Transparity

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief information officer of United Living Group, a construction company in the UK.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ballard Chalmers Ltd?

We hired Ballard Chalmers to serve as our SharePoint support partner. Later on, they also began helping us migrate data from three legacy document management systems into a modern system that has a lower risk of failure.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ballard Chalmers has been assisting us through two data migration projects. Serving as our SharePoint support partner, the team helps us migrate files from a third-party solution into Microsoft SharePoint. They’ve also been helping us transfer data from legacy document management systems into Oracle Aconex. To increase efficiency, they've written an application that moves source data into the target system. Since Ballard Chalmers provides application programming and scripting, internal resources have been performing the migration themselves. We've concluded the first of three migrations, with the last one expected to end in 2020.

What is the team composition?

We partner with seven team members, with three working on SharePoint and four looking at the migration to Oracle Aconex.

How did you come to work with Ballard Chalmers Ltd?

Our prior SharePoint support partner lost its personal touch after it was acquired by a global organization. So, we were looking for a personable, local team with expertise in the field. After receiving a personal recommendation for Ballard Chalmers from a colleague, I met with the team and decided they were the best fit.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2018, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our business will experience net savings after eliminating all three legacy document management solutions. Also, transferring data from one of the large, on-premise systems will decrease the risk of the system failing. Document storage is critical to our industry, and the business will be safer once these documents are transferred. Our IT team couldn’t have accomplished these goals without the support of Ballard Chalmers—they’ve had a tremendous impact.

How did Ballard Chalmers Ltd perform from a project management standpoint?

The team inspires a vast amount of confidence because they are diligent about following instructions. I can always trust them to deliver high-quality work within deadlines. Working with them has been a breath of fresh air.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Collaboration with the team has been both personable and professional. They're knowledgeable, and they easily adapt to external constraints. The pricing has been reasonable, too. I only wish our other suppliers were half as good as Ballard Chalmers. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’ve exceeded our expectations at each step.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Future clients should trust Ballard Chalmers to perform well. It isn’t necessary to overspecify the project, they will totally understand the solutions you’re trying to achieve.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Managing Director at AppCan Ltd. We are a software company with an app-building solution that allows customers to create their own self-sufficient data-collecting and document distribution apps within our system. Our clients can distribute documents to their workforce, and collect data electronically. Through the backend portal, they can build their apps, view captured data and manage their users.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ballard Chalmers Ltd?

We needed a new software developer that was more local to us, and could take our product to the next level.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ballard Chalmers Ltd provides a wide range of services for our two products, one is a cloud-based Microsoft Azure platform and the other is iOS-based. In their various development projects, they work with technologies like ASP.NET, C#, and SQL. Their services stretch across all of our existing platforms and any planned future development.

What is the team composition?

We mainly work with a project manager, managing director, and the chief technology officer, but we’re also free to speak with several developers. Currently, we have four development resources working with our company.

How did you come to work with Ballard Chalmers Ltd?

We conducted a Google search for development houses and Ballard Chalmers Ltd was listed. After reviewing their company, we found that they had the appropriate skills. We spoke with several other businesses, but chose Ballard Chalmers Ltd because of their location and the quality of their proposal. Their submission was significantly better than any other agency and we were confident in their ability to deliver. It clearly detailed their approach to the project and the estimated timeline.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent £40,000 (about $51,500 USD) on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2018 and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Before partnering with Ballard Chalmers Ltd, we were struggling to roll out enough updates. Now, we’re releasing changes and improvements every other week. Despite the increased work speed, the new product versions require minimal user acceptance testing (UAT). We’ve pushed out more updates in the last six months than we have in the last three years.

How did Ballard Chalmers Ltd perform from a project management standpoint?

Working with their team is like a breath of fresh air. Ballard Chalmers Ltd is fully engaged and available at all times, we never have to chase them down. Also, they’re extremely professional.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed with their level of technical ability. Their staff is top-notch and they have a thorough understanding of a wide range of technologies. They leveraged their skills to enhance the performance of our products. I’ve been in the IT industry for 30 years and Ballard Chalmers Ltd is the best agency I’ve ever worked with.

