Canary Software

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am Project Manager at a Branding and Marketing agency, headquartered in Australia. Our company has about 100 employees and we serve corporate clients in Australia mainly. I oversee our digital products and coordinate between the client in Australia with the production team in Hanoi, Vietnam.

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

Our client has the need to invest in mobile application along with our website application. We do not have any in-house engineers and also the very short deadline given, so we needed to outsource the mobile design to Canary

What were your goals for this project?

To be able to deliver to client a good app.

How did you select this vendor?

Search them online and we already work with them on some small development task before starting bigger project

Describe the project in detail.

Building web application for fitness program

What was the team composition?

It didn’t change after our discussion cause I’m a PM myself, so I’m happy with 2 Sr developer from SF

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

Our project get done on time and client is very happy with the Moblie app. The is some very small bugs at the very end of the project but they promptly support helps very much keeping client happy.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Easy to communicate and the team raised red-flag in very early stage. they provide some very valuable question and design analyze at the beginning.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They had quick communication and good code quality.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing so far

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the project and account manager of Hype Web Agency.

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

We needed detailed web designs and a WordPress template implementation.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to create a modern vision of the website

How did you select this vendor?

We were recommended to them by a friend.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

Canary Software helped us develop two projects. Using our wireframes, .psd graphics, and prototypes, their team created several WordPress websites and configured them in three different resolutions for desktop, tablet, and mobile phone use. In addition, they implemented VideoBuilder to manage our CMS and update our content.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from June 2017–January 2018.

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

We received positive feedback from all our clients on the look and feel of the website. We also got great internal feedback on our new CMS's functionality and easy-to-use navigational interface.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

I was the main project manager for the project. Their team responded to our needs quickly, and always answered our questions with solutions. We talked via a phone, email, a messenger, and Skype. Overall, it was a pleasure working with them, and they met all our project milestones on time.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I found their friendly and supportive attitude from Canary Software impressive. They were always ready to help us with additional updates or advice. Their communication skills were excellent.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Our language barrier was sometimes hard to deal with. They often felt more comfortable communicating through email and chat because only one of their employees spoke understandable English. Aside from that, they were very helpful.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a consulting company working with different types of organizations on software development projects in the solar and LED science spaces. I'm the CEO.

What challenge were you trying to address with Canary Software?

I was trying to find a software development partner who was responsive and affordable while delivering quality work that didn’t require reworking. We're outsourcing this portion of the business.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Canary handled all the software development, along with some of the scoping and technical specifications. I gave them a broad-level scope, which they refined and then submitted to the customer for approval. We didn’t typically provide wireframes and technical documentation. They've developed custom web apps for us, using the Symfony 2 framework.

What is the team composition?

I worked with two individuals from their team.

How did you come to work with Canary Software?

I was referred to them by another company I was doing work for.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of their work is $20,000–$30,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Canary around July 2016 and the collaboration is ongoing.

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

I receive good reviews about their work—they have high-quality software developers. I’ve learned how to get good results from working with them, over the years. The QA process is a minor part of what we need to do, given how strong the development is.

How did Canary Software perform from a project management standpoint?

I haven’t used them for project management, but generally, I’ve found them to be communicative. A project might take longer than anticipated, but they always let me know and we work it out. We use email for most of the communication and the team understands English well. This is a testament to how well the process works: we don’t have to spend a lot of time on the phone.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re good to work with. They’re fair and they stand behind their work. If they mess something up, they always make it right. They're definitely a good company to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As they grow, they might automate some things that they currently do manually. They're a small company, so they don’t have fancy interfaces and things of this sort. However, these are just minor details.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

If the customer is able to write up the specifications document clearly, they'll get a good outcome. One thing that Canary does well is to help clients find things that they may have missed early on, before the work is started. This gives us a chance to bring the scope to the customer and clear it up before the work begins. It can help reduce surprises or delays during the project.