Agile Routes

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Project Manager of University of Pretoria, Lynnwood road, Hatfield, Pretoria

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

The University of Pretoria is a leading South African higher education institution that offers a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate programs across various disciplines, focused on research, innovation, and academic excellence.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Agile Routes to accomplish?

• Improve the Look and Feel
• Enhance Access to Programme-Specific Information
• Centralize Programme Information
• Display Tuition Fees Clearly
• Improve Mobile Responsiveness and User Accessibility

SOLUTION

How did you find Agile Routes?

• Online Search
• Referral
• Other

Why did you select Agile Routes over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Agile Routes were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

University of Pretoria hired Agile Routes to enhance the UP Web, focusing on the UPOnline platform:

Improve the Look and Feel: 
To redesign the UPOnline platform with a more modern and user-friendly interface that aligns with UP’s branding, providing a visually appealing and seamless browsing experience.

Enhance Access to Programme-Specific Information: 
To ensure that students and prospective applicants can easily access detailed information for each programme, including qualifications, module details, and course content, in an intuitive and structured manner.

Centralize Programme Information:
To create a central point of reference where all relevant information for each programme—such as programme details, course structure, and application guidelines—can be found in one location, simplifying navigation for users.

Display Tuition Fees Clearly: 
To integrate a dedicated section for tuition fees on each programme page, providing transparency and allowing prospective students to view up-to-date fee structures, including module-specific costs.

Improve Mobile Responsiveness and User Accessibility: 
To ensure the platform is optimized for mobile devices, providing easy access to critical programme and fee information across different devices and ensuring a consistent user experience.
These goals were designed to enhance user experience and accessibility on the UPOnline programme page, available at this link.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Programme Page Updates:
Separation of Undergraduate (UG) and Postgraduate (PG) Programmes:
Jason implemented changes to display UG and PG programmes separately on the UPOnline site, including customizing qualification headings and ensuring the correct programme structure​​.
Standardizing Programme Headings: 
He worked on standardizing the qualification headings (e.g., Undergraduate, Postgraduate, and Master's) to align them with UP’s contact programmes​​.

XML Processing and Data Integration:
Handling Yearbook and Study @ UP XML Files:
Jason was instrumental in processing multiple XML files to ensure that accurate programme information, such as tuition fees, module durations, and descriptions, was reflected correctly on the site​​.
Resolving Issues with Data Display: 
He addressed various issues with data not displaying correctly, such as module costs, qualification levels, and programme titles. This included testing and deploying updates promptly​​.

New Programme Page Features:
Adding the Curriculum & Tuition Tabs: Jason added two new tabs on programme pages, ensuring that students could easily access detailed curriculum and fee information​.

Banner and Content Updates:
Homepage Banner Functionality: 
Jason deployed updates that allowed UP to manage banner content on the UPOnline homepage, ensuring flexibility in updating key information like programme start dates​​.

Mobile Responsiveness and Cosmetic Edits:
Extensive Testing and Feedback:
Jason was responsive throughout the testing phase, implementing changes based on feedback and addressing any issues swiftly to ensure the project was ready for production on time​​.
Timely Deployment to Production: 
He coordinated with UP's web team to ensure all changes were approved and successfully deployed to the production environment​​.

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

Commitment and Communication:
Clear and Open Communication:
Throughout the project, Jason maintained excellent communication, providing status updates, and promptly addressing feedback and questions​​.
Going the Extra Mile:
Jason went above and beyond to ensure the project was not only delivered on time but also exceeded UP’s expectations, handling complex requests such as XML integrations and hardcoding of content for programme pages​​.

What was your primary form of communication with Agile Routes?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I had the pleasure of working with Jason from Agile Routes on multiple UP projects, with the most recent one being the updates for UPOnline. The team at Agile Routes, particularly Jason, consistently demonstrated dedication, commitment, and a proactive approach to delivering outstanding service. Jason ensured all deliverables met or exceeded UP’s high standards, from handling complex XML integrations to implementing vital changes on the programme pages and homepage. His promptness, attention to detail, and clear communication made the collaboration seamless. I highly recommend Agile Routes for any web development project—they always go above and beyond!

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

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Application Architect (IT) at  a Higher Education institution

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Higher Education

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Agile Routes to accomplish?

• Integrate software solution with University of Pretoria's Identity Federation in such a way that on event of user access to software solution, user authentication happens via University of Pretoria's Identity Provider authentication source
• Software solution specific user roles are managed by University of Pretoria's inhouse developed enterprise user role management tool. SAML Assertion message that is passed to software solution contains software specific user roles. Software solution extract user's user roles from assertion message and translate user roles to software solution's defined user priviledges

SOLUTION

How did you find Agile Routes?

