Isovera

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a senior program manager in the professional services division of a software development firm. We are an open-source tech company that helps clients build digital experiences.

What challenge were you trying to address with Isovera?

We work with their team as a development partner on many different projects, primarily for one of our government clients.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided us with a mix of roles and deliverables on three different projects for our client. That augmentation has included backend developers who worked on Drupal backend coding; UX/UI researchers who conducted focus groups to find the pain points of current sites; frontend developers and designers who implemented those designs; and QA analysts who reviewed the code and made sure it met our requirements from the client.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with around ten members of their team, and we normally have one project manager on their side who helps manage communication with the group and works with us to overcome any issues that we see in the delivery.

How did you come to work with Isovera?

Our company has worked with them in the past and developed a long-standing relationship with them over time. We interviewed a few partners for our project, and they seemed like a particularly good fit because of how quickly they were able to provide resources with the right skill set that could get cleared with the US Government.

How much have you invested with them?

The engagement cost is around $1,100,000 to this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around 2015 and the project is ongoing.

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

We’ve had slightly different experiences on different projects, but in general we are very pleased with the collaboration. The work that they deliver is high quality and pleases the customer. They do good research, make solid recommendations, and always flag issues to the customer that they find helpful.

How did Isovera perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve improved a lot at project management in our time working with them. We’ve worked with some project managers who were enjoyable to work with but didn’t quite have a good hold on what was going on with the team from day to day and whether or not people needed help.

We’ve moved to different resources in that role since then, and they have been able to significantly improve on things like overseeing the individual developers, reporting budgets and issues, and calling out risks before they become problems, which we appreciate. We use JIRA and Slack as our primary communication tools between the teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are very happy and willing to accommodate the customer in virtually any situation. Whether it’s us or our clients, if we ask them to change something or flag an issue, they will address it quickly and then communicate back what they did to resolve it and continue to monitor the solution to make sure it works. That eagerness to help makes the engagement a lot easier to manage on our end.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would say about 85% of the people they’ve provided have been great, strong resources, but a few people have not fit into the role quite as well, so I think there may be a little bit of room for improvement in their screening process to try to reduce the margin of error in identifying the best Drupal developers.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you have a clear escalation point on their team and be as proactive and transparent as possible about issues and concerns that you have because they are definitely willing to address those if they are brought to their attention.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a professor at an academic higher institution.

What challenge were you trying to address with Isovera?

There’s a group of 15 academic veterinary centers that we work together with. We received funding from the NIH to retool, recreate, and rebuild a website that’d be the central landing page for all of the functionalities associated with the CTSA One Health Alliance (COHA).

The previous platform was an old WordPress site. We needed to create a site that was more interactive and could effectively link to other sites that provide a training tool. The website needed to be more versatile and capable of being easily transformed.

We started working on this project with another company. After completing most of the website’s elements, things slowed down a bit and we ran into some challenges. Then, I was informed the company was shutting down because the CEO wanted to change career paths.

This was at the exact time when we were in the middle of getting ready for the website to go live. With this news, we no longer had the company to work with; it was a huge problem.

What was the scope of their involvement?

When Isovera stepped in, the design was mostly done so developing the functionalities was what needed to be fixed. The bigger picture is an ongoing process where there are a lot of elements constantly changing and growing so we wanted our website to readily accommodate these changes. We built the platform in Drupal for this exact reason — so we could add functionalities easily.

The website has a registration process because it isn’t accessible to the public. We wanted to restrict the site to people who work in the setting of comparative and translational medicine. Therefore, we didn’t want the public to access some of the key components like training modules on clinical trials and good clinical practice. This was a vital functionality and requirement.

We also needed a function that allowed key constituents to upload their own material. It was important that there be a mechanism that was easy and intuitive. This feature would allow an investigator of the institution to upload a journal article, news article, or fellowship opportunity.

Also, Isovera had to create extra security because our initial vendor didn’t put a captcha in so we were getting bots that were trying to get access. Their team built a number of functionalities that require external links so users get to the page and then go through a portal to get to that external functionality. Now that the website is finished, Isovera provides ongoing support.

What is the team composition?

I have one person who is the main point of contact and there are two additional people on the team.

How did you come to work with Isovera?

We needed a partner that wasn’t going to be there and then leave as the previous vendor did. Our team reached out to a couple of companies to help us address many of the website’s obstacles — technical glitches and just reaching the point where we were comfortable going live. We really liked the attitude and energy from Isovera as well as their ability to work rapidly. In the end, we chose them to take on our project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested approximately $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement started in November 2019 and it’s ongoing.

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

Isoververa has been phenomenal and really engaged. They’re easy to work with in terms of getting solutions implemented rapidly. Their team is extremely responsive and very good at communication.

What’s more, they’re proactive when following up. If I’ve been tied up and forgot to get back to them, they reach out to make sure I didn’t need them — and often times I did. They’re committed, timely, and efficient.