Any advice for potential customers?

Trust them from the start because they have the ability to deliver on whatever you ask.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a lead consultant at a charity in the UK. I’m providing them with consulting services around their technology roadmap and additional input around other projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ballard Chalmers Ltd?

The charity is implementing a new HR and payroll system. Part of the new system is functionality to capture objectives and staff performance reviews. The old system was very clunky but the new system wasn't going to be ready in time. We needed a simple, stop-gap solution to capture objectives and reviews that could then later transfer to the new system. As a charity, cost was imperative and we needed a solution fairly quickly.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with an initial conversation. Using Microsoft PowerApps, Ballard Chalmers created a web form that allows people to click on a link that automatically pulls relevant data. The form enables the user to manually enter other payroll details and objectives. The form’s backend captures the data in spreadsheets, which we’ll eventually use to add to the new HR payroll solution. The developer did the initial work offsite and then spent a day onsite to finish the project. We also did an additional week of testing.

What is the team composition?

I had a direct relationship with a developer.

How did you come to work with Ballard Chalmers Ltd?

They were a recommendation from another partner. I shared with them the high-level project requirements and they very quickly responded with their recommendation. It was a really good recommendation, and something I had overlooked myself.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around £1600 pounds ($2,250 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The project took place in December 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their recommendation for choosing PowerApps gave the solution a nice frontend, which makes it very easy to use.

How did Ballard Chalmers Ltd perform from a project management standpoint?

The project was so short that little was needed in terms of project management. They were very responsive and got back to us quickly if we had any questions. While some firms would spread two days of work out to four or five, Ballard Chalmers understood that was unnecessary and expensive. They were pragmatic and focused on getting the job done.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed with their flexible approach. PowerApps are customizable, which makes them very easy to configure and change. They delivered a high-quality solution. It's difficult to deliver on cost and quality when it's only two days of development, but they did.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything that they can improve. I did have a contingency but it was never needed. They understood the task really well and knew what they were coming onsite to do.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I found them easy to work with, particularly with such a short time frame. They have the ability to turn things around really fast.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the junior program manager for an energy supplier. We supply our customers with electric and gas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ballard Chalmers?

We initially looked to develop our booking platform. We wanted to improve our booking system for smart meter maintenance and emergency appointments for our customers’ homes.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When I first joined, they had already implemented our booking platform. Since then, we’ve added functionality for meter installers, and are considering the UI [user interface] for our agents. We hope to link our London branch development team into the customer-facing platform.

The web application links to our digital server and updates our database. It integrates with our billing platform, CRM [customer relationship management] software, our API [application programming interface], and our capacity platform. We have about 80 engineers within the company, and the capacity platform coordinates their scheduling and availability for appointments. New features include improvements to emergency and maintenance booking, with ways to improve the process for our agents.

What is the team composition? 

We usually have a minimum of two engineers on their side who are familiar with our system, though the number fluctuates. Erik [Senior Software Engineer, Ballard Chalmers] is currently our principal engineer, and Stephen [Senior Software Engineer, Ballard Chalmers] our second. Szilvia [Services Delivery Manager, Ballard Chalmers] acts as our project manager, and Gary [Delivery Manager, Ballard Chalmers] joins us for large-scale projects. The company director also joins us for quarterly meetings.

How did you come to work with Ballard Chalmers?

One of our directors worked with them in a previous capacity and recommended them to our other directors.

How much have you invested with them?

The initial scope for the current project was £28,500 ($38,500 US). We’re currently under budget, but we anticipate spending more on future improvements.

What is the status of this engagement?

We initially began working with them around 2010, before my employment with the company began in 2015. The most recent project began in September or October 2017, and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The best result of their work recently is the portal itself. Until the recent MVP [minimum viable product] went out, we were unable to make emergency bookings through the system. They’ve really improved the functionality and our ability to work with other installers.

How did Ballard Chalmers perform from a project management standpoint?