Referral

Why did you select Agile Routes over others?

Referred to me

What was the size of Agile Routes’s team?

1 Employee

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

Software Solution (Zeropoint CMS tool) was designed to do user authentication against a dedicated OpenLDAP that is hosted on AWS platform. Implication thereof is user provisioning had to happen towards that OpenLDAP in parallel to user provisioning towards University of Pretoria's local hosted Identity Federation. Software Solution (Zeropoint CMS tool) was also designed to retrieve software application specific user roles from the dedicated OpenLDAP's user groups.

Some specific Admin users were assigned almost 700 different user roles. Required deliverables were: - Integrate software solution to make user of University of Pretoria's Identity Federation user authentication and user access management services based on the principles of SAML SSO. - The SAML assertion message that is passed to the software solution (Zeropoint CMS) is defined to contain the user's software solution user roles.

The software solution's user security design had to be adjusted to retrieve the software application specific user role(s) from the SAML assertion message and derive the user specific software solution privileges from the user roles retrieved from the SAMLassertion message -

Restructure the Software Solution's role based security design to introduce an overarching user administrative user role which the software solution interprets as a user administrator role applicable to all websites as an alternative security model than assigning such a user the administrator role for each website which results in 800 admin-website user roles assigned to a specific user.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Software Solution is integrated with University of Pretoria's Identity Federation, i.e.software solution no longer use dedicated OpenLDAP as user authentication source. Software Solution allows signed on user the correct software solution user privileges (this implies software solution retrieved user roles from SAMLassertion message and derive privileges from those user roles)

Software Solution derive website specific administrator role for all websites from specific software solution user role that is passed via SAML assertion message to software solution

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

The team met the agreed on timelines. The team was very creative in finding ways to address business requirements and preferances

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

VERY creative thinking. The effort the team member has made to master technical skills and knowledge that was required to implement technical solution the team member never dealt with before. Commitment of the team member to find solutions to technical matters encountered during development

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

No, the team member did an excellent job

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The University of Pretoria (UP) was established in 1908. Today, it is one of Africa’s top universities and the largest contact university in South Africa. UP produces socially impactful research to find solutions for the world’s most pressing issues. UP has a high quality of teaching and learning in the classroom, online, or in communities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Agile Route was tasked with assisting the University of Pretoria's digital team with website software development needs and support.

SOLUTION

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

The vendor was selected through our procurement process. The deciding factors included experience, knowledge, and programming skills.

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

The main objective of this project was to enable conference coupons functionality. Mockups and process flow diagrams were provided to visualize the changes.

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

Two developers/directors.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The conference coupon functionality is now live on the conference system and it allows users to be able to get discounts on conference fees

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

Agile project management style was used for this project. It was a simple, practical and flexible approach with constant communication to achieve the project goals. We used ClickUP tool to plan, track and collaborate project goals from start to finish.

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

They are very professional, passionate, high skilled and one of the most impressive thing about them is their attention to detail and they produce high quality work.

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

No, they are one of the best companies we have worked with. They have excellent coding skills, project management and work ethics.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The University of Pretoria (UP) is one of Africa’s top universities and the largest contact university in South Africa.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Agile Route was tasked with assisting the University of Pretoria with website development needs.

SOLUTION

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

The vendor was selected through our procurement process. The deciding factors included experience, knowledge, and programming skills.

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

The goal of this project was to centralize, simplify, and improve banner management for the home page of the UP website and subsites. Mockups and process flow diagrams were provided to visualize the changes.

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

Two Developers/Directors.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Banner order can now be managed centrally. There is also clear visibility to which banners will display when and in what order. We have also received positive feedback from our webmasters.

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

Agile project management style was used for this project. It was a simple, practical and flexible approach with constant communication to achieve the project goals. We used ClickUp tool to plan, track and collaborate project goals from start to finish.

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

They are very professional, passionate, and highly skilled. One of the most impressive things about them is their attention to detail and they produce high quality work.

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

No, they are one of the best companies we have worked with. They have excellent coding skills, project management and work ethics.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the strategy and partnerships lead for one of the largest universities in South Africa.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Agile Routes?

