Horicent Systems

BACKGROUND

Please provide a description of your company?

I own a mortgage brokerage. We assist clients in Canada with finding mortgages.

What’s your position?

I’m the owner and overseer of everything.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What were your company’s business goals for undertaking the project with Horicent?

We were building some things that we had purchased from third-party applications using SalesForce. We were trying to work those into our sales pipeline.

What was the process that you used for selecting Horicent?

I went online to the Salesforce app developer guidelines and posted an ad. I interviewed and picked Horicent because they seemed like they could best deliver what I needed.

Why did you decide to build on Salesforce instead of some other platform?

It was the only platform that had the specific functionality that I was looking for.

Please specify what those functionalities were?

It’s a third-party app. It’s called Drawloop. Drawloop has a feature where you can use Salesforce fields to develop Excel spreadsheets. Users can then convert those spreadsheets into PDFs. I was looking for that type of functionality elsewhere but couldn’t find it.

SOLUTION

Can you tell me about the scope of the project?

It was mostly programming, development and a little support. They had to create an XML spreadsheet that synced a third party website into Salesforce. He [our programmer] had to create a specific set of workflows and outgoing messages attached to emails. It was a sequence of things that he built for us, our engineer did a good job in delivery.

Were there any parts of the project that were mainly in-housed?

The design itself was in-housed. We primarily used Horicent for programming and customization since we knew what we wanted, and how to get it done. We just did not know exactly how. We had an idea of how we wanted it to look. Horicent was selected since they know how to work with SalesForce and customize it.

What other technologies were used?

We used Drupal. It was similar to a database but was also a web site. He had to integrate with the Drupal code plus the Salesforce language. He used XML to do that.

Can you provide a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms?

It was about a two-month project. The entire project was about $20,000 but not all of the costs were for Horicent efforts.

How recent was it finished?

We finished it in December, 2012. He did a little bit more work for us in January, 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any results of the project, such as statistics or metrics?

The system allowed us to build a pay-per-use membership site. We were able to shift from not being able to do anything to being able to launch our membership site. Currently, we have about 200 members including some that use the system on a daily basis. They seem to like it. The system is working flawlessly after many operations, so we don’t have any problems with it.

Can you elaborate on the performance of Salesforce, and do you feel that was the right system to implement?

The performance is fine. Salesforce isn’t my preferred platform. It’s just the platform that is easiest and most effective to build in. I’m not a big Salesforce fan, but the system does what it’s supposed to do. That’s what I’m happy about. It works.

What were you using prior to Salesforce?

Before that, I was using Infusionsoft. I liked Infusionsoft’s look and feel and functionality. But, it didn’t have the features that I needed, Salesforce did. So we switched.

How did you feel about Horicent’s performance overall?

I feel they’re very responsive. Our programmer was very knowledgeable and knew what we were doing. I was heavily involved in the process, and I’m not technical. He was able to weed through what I was saying in layman’s terms, understand it, and convert it into the technical products.They really have a solid work ethic.

Was the project successful?

Yes, Horicent was on schedule and did everything on time. We were paying them hourly. So, there wasn’t a specific budget. Horicent told us how many hours they thought it would take. His estimation was correct. We didn’t monitor or keep track of his hours at all. We just trusted that he submitted the right amount of hours for the work.

Was there anything unique or special about Horicent compared to other vendors?

Horicent works in a different time zone. However, he was available when we needed him, which made working with him very easy.

Looking back on the project, is there anything that you felt they could improve on or you would like to have done differently?

Horicent is good at following instructions. However, they never provided me with any alternate options. I wasn’t sure if the way I wanted to do it, was the best way. They just made it to do what we wanted to happen. That is fine for us but it might have been nice to have some alternate suggestions to choose from.