Aristek Systems

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Account Manager, Responsible for project delivery processes st software development company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed software engineers with .Net, strong back-end skills and great researcher, who could help us with our online education platform. At some stages we needed to speedup deliverables, needed flexible capacity and guys provided all.

SOLUTION

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

I knew about them from my network and we organized interviews with their engineers, my teammates evaluated candidates highly and we signed this deal. Interviews + test tasks. First stage we had interviews with their candidates. Guys were very flexible about time slots and so on.

Good english skills and what I admit: understanding of business goals. Some candidates were asking about that, senior level, good sign. Test task - well done, some some of them took more time then expected, but it's ok, as guys had other tasks in parallel.

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

Working on plaform for online education. There're 2 branches of future product, one is more for online staff training, second is for companies who deliver their curriculum in K-12. Here we need to pay attention to QTI/LTI, Classlink, some state adoption and so on. Web based application, developed from scratch.

Stack:

• React
• .Net

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

We worked with 5 people since we've started.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Helped us to speed up our velocity by around 20-30%

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

The team is able to work with all modern management methods and are very flexible in their work.

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

Attitude to the project, like it's their startup which is super-super important for them. It's not a huge dev house. They are a very bright team of people who care about their clients.

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

Looks good for their current stage. Maybe in future they will need to speedup some things, as they're scaling and scaling.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm an executive at a healthcare company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Aristek Systems?

We needed help with custom software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Aristek Systems is developing a custom software from scratch. The platform's front has a survey functionality, and the backside has a dashboard that allows dental practices to see their metrics. It connects the database to data visualizations and other features on the dashboard. Regarding technologies, they use React and Node.js.

Currently, we're expanding the platform's features and improving the existing ones.

What is the team composition?

We've worked with six members of Aristek Systems' team, a project manager, two developers, a QA engineer, a UI/UX designer, and a DevOps person.

How did you come to work with Aristek Systems?

One of our investors that worked with them in the past referred them to us.

How much have you invested in them?

So far, we've spent $100,000–$150,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2022, and the engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The system that Aristek Systems is developing has the uptime we expect. They also quickly fix any issue that arises, sometimes even on the same day. Moreover, we've been able to implement engineering ceremonies thanks to the engineer assigned to us. Overall, they're doing a great job.

How did Aristek Systems perform from a project management standpoint?

Aristek Systems has done a great job with project management and meeting deadlines. In addition, they've helped me adapt to my needs and close gaps in what we need to do, which we appreciate because I'm not tech-savvy. Regarding tools and communication, we use Slack, Jira, Notion, and Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Aristek Systems' team is flexible and adapts to our needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The time zone difference can sometimes be challenging.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO for Accelerate Learning, Inc., an online provider of science and math curriculum.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Aristek was brought in to provide the development services required to support and meet the needs of clients of any size. This included the transformation of a product that was not built to scale, only allowed manual onboarding of clients, no SSO capabilities, required immediate UI/UX rework, content/assessment LMS LTI sharing capabilities, ability to interface with state departments to process and fulfill orders, create a new website... it was a startup transition.

SOLUTION

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

Aristek had provided similar services to my former company Lumen Software, Inc, of which I was the CTO and co-founder. They had provided the services that supported our All-in-One SIS (Student Information System), Special Education IEP, LMS, Library Management System, State Student ID System, Lumenation middleware platform, and solutions adopted by Novell. The choice was easy after having worked with them on successful, complex, high-risk, large-scale solutions.

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

The scope of work was extensive with extremely condensed timelines to meet market opportunities. Automated onboarding solutions, SSO (MS SAML, LTI SSO, LDAP...). Content integration with IMS LTI protocols, ThinCC, QTI, and today Grade Pass Back, Deep Linking supporting all IMS compliant LMS solutions to levels they supported. Created Order System that processed X12 and custom APIs with states and their depositories to process/fulfill orders with physical product orders/tracking with vendors.

This has transitioned into the creation of a new state-of-the-art product platform using the latest technologies to provide online/offline processing, responsive design (device agnostic), 3D\AR production, robust content authoring methods, WCAG A-AA, and more. For all projects, there is a structured Agile process (Scrum or Kanban). Project specifications are created.

These are reviewed by an Aristek Business Analyst who eventually creates a model /wireframe. Upon stakeholder acceptance, the Business Analyst establishes within Jira Epic/User Stories. Tasks from which estimations are provided. Upon acceptance, the dev team organizes the Jira tasks and begins the dev process.

All source codes are to follow Project Code Standards and pass Code Review. Delivery of the code after QA testing (Automated, Manual, Regression) goes by CI/CD processes. All code submissions are subject to vulnerability tests. The current technology stack we use is PHP, RoR, JS, C++, React, SPA, PWA, LTI, SalesForce API, NetSuite API. Our system supports 5m+ users and is horizontally scalable.

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

There are 2 Senior PM's, 6 Team leads, 29 developers, 6 business analysts, 14 QA, 2 UI/UX, 2 System Support

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to meet 100% of client requirements from the largest to the smallest within first four months of starting, in time to meet the sales season. This resulted in approximately a 45% market share the first year within the only state the product was released. Today we are in all 50 states offering customized solutions in most of them. The company was acquired in 2018.

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

Aristek is an integrated resource within our organization structure to provide all involved in the process with optimum use of their time. We have scrums with Sr Project Managers daily, with Business Analysts if needed using Skype or Zoom. The different dev teams all have their own process at their level. Jira is our primary means of project management. As a whole, we work very diligently to meet timelines, and in the early years, these were all "by this date" projects. Aristek has always provided a great pace and quality results. The SDLC process we have created over the last twenty years has proven to provide quality, continuous service to clients without any major disruptions.