The portfolio I look after is called digital technologies. We have three different layers. Those layers include the university’s website, web applications, and a mobile app. There’s another internal layer which is a portal. We have limited expertise in-house. We didn’t have any senior developers to handle the day-to-day tasks.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’re developing our custom-built website using PHP and MySQL. We have not only the website but also complex development such as yearbooks, study program information, and integration between Google and the CMS using various APIs.

Agile Routes also built a complex tender module for us with different workflows. Their team built a conference system that works with their payment gateways so the university can host various events. These are just a few of the features they’ve developed.

What is the team composition?

I work with Erhardt (Co-Founder) and one other person. In the background, they may have another employee handling tickets for us.

How did you come to work with Agile Routes?

We did a tender and chose Agile Routes as our preferred service provider. We had to rely on somebody who knew the existing technology that was put in place. Our team had a previous company but they left so we had no one to support us. Erhardt and his colleague used to work for that company that closed down for various reasons.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested 1 million rands (approximately $67,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2016 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The developers are quite proficient with PHP and MySQL. Agile Routes is great at meeting the requirements of the university. They consistently meet standards and deliver what they promise. I’m extremely happy to have them on board. If I have a requirement, I can fully rely on them to fulfill it — no matter how complex it is.

How did Agile Routes perform from a project management standpoint?

Our teams have various ways of communicating. We primarily use Asana, and it’s been working very well for us. We hold weekly review meetings on Friday for an hour where we look at the project as well as the maintenance. All the projects are structured in this way and all the ticketing gets managed in there as well. We also use WhatsApp and other tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

There are many things they do for me. Agile Routes does big projects like revamping the website. They also do complex development to showcase the recent profiling of the university. Currently, their team is doing another social development website for us. They’ve also done archiving integration.

The yearbook, study programs, conference systems, and tender system for the procurement department are the modules that stand out. Their team has many excellent deliverables.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need a marketing person to help grow their business. The current two team members are purely developmental-focused. They need assistance whereby they can capture the market in a better sense.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’ve referred them when someone inquired who I’m working with. I refer to them as one of the best service providers to handle complex deliverables. I have no hesitation.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Systems Analyst of an educational institution.  

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Higher Education

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Agile Routes to accomplish?

• New Front end development for our Institutional Repository

SOLUTION

How did you find Agile Routes?

Referral

Why did you select Agile Routes over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from Agile Routes were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

Agile Routes did an excellent job developing and implementing a modern front-end design for our institutional repository. The process was smooth, and the results exceeded our expectations. They are highly professional in their communication, consistently keeping us informed of changes and development progress through well-managed platforms. Many thanks to Jason for the great work done — highly recommended!

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Improved user experience, higher accessibility and usabability, faster loading time, repsonsive design

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

Items were delivered on time, made use of Google chat and Google drive to keep us updated as well as documentation on the changes and implementation

What was your primary form of communication with Agile Routes?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Although we only met once in person, the rest of the collaboration was conducted virtually, which saved unnecessary travel time. Agile Routes demonstrated a high level of professionalism, consistently using the right platforms to keep us informed and updated on progress throughout the project.

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

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of MBD

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

E-commerce and web development, web integrations and solution consulting.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Agile Routes to accomplish?

• Consolidate e-commerce platform product features
• Create GUI portal to manage e-commerce product features
• Add and edit product features manually
• Ability to add and update features mapping
• List log files for product updates

SOLUTION

How did you find Agile Routes?

Referral

Why did you select Agile Routes over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Agile Routes were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

Requirement was for better management of product features and faster implementation of changes or edits to existing features and the ability to add new product features quicker. Product and stock updates required a more visible environment to view updates and additions in the logs. 

Solution: Build an integrated management portal for all product features, with additions and/or updates, with detailed log reporting of all updates. 

Deliverables: 

• Consolidate all product features into new standalone database. 
• Detailed mapping to e-commerce product variants. 
• Portal with GUI function to manage all features and integrations. 
• Detailed log reporting.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Solved existing integrations bugs with products not being assigned features or product bundles breaking due to better mapping integrations. 
• Ability to add new features manually via the management portal and update mapping. 
• Product additions much quicker with grouping reading directly from new database integration.

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

Project management was efficient as well as patient with the evolving changes required while testing integrations. Suggested changes to the functionality was suggested and discussed before testing and implemented while refining existing processes.

What was your primary form of communication with Agile Routes?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We had a good working relationship based on aligned goals, good feedback and trust for the ultimate outcome of the project goal. All three points are always achieved while working with Erhardt.

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

Based on the length of the existing working relationship, I'm happy with the projects worked on thus far and see future collaboration in the future.