They are always available to have a conversation, and are quick to respond to any questions we have. The openness within the channels is great, and they let us know when a team member will be away so we can manage our timeline expectations. They deploy changes quickly, and show good flexibility to address any issues we have.

They are integrated into our work communications. We have weekly phone meetings with the project manager and the developers, and it’s easy to email or message team members directly. They have their own support portal, but we can run through the budget, admin-related tasks, design specifications, guidance, or other criteria. Otherwise, they manage their own internal processes.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve always had a good experience with them. They provide good support, and recently provided us with the ability to deploy developments weekly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Previously, we had trouble balancing our testing and development teams. For this most recent project, they implemented a more continuous approach, which reduces idle time. We can now be more agile as we move through development.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT services manager for a non-profit organization that helps children and young people with severe disabilities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ballard Chalmers?

I needed assistance on a small SharePoint project for the organization’s intranet.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

While initially hired to work on the intranet, the scope expanded to a bigger project. They developed a cloud-based SharePoint portal for the organization’s governors and trustees, which will allow secure sharing of documents online.  

The portal simplifies document management and workflow approvals. The team created a feature that allows a user to click a button when a document needs to be approved. The system sends a notice to the governors’ clerk, who can make changes to the document or accept all the edits.

A separate workflow automatically transfers the document to the approved document library that is visible to end users.

How did you come to work with Ballard Chalmers?

I was searching for a local company. I also spoke to an organization that used them in the past. I met with them, and thought that they were a good fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about £5,500 [$7,300].

What is the status of this engagement?

Work began in July of 2016, and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

While still in the testing stage, the portal demonstrates real time-saving benefits.

The new system is so much better than what we were doing in the past. We were sending a large amount of documents through the mail, and now the governors and trustees can access them remotely and securely online.

Previously the clerk had to copy and paste each document to a shared drive, and also send them via email. The new workflow approval simplified the process from 10 steps to two.

How did Ballard Chalmers perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great, often going above and beyond the required elements to provide excellent service. They communicated every step of the process, providing up-to-date information so that I didn’t have to chase them down.

One time I was unable to get hold of the the developer, who was on vacation. We chose to wait for him to get back rather than assign a new person to the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve done a great job explaining everything to me, in a technical way and not as a sales pitch. The team demonstrated how to most effectively use SharePoint for the organization, including what tools can be changed and manipulated to best suit the portal.

I was also impressed with their can-do attitude, and how they approached the challenge of making the project work within a non-profit budget.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Ipes is a private equity finance administrator. We deal with fund managers who buy other companies and then invest in them over a 5-10-year period and sell them for a profit. Fund managers outsource all administration compliance duties to us. I’m the head of IT.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ballard Chalmers?

They have mainly done development services for us.

How did you come to work with Ballard Chalmers?

I don’t know how that process was because I was not part of the company when they were first hired.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We outsource a number of permanent roles to Ballard Chalmers. They’ve written .NET based applications for us. Our main application that we run our entire business on, Capital Tracker, was written by them. They also helped us write a number of applications later on in Angular and others in Microsoft technologies. They also provide us with database administration services.

Capital Tracker is where we do all of our administration services for our clients. It’s an intranet zone web application so it’s not fully exposed externally. It allows us to make payments over Swift, do the KYC [Know Your Customer compliance measures] and store the results for our clients and their investors. It also allows us to do all our trust and company secretarial work, and all of our client accounting and invoicing. It’s a 3-tiered application. We have our views and those speak to the business logic layer which then speaks to the database in the background.

The second major application that they helped with was not designed by them, but they’ve done a lot of the application programming with us. It’s an online system called The ID Register which is an industry compliance portal. It’s aimed at the fund management private equity market. The idea is that people log on and get all of their compliance done centrally throughout the fund administration world. The fund administration private equity world is quite small so there’s only 200,000 odd investors that are actually involved in it. If they can all have their KYC done centrally it massively reduces the KYC cost for the entire industry. This is written on Angular and hosted on Microsoft Azure. This is a service that we charge for.

What is the team dynamic?