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

Their ability to mold a product development process to meet our needs and those of our different products with a great pace and a commitment to quality. They are always responsive at all levels and thoughtful about what they are working on. We have had tremendous growth spurts over the years and they have provided quality, skilled individuals to meet our needs in a timely manner over the last 20 years. We have required mathematicians, 3D\VR\AR, artists and they have facilitated these requirements as well.

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

With the startup pace, the first 4-5 years of documentation were not a priority. However, we have been using Confluence as a part of our process now to rectify this.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m Head of Information Technology at Druzhba OJSC, the main oil pipeline Russia-Europe, which is a complex technical system.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Aristek Systems?

We needed someone to modernize our existing automated contract execution management system and to realize system functionality, which allows automate commercial accounting of oil products. We were looking for a vendor who could do the heavy lifting without much intervention from our side.

What were your goals for this project?

The solution had to reliably reproduce the functionality of the older system and extend functionality with new features and client hardware/software platforms.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We initiated the RFP procedure and Aristek Systems’ offer was the most suitable for us. We invited them to document our requirements as we explained them. Once we saw that Aristek easily understood what we wanted, we decided to work with them.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Aristek Systems designed, developed and created the architecture of our new modernized system with transition of all the old data. They added new complex functionality with telemetering equipment interaction. They also crafted he UI/UX and developed both desktop and mobile versions. They used PHP, JS and other stable technologies.

We use this new management system on daily basis and it has around 500 functional modules.This system provides online monitoring and controlling of oil&gas transportation streams and handling of contracts execution to the user.

Aristek Systems built it from a scratch after 2 sprints of planning, business analysis and mock-ups creation.

What was the team composition?

Twenty seven people were involved in this full-cycle development project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

We provided them grateful review on our corporate sheet, which copy you may ask them at any time.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

There haven’t been any problem with PM. The team is accessible, supportive, and sensitive to my timelines and constraints. They’ve delivered most things on time except for one or two instances, but those delays were due to changes in scope. Overall, I’m thrilled with Aristek Systems. We communicate via email, phone and video calls. Every time our communication is very effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

During the collaboration, Aristek's team had established themselves as reliable, professional experts with a modern view on customer requirements and requests.

The company has all the needed opportunities to develop a qualified software, what was proved with those quantity of work they have done and still have been doing for our enterprise.

Within the process of software development Aristek Systems' specialists care about all the wishes as much as it's possible, all the tasks are made high-performed and in time

Are there any areas for improvement?

They’re always on step with all modern technologies that are good for creating ERP, CRM and other complex SW for almost all domains.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of an it services company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

e-commerce development company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Aristek Systems to accomplish?

We were looking for a partnership to establish a core team that could help us with development of a website for independent creators with built-in opportunity to sell their works. We needed a reliable company with proven experience to ensure that the quality of the software is as expected by the customers.

SOLUTION

How did you find Aristek Systems?

Clutch Site

Why did you select Aristek Systems over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Aristek Systems were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

What was your primary form of communication with Aristek Systems?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

As this project was already working, Aristek Systems had to quickly adapt to the established processes. Due to efficient communication and top-ranked team, they were able to start the project asap following the several steps: We`ve sent the initial idea of a new website. Aristek Systems provided a detailed feedback with reasonable suggestions, estimation, and ready-to-go team structure. 

While the project was approved, they`ve developed, tested, and released a new website. After first positive results they continued to work on and implement new features. Choosing technologies for the website we totally relied on Aristek team. The final stack looks like this: Ruby on Rails Elixir Phoenix JavaScript GraphQL PostgreSQL AWS

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re happy with the functionality of their deliverables. They were ready to join the existing project and meet all the challenges. Everyone on our side has been impressed with Aristek Systems` thoroughness, professionalism, and attention to detail. Right now the full project is ready and deployed. I may say that they really created a user-friendly solution for different types of users and the audience of the website shows significant figures.

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

We used JIRA for task management tracking and GitHub as a source code repository. For direct communication, our tools were Zoom and Skype calls. There were no questions about the delivery. Everything went strictly according to plan.

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

I would say the thing that has really set them apart is the quality of their personnel and responsiveness. They provided not just the final ideas but did their best to show the benefits of these ideas, be it the stack, new functionality, etc. So every step was clear and obvious for our side. It lets me say that Aristek Systems went above and beyond when it came to resolving our problems and technical issues.

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

No, we've enjoyed everything

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Lead Project Manager of a telematics software company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Aristek Systems?

We are working with Aristek Systems in the telematics sector. We have developed our product with frontend and backend developers and also got a business analysis service for our product and customers.

SOLUTION

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

The Aristek Systems team was responsive and professional, and we got answers to our questions very quickly.

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

We have a telematics product which should be supported and kept updated. We integrated Aristek developers into our team, and they are keeping our service on a high level for our customers.

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

we collaborate with frontend, backend, and business administration professionals and have from 3 to 5 people on our projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have reached our goals and still working very productive

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It’s effective

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

Aristek Systems is sensitive to business problems and provides effective solutions.

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

I can’t find this yet.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Aristek for mobile app development services.

SOLUTION

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

I received a quote from the business development guy, Eugene Senko, and we started our collaboration from there.

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

The team had to develop a cross-platform mobile app for my productivity system

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

5-7 people

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had 10 000 users in the first month

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

We had a series of video calls with different team members. Despite communication challenges with project manager, we were able to complete the development and ship the product.

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

I was really impressed by the dedication of the bd manager, Eugene. Great communication, quality negotiations.

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

Timeline and price estimates