How did Isovera perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate through Zoom and email as well as hold biweekly meetings. They implement their own project management structure where they utilize tickets. Isovera came in the middle of something already done; that’s not a standard process. They were left with pieces of things that needed to be fixed. Their team wasn’t handling the project from start to finish.

This presented its own challenges of working within the confines of someone else’s work and trying to make it better. We spent a lot of time trying to identify the key deficiencies and prioritize the things that needed to get done.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re incredibly responsive to needs. If there was a key deficiency or roadblock, they’d address it right away. Also, they’re very enthusiastic and easy to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can't think of anything. This has been a great experience. I wish we had worked with them from the onset.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you’re comfortable with the company you choose and feel that they have the expertise you need. Ensure they’re stable and will be around for the duration of your project. A long track record and sustainable history are really important, and Isovera possesses both of these.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT director for an educational institution.

What challenge were you trying to address with Isovera?

We needed someone to help with web support to bring up the services and do changes in the system.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped with the upkeep of our website that was already existing. Overall, they have remote access to our web servers. I don’t know what they use for publishing the work.

What is the team composition?

I work directly with the sales rep who is like a project manager.  

How did you come to work with Isovera?

We did an online search and interviewed different companies. They had a suitable solution for us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2017 and the work is ongoing.

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

They’re very responsive and professional. I like working with them a lot. When I have an issue, even if it’s not specified in our contract, they help us. I like that they check in with us. With SARS-Cov-2, the only way we connect with clients is through the web page. It’s very important for us the work that they do on the website for us.

How did Isovera perform from a project management standpoint?

I submit my requests by email and they respond by the next day. Any time I have an issue, I submit it to my sales rep and he puts the team together to make the decisions. I’m supported in different ways. I have the ability to talk to the technicians directly about the issues.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very responsive. They have very good people working for them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any issues with them. I’m very happy with the service.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They have a nice contract set up. Sometimes they say they have to review the contract, but they are very flexible too. My suggestion is to review the contract to make sure everything you need is covered by the contract.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the VP of Global Marketing for Fidelis Cybersecurity. They specialize in automated detection and response of threats and data breaches.

What challenge were you trying to address with Isovera?

We wanted to make a big pivot and adjust our go to-market strategy and target marketing. This involved changing our entire website, branding, web architecture, and messaging.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started by updating our website to reflect our new strategy and messaging. They helped with everything from doing competitive design reviews and research, to identifying ownable and brandable design white space within our new target market. They also developed specific design language, brand language, and icon language through an iterative process. Once we identified the approach that we wanted to take, they moved from doing conceptual design to actually implementing our design.

We completely overhauled the web architecture of our Drupal site. We moved away from being heavily copy- text-based to guiding visitors into a transaction, whether that be requesting information, requesting a demo, or downloading content and thereby becoming an early-stage lead. They also made the site mobile responsive.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three core people, including a project manager who was their Senior Interactive Project Manager, that helped us manage the project and drive the design and overall brand language. They also brought in other resources with specific knowledge as needed.

How did you come to work with Isovera?

We did a competitive design bid project which allowed us to consider many firms. It was Isovera's expertise and insight, as well as their ability to be competitively priced, that won us over. They were the greatest value for us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June 2017 until January 2018.

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

Our board of directors were quite pleased with the new design and the 17% increase in year over year web traffic. There was also a 17% increase in web-based acquisitions across all vehicles including organic search, direct search, and social. Together, all this speaks to a higher performing website.

Isovera helped us create a website – and consequently an online identity – that talked about the value that potential consumers and prospects stood to earn from engaging with Fidelis and its technology. This represented a fundamental shift in the site from being Fidelis-focused to being market-focused. It traded a heavy feel, outdated design language, and no orchestrated transaction flow for having a modern design and being light and engaging.

How did Isovera perform from a project management standpoint?

They kept us on track and set and managed our expectations regarding budgets and timeframes with online project management and collaboration tools. They got creative with us and took time to understand what we needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their understanding of our need to create uniquely identifiable branding opportunities in a very saturated marketplace stood out to us. Their ability to help us identify brandable design whitespace and synthesize modern, engaging web design and web flows with our desired message, market and, buyer personas was another standout. It wasn't just a website mill either. They used best practices and took time to create something that was special and different. We also loved how they could also pull in different experts as needed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It was nothing but the normal attention to detail on the execution side. There were some things that they said were going to get done, but then we had to point out that they hadn't been done yet. That stuff is normal anytime you're dealing with highly detailed and complex projects though.

Any advice for potential customers?

Doing your homework - as a client – and knowing what it is that you want and giving them the direction and trajectory is really important. I knew what sort of competitive design review I wanted and I knew that I wanted competitive design whitespace to be identified. Would that have happened without me putting them on that trajectory? I don’t know. At the end of the day, Isovera is like any other contractor or a consulting firm: they’ll do what you ask them to do. You need to make sure that you know what you're asking for. That being said, they're very willing to be consultative and to brainstorm iterate.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the information systems engineer for WIEGO, a nonprofit that works around issues of global employment for women in the informal sectors.

For what projects/services did your company hire Isovera?

