Tusk Software

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Reahard & Associates Inc is a Finance & Insurance training company in the automotive industry. We provide classroom, in person and online training along with a software program designed to record transactions and allow for online reviewing. I am the CFO for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our F&Insight program had been created and developed by another company outside of the U.S. in 2019-2020. They were no longer providing the troubleshooting, support and upgrades needed to maintain the software. We engaged Tusk Software for this.

SOLUTION

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

We actually found the vendor through a third-party contracting company. However, we selected Tusk specifically due to their location and after 2-3 meetings with them we felt our work ethics aligned and their willingness to work on another vendors developed software was a key factor.

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

Tusk has worked on our software to troubleshoot ongoing issues as well as assisting IT in the automotive dealerships in finding resolutions to PC specific issues as well as system set up issues. While not the original developers, Tusk has been willing to work with and dive into the following technology, Ruby on Rails and React components. Heroku for database. The application was made on .Net Framework 4.7, C# as syntax language. Tusk has worked with AWS S3, Amazon Lambda functions, Amazon SQS as part of this project.

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

3 members from the team work directly with us.

• The owner
• a lead developer
• support member

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have been able to continue offering this software when we were considering having to terminate this service to our clients. This has been a tremendous benefit for our clients and our ability to generate revenue from this service. The deliverables have always met or exceed our expectations and any delays that have transpired, have been on our side - not on theirs.

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

Tusk is communicative, tracks and completes each sprint on schedule and has always been willing to dive into whatever challenge we have thrown their way. This includes changes in the SOW, changes in deadlines, last minute troubleshooting when a dealership's IT needs assistance.

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

Their entire team is available and willing to assist as needed. They have taken on learning new technology to work with us and that has been a huge plus!

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

At this point, there is nothing I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of a bookkeeping practice

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I've had several clients need better inventory tracking options that are affordable.

SOLUTION

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

Joel was extremely thorough in the discovery process and made sure his team and I understood what the software was expected to do before they started building it. This helped keep costs down from not having to rebuild the software.

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

We started with the discovery process to identify exactly what I wanted the software to do. They took my pencil drawings of the UI and turned them into wire frames so we could walk through several scenarios that could happen within the software. The software was built and works great!

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

I don't remember what everyone did. I'm an accountant, not a software developer. Whenever I had a question either Joel answered it directly or he reminded me the person to talk to in order to work out any kinks in that pert of the software.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They delivered everything according to schedule.

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

Communication was done through skype and weekly meetings.

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

They are very patient in taking the time to understand the accounting process that I needed to make the software work. Joel took the time to make sure I understood answers to questions I asked. 

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

No

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of BioPet Laboratories, an animal genetics company. One of our primary products and services is a program called PooPrints, where we work with municipalities and communities to test the un-scooped dog waste in their area and tell them which dog owner didn’t pick up after their pet. We’re an international company, registering about 200,000 dogs a year and serving seven different countries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tusk Software?

They helped us develop our patented database, which we use to implement our PooPrints program and all of our lines of business. As our business grows, they also help us to scale it.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tusk Software designed and developed our web-based application from scratch. We initially gave them the concept of what we wanted, including functionality, user criteria, and rules. We used Microsoft Azure, Oracle databases, SQL servers, and some .NET programming.

Our users can use the platform to administer our program. Tusk Software has even helped us develop a mobile application for iOS and Android. They’ve also assisted with design to skin certain pages. However, most of their work has been on software development, database management, and web design.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 5–6 people from their team, including a customer designer, a couple of programmers, a database administrator, and the owner. Stephen (Scrum Master) is our project manager.

How did you come to work with Tusk Software?

We initially found them through a Google search. Then, we received a referral from a local company that had used them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $300,000–$400,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve partnered with Tusk Software since April 2015. We’ve continued to evolve the application, so we’re still engaged with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve got a couple of different measuring sticks. The biggest thing for us is user satisfaction. We do an annual customer survey, and our customers are always very satisfied with the ease of the database in the application.

Also, we look at efficiency in some of our lab processing and sample management. We’ve found efficiency in our staff’s workflow and their use of the technology — some things used to take half a day or a full day, and we’ve been able to automate that. Therefore, the platform has helped us from adding more labor.

Finally, we look at scalability. We probably have more than 15,000 users singing into the system daily at any given time, and we’ve been able to scale pretty quickly.

How did Tusk Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re pretty good at project management. Any organization can have challenges with that, but they’ve met our deadlines. Stephen has been excellent in helping us communicate priorities and manage tasks. Overall, they’ve done a phenomenal job.

They use Jira, and we communicate through email, Skype, and text messages. At some point, we used Slack and kanban boards.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Creativity is their most prominent trait. They’re able to take our requirements, get creative, and translate everything into basic functionality that’s easy for our end users.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we all have moments where we have intersections and need to reassess. We talk about that one-on-one.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

As long as you communicate your requirements and what you want your users to experience, they can take it from there. Sometimes there’s a gap between good technical work and communication, but Tusk Software’s team is excellent at engaging people and communicating.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of technology at CADY, a high school photography company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tusk Software?

We hired Tusk Software to pick up after a web development project that had gone sideways with a previous company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tusk Software got us back on track with our website design and development project. They used .NET and Kentico CMS. We operate in a highly customized environment, so they had to do a lot of custom code as well.

They’re currently the main developer for all of our e-commerce and CRM platforms. We also rely on them for maintenance support. Though they’re not our primary design partner, they’ve also done small interface revamp and redesign projects with us. 

What is the team composition?

There are 5-6 people working with us. Our main point of contact is the project manager.

How did you come to work with Tusk Software?

We were looking for a partner with experience in Kentico CMS, and they were recommended.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in February 2019, and it is an ongoing partnership. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have very high standards, but Tusk Software has exceeded our expectations. They proactively suggest ideas and are very quick to respond to our needs.

How did Tusk Software perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management is excellent. We conduct our standup meetings via Zoom and plan meetings through Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very organized, and their project management workflow is great. Their .NET competency is also quite good.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should add more people to their team since we intend to work with them as we continue to grow. Having a higher capacity to handle bigger volumes of work will be a definite improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Let Tusk Software take the lead. They’re highly accountable to their customers and know how to approach various projects. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the office manager of a residential remodeler.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Tusk Software?

We have custom created software that we need help with occasionally.

SOLUTION

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

We have used Joel before on this and went to him again.

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

The software had updates, so we wanted to make sure we were on the correct path for what our company needed.

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

Just one, Joel.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our software is still working, so that is a good sign! :)

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was fine.

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

Joel's willingness to help was impressive.

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

No.