They provide mainly development resources, database administration, and database design skills. We generally hire .NET and Angular developers from them. The number of resources vary but through most of this year, it’s been 3-3 ½.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost varies each year. This year we will spend near £200,000 [$264,000]. We’ve spent more in past years when there’s been major projects we were working on, but that amount is a pretty typical year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2010.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have 20,000 active profiles on the external ID Register website. It’s only been launched for a year.

The internal applications they've developed over the last five years has about 300 users from our company as well as about 800 external users.

How did Ballard Chalmers perform from a project management standpoint?

If we have an idea for a project, we go to their office and have a brainstorming session. The project is run using Agile. We have morning standups and scrum meetings. We run those meetings and their staff is included in our standups. They have their own internal project manager who ensures that they’re delivering the resources and deliverables that we assigned to them on time. He liaises with me or whomever the internal project manager happens to be at Ipes. I’ve never had any complaints about their performance. They’re always very versatile when we have an issue and are quick to address it.

Our company uses PRINCE2 for our overall project framework, but then within development, we use Agile.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They help you bring out the technical elements of your system. We have our own development team that comes up with the initial technical design. But it’s become part of our standard process to use Ballard Chalmers as a sounding board for technical designs whether or not we’re asking them to do the work. They still come back and help us make sure we’re making the right technical choices. We have done this for a number of years. Geoff Ballard and a couple of other people around him are especially knowledgeable in the Microsoft stack.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I feel we could get more reporting from them to see what developers are spending their time on. We have an arrangement where we’re managing them slightly anyway, so we do understand what they’re doing, but it wouldn’t be bad to get metrics out of them in that area.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

We are a charity that provides essential services: education and health care for learners with epilepsy and other neurological conditions. We also have a companion organization for people who have epilepsy and their families to provide support.

We work with other health care organizations and children's hospitals in relation to children who have epilepsy, too. We have about a thousand members on staff including volunteers, consultants, and researchers. We care for about 200 students on our campus in our day to day care.

I'm the head of IT. I'm responsible for all aspects health information technology and information services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ballard Chalmers?

We have a bespoke application that helps us manage incidents. Incidents are any type of event where a student might have been put at risk. So that could be medication errors, behavioral issues, or just the health and safety, like falling over and possibly sustaining an injury. It's used for our on site compliance and monitoring of our activities.

We initially wrote that application using PHP and MySQL in 2006. We've redeveloped it into a SharePoint-based application with a SQL Server backend in 2012. The company that did the SharePoint development for that couldn't serve us anymore so I had to look elsewhere. I found Ballard Chalmers to develop a "version 2" essentially, along with support, enhancements and further development.

How did you come to work with Ballard Chalmers?

I looked at any company in the local area - the South East of England - with SharePoint credentials - ones that could provide SharePoint integrations and SQL development. They were a top company and local.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The application has quite a lot of workflows attached to it. It manages five different types of categories of incidents regarding compliance with health and safety behavior safeguarding. They made significant changes to the user interface on the front end but also structural changes to the database. At that point, we had about 20,000 incident records in the database. A lot of the changes had to be done retrospectively, so it was quite a big chunk of work. They had to get their heads around our operations and how the existing development functioned because it's a completely bespoke application before beginning their own work.

The biggest improvements and changes have been related to the databases and proper reporting. We changed over to SQL Server Reporting and that's been working really well. They've helped us build standards reporting and helped us present that data with SharePoint. They also help build statistical analyses.

What is the team dynamic? 

My information systems manager and database manager are the two that always interact with them directly. From their side, we've always had Geoff [Ballard, CTO] and a few other people on their side depending on what the project was. We've worked with two or three different frontend or backend developers and project managers. It's been really good. They always update their project management system so we always know where we stand when we log in, but they also communicate well.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around July 2014 and the work is ongoing. The initial project ran over about a three month period. There's been several smaller projects and a couple of bigger ones as well, plus support and maintenance throughout.

How much have you invested with them?

We probably spend about 25,000 GBP [$32,750 USD] per year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All three of our major projects have been delivered on time. Any delays came from our side.

