefully make changes without disrupting the existing users

SOLUTION

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

We found PLANEKS to be specialized in the specific database and framework, and they were quick to articulate some of the unknowns. They are good communicators and were able to begin working almost immediately. Over the months of continued success it's like we've augmented our team. The time difference between our staff has not been an impediment whatsoever.

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

Without going into too much detail, as we are a publicly traded company, the technologies used were popular publishing database and bespoke CMSs using a popular framework and dependencies. These systems were used as custom endpoints to feed websites and native mobile apps. Knowledge of JS and React were helpful.

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

We primarily worked with a 3-person team, where one worked as accounts and quality assurance advisor, the developer, and the senior technology advisory person.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The overall speed and stability of the project continues to improve, and the product is showing clear signs of improvement. Our product is a lot more responsive overall.

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

We primarily communicate via Slack, Google Meet, and tasks were organized through Trello and Jira.

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

The most impressive thing about the company is their ability to get the job done exactly correct when clear instructions are given. We see rock-solid deliverables from Planeks every time.

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

I've already asked them to staff up as we can send them more work!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Operations executive at a financial services company providing working capital solutions to small and medium sized businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire PLANEKS, and what were your goals?

We identified the need to improve our investor application forms by adding them to our website and making them clearer, simpler and more logical.

SOLUTION

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

One of our team members had used Planeks in the past and recommended them highly. The deciding factors for choosing them were their track record, and straightforwardness.

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

There were a couple of introductory meetings where we broadly explained what we wanted. During these exchanges, Planeks made plenty of helpful suggestions and asked insightful questions that proved useful - leading to a great outcome.

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

Two. I would describe them as a developer and a project manager. Both were very approachable and provided valuable input and guidance throughout.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It's too early to measure any outcomes yet, but we're very confident this project will prove worthwhile.

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

We received regular, detailed feedback mostly by email, and whatsapp. Zoom calls were easy to schedule at short notice, which we greatly appreciated. All communication tools were chosen by us.

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

The most impressive thing about them is their honesty and integrity. They did what they said they would do.

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

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Founder and CEO

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire PLANEKS, and what were your goals?

Planeks was instrumental in taking my vision from concept to a fully working web-based software system. Goal was to develop MVP but Planeks worked quickly and efficiently so much so that we ended up building more of a Beta 1.0 rather than MVP.

SOLUTION

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

I searched through UpWork and liked what I saw in the profile. Anton from Planeks response to my job posting was by far the most detailed and in-depth.

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

Planeks did all the back and front end development on my web-based restaurant management system.

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

There was my main contact Anton, Oleh (Senior Back End Dev), Andrii (Front end Development) and accountant manager Irina.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were ahead of schedule and built far more advanced than expected!

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

Communication was prompt and clear. They used Trello which made things super clear and easy to communicate. Loved the way I could see the work being completed and what was on task for the day. Prompt e-mail responses as well.

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

Professionalism, efficiency, clear communication and willingness to think outside the box to complete the tasks within fewer hours and at a higher standard than expected!! I will be working with Planeks for any future software development.

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

No