ACAP

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We license a Medicare-approved intensive cardiac rehab program to hospitals for their cardiac rehab. We are working closely with hospitals around the country. We're a small organization. The longest that we've been with a hospital is more than two and a half years, and we're growing. What we bring to the table is certainly education and a roadmap for people to use as they recover from a cardiac-related event.

What is your position?

I'm the senior director project management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with ACAP?

I was not with the company at that time. I've been with the company right at two years, and I've been working with ACAP since I began. But, the work with ACAP began before I was even here. If I'm not mistaken, the relationship has been ongoing since 2011. The scope was that we needed a web-based solution for hospitals to input information about how people are going through our program, the sessions they're doing, and just content around how people are progressing through our program. How we started working with ACAP, in particular, I don't know, but I just know that it has evolved. The scope has been pretty much the same since the beginning of work together until today.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

They are the developers for our web-based program. Actually, it's not only tracking how the patients go through the program, but part of our education with the program is video-based. The portal that ACAP has developed for us is the method by which people access and view our videos as they're going through the program from an educational standpoint. Part of it is monitoring how people are going through the program and part of it is hosting part of our educational content. Again, they've been the primary developers for this. They created it from scratch. We work together on discovery and requirements validation.

What is the status of this engagement?

We still use their services. We have a bunch of ongoing projects with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I think a couple of years ago where we had developed a portal, and it was very theoretical at that point, there were a number of bugs. As we started working directly with the hospitals and the hospitals were using the portal and we got feedback and more "real world" with it, Burtay [Arat, director of professional services at ACAP] and his team were excellent with their follow-up. I would say that in the last couple of years, it has worked extremely well. There will be issues from time to time as we tweak things. But, overall, we rely on them, and we've not had an issue where it's been down for a period of time or anything like that. It's working well for us. End-users have given us mostly positive feedback and several recommendations for future features and functionalities. We will be working with ACAP to really flesh those out and get them implemented.

How did ACAP perform from a project management standpoint?

We did not use any specific tools for project management. It was phone calls and emails – I will send them an email with what I'm looking for. We'll then talk about it on the phone and work out the final details. Then, they'll send me a work order. I'll confirm the work order on my side and then they begin. We're also doing testing with them. In our portal, we have a testing site and the live production site. We're working hard on the testing site to make sure it works well before it moves to production.

They have always been on top of follow-ups. Whenever there is an issue or a bug or what have you, they're on it. My dealings with Burtay have been very good.

What distinguishes ACAP from other providers?

Just the hands-on follow-up, and, again, if I need to get a hold of them, they're available. If there's an issue, they respond right away. Their client support is just fantastic.

Is there anything ACAP could have improved or done differently?

I think there is one area where we are challenged at times and it's not all on ACAP. It's on us, too. I would say that it's how we communicate around developing reports. On the inputting side, things are great. On the reporting side, we're trying to get reports out of this system. Sometimes, it can be a challenge with what we're looking for and finally getting to what we need in terms of we may go through a number of iterations before we get back what we exactly need. Part of it is just communication. I don't how many different levels are involved in the process. But, if we could make that more efficient in time, that would be helpful.

Do you have any advice for future clients?

I am not an IT [information technology] person, so I think that they've been very good to work with in terms of taking what they do on the IT side and making it work for me on the business side. Again, they're very responsive, which is great. It's always great to work with a partner that can explain things in terms you can understand easily.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We're a local municipality in the state of Florida.

What is your position?

I'm the director of information technology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with ACAP?

Doing some in-depth revamping of an online form submission process for a custom database. The database is for vendor registration so we could build a comprehensive list for vendors and see what the products and services are so that managers in the city could use it as a resource.

Before, in the past, it was just a form submitted that went into an Access database that has no query to it and which is exported down to Excel sheets. What we wanted was interaction for the end-user and some dynamic searching tools. The vendors would register and users would have access to go in and do a search imported to a database right away. The new database was built with SQL.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

They developed the front-end set of the server, a variant connected to the database, did the graphics from start to finish. The whole product – they did it all. I only dealt with one person through ACAP, the project manager. We delegated the entire implementation to them, and they built the whole thing out with our guidance.

How did you come to work with ACAP?

As a local government we have to, after a certain dollar amount, get three quotes for competitive bidding or pricing so that residents are getting their fair share of their money's worth out of it. The local search for web developers from Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami for price comparison and just did Google search. Searching down they weren't the first ones that popped up on the list, but through their presence on the web, and the resources they had on their site allowed me to put them in a pool of vendors that I could pull from. They looked like a professional company, and they seemed to have a good amount of completed work.

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

It was $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

That project lasted about a month. I think it had an eight-week turnaround. We have been working with them on and off for about two years now. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I have an extensive background in web design, so I knew what I wanted, and database administration as well, so I knew how it worked. Unfortunately, I didn't have personnel on my team to do this, so that's when we subcontract this project out, but the end result is exactly what I requested from the initial meeting. There were some tweaks here and there that came about during the project scope, but they met all the needs that we'd requested. It's not an option with us to go over budget.

How did ACAP perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great, always on time, responsive, and able and willing to make valuable recommendations.

What distinguishes ACAP from other providers?

Their response time is extremely quick, even whenever something is reported wrong with the site or a customer discovers something we didn't find during the testing. I'd say within less than 15 to 20 minutes, there's a response back through email and then the problem is resolved within 24 hours. You don't normally find that with local shops to be able to be that responsive. I've worked with businesses that are traded on the stock market down here, such as IT [information technology] businesses, and it's three or four weeks before you get a response back on what the problem was.

Is there anything ACAP could have improved or done differently?

Nothing that I could come up with. They meet all of our expectations, and they're very reliable.