We have 1,000 users because it's used by the whole organization. It's used quite heavily on a daily basis, too. The application has tracked 50,000-60,000 incidents by now.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint? 

They use their own online application for project management that works really well. It creates a client site and tasks within each project. Tasks are assigned and then we have oversight as to when those items are updated and we're able to comment on them and upload samples, etc. They communicate very regularly. They're good about keeping us up to date and moving things forward.

Deliverables have always been on time. There have never been delays that were not explained or previously discussed or mutually agreed to - usually delays came from our side more so than from them.

What did you find most impressive about them? 

The improvements to the database structure and database performance have been very good. Before we engaged Ballard Chalmers, the database would crash, especially when searches were done. They made some changes in SQL and to the GUI [graphical user interface] and to how the data is extracted and dealt with. There's been a significant improvement.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They don't currently have an in-house designer so that's always been a bit tricky when we ask them to do GUI work. We had to get designs made externally and then submit that to them to be implemented, so that's been a little bit of a frustration.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the Head of IT at a social care organisation. We support adults with learning disabilities and autism, as well as people with certain mental health conditions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Transparity?

We wanted to migrate our on-premises infrastructure to Azure and start utilizing Intune and Autopilot.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Transparity helped us migrate our on-premises infrastructure to the cloud. Our infrastructure was out of support and no longer secure, so we wanted to remove a lot of the workload from our office infrastructure and move that to the cloud. We also wanted to benefit from the security that cloud infrastructure gave us by enhancing the management of our devices.

Transparity built new domain controllers in Azure and migrated the key roles across to those. They also built the Autopilot profiles and ensured that our Intune environment was set up to start onboarding devices via GPOs.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two teammates from Transparity.

How did you come to work with Transparity?

I had worked with them at a previous organization. I liked that Microsoft support was included free of charge and that they specialized in Microsoft only. As a Microsoft-first organization, it felt like a great fit.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August 2022–August 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We got the key workloads migrated and stuck to the schedule. The project was delivered on time.

How did Transparity perform from a project management standpoint?

Transparity's project management was good. Communication was maintained, and when we hit a couple of smaller issues, they were addressed very quickly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Transparity was very knowledgeable on the Microsoft side of things.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was something missed in the scoping that came up during the project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Technology Delivery Manager of Colchester City Council

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

UK Local Government 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Microsoft Security Posture Improvements

SOLUTION

How did you find Transparity?

Referral

Why did you select Transparity over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Transparity were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

• Security Assessment & Discovery
• Azure Server Patching
• Sentinel Improvements
• Email Security posture improvements
• Azure App proxy deployment
• Microsoft PIM implementation 
• Azure Backup improvements
• Microsoft Defender for Cloud
• Microsoft Defender for Identity

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Each projects stream were delivered according to pre-defined success critera for each case.

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

Each project stream had regular initial PM scoping calls, project implementation meetings and support, all were delivered on time and as expected.

What was your primary form of communication with Transparity?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We have always been impressed with the technical knowledge of the multiple consultants with whom I have worked across disparate project streams. Transparity's consultants have made the interactions enjoyable and easy to get along with, and each project stream has been a learning experience, which was always key. 

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

Amazing not.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of IT Security of Motability

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Provide accessible transport solutions to disable people.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Security Assessment
• Modern workplace

SOLUTION

How did you find Transparity?

• Referral
• Other

Why did you select Transparity over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Transparity were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Azure and Microsoft 365 security assessment. Modern workplace solutions. Intune

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project led to overall improvement in security posture, enhanced complaince, and better cloud governance. Key outcome includes idenitying and mintigating security risks, stregthening access controls, and improving visibity into vulnerabilities. The consulting engagement also provide actional recommendations and long term security and operationsla resilience. 

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

The company delivered the initial engagement and deliverables professionally and on time. The insights and recommendations were valuable. We are now looking forward to hear back on next steps for few weeks.

What was your primary form of communication with Transparity?

Virtual Meeting

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

Professionalism and delivery on time. 

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

No