We needed to upgrade our site from Drupal 6, which is no longer supported, to Drupal 7 without losing any data or functionalities.

How did you select this vendor?

We had worked with WIEGO before.

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

There was one developer working with me. We shared different aspects of the project.

What was the team composition?

It was just one person from Isovera and myself working on the project.

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

The Drupal developer they assigned was able to complete the visual and page layout aspects of the site upgrade. He provided great new ideas that improved the layout and usability of the site without adding much to the overhead.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

I handled project management but was supported by Isovera's tight team when things got sticky, which was very effective. It enabled us to cut costs as an organization and only utilize their project management when necessary.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their willingness to work with us in non-traditional ways and still produce wonderful, state-of-the-art products is remarkable.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

There are always areas where people can improve, but none that stand out for Isovera.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I oversee marketing strategy and communications for OpenClinica. We’re a growing platform that captures and manages clinical data.

For what projects/services did your company hire Isovera?

Although our site had substantive content and features, it wasn’t well organized and extensively used stock photos. As a result, we needed resources to redesign our website and help build our digital brand identity.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to create an easy-to-navigate path for first-time visitors to understand our company’s mission statement and clinical testing process. We also wanted to cultivate a user-friendly experience, featuring our latest content and resources for our returning clients.

How did you select this vendor?

We sought a web development team that specialized in strategy, design, and functionality. After interacting a few times with Isovera, we knew we’d found our match.

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

They’ve helped us define our brand identity and translate it into an online experience. Currently, they’re developing a set of cornerstone content pages, which we plan to launch soon.

What was the team composition?

We work with a project manager, strategist, designer, and coder.

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

Although the project is ongoing, we’re blown away by their level of sophistication and thoroughness in terms of building our brand and website. They’re able to find a balance between the initial idea and the execution. We predict the new page launch will boost conversations.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They’re flexible and responsive.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They’ve been outstanding so far. I appreciate the depth of each team members’ knowledge. They have a clear understanding of everyone’s skill set, which allows them to work effectively. The engagement has never felt like an assembly line; rather, it’s been a collaboration.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the Senior Marketing Manager at WordStream. We create online marketing software to help small businesses with marketing and advertising initiatives.

What challenge were you trying to address with Isovera?

We had just undergone a replatform from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7, but the website was crashing and burning. The firm that we had originally contracted to do the work did a terrible job, so we came to Isovera with a very urgent and dire situation on our hands.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Isovera's team worked alongside our in-house web development team on a number of projects, including initial web development work to get our Drupal 7 site to stop crashing.

They've helped us with everything from custom module development to creating a new customer resources center. They integrated several third party applications into Drupal, implemented security updates, audited websites, and helped us with SEO.

They're now in the process of replatforming our website to Drupal 8 with Pattern Lab, a design system that creates and organizes designs to make it easier for developers to turn common features or patterns into live web pages.

What is the team composition?

We work with a project manager and anywhere from one to a team of 6-7 developers, depending on the project.

Once we form a relationship with a developer, that person generally stays on our account. I haven't been involved in the selection process, but don't feel a need to be—they've kept continuity of staff between projects.

How did you come to work with Isovera?

We had been searching for credible vendors with a great reputation in the Boston area. Someone had also recommended Isovera to us, so we reached out to them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them since the first quarter of 2015. They're now helping us switch Drupal platforms again.

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

We're eternally grateful for the mess Isovera rescued us from. Our website reliability has improved dramatically—it went from crashing twice a day to maybe once every six months.

Their work is always done according to Drupal best practices, and they're proactive in staying current on the latest updates within the Drupal community. Their developers have contributed a lot to our team and work hard to ensure that the work on our side is well supported moving forward.

How did Isovera perform from a project management standpoint?

Isovera's team provides us with weekly, if not more frequent, updates to ensure each project is on on budget and on time.

We communicate through Basecamp, GitHub, ZenHub, and Bitbucket.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm most impressed by Isovera's commitment to excellence in their work and straightforward communication. They have the ability to work with a variety of stakeholders on our side, which we find extremely helpful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything.

Please describe your company.

We are the IT [information technology] support and Web development resource for the main library for [a large] university. We support the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering directly, but also all the other schools of [the university] tangentially.

What is your position?

I’m the department manager.

Could you describe the business challenge that you were trying to address when you first approached Isovera?

We brought Isovera on early in our process. We were planning the largest Web services project we’ve ever done, which was to take our static website of roughly about a thousand pages and bring that to a content management system, specifically Drupal. We contracted with Isovera first to understand the full scope of what we would be undertaking, so it was an open-ended arrangement with them. They had a developer's block program, where we could purchase 100 hours of consultation, and then apply to whatever we wanted. We did a lot of work with them on infrastructure requirements and what it would take to get our site into Drupal. Once we were fully committed to Drupal, we hired Isovera to be our development partner in building the site.

It was a unique and interesting situation because we had a separate design firm that we were working with, which was not a Drupal shop. They worked with brand integrity and making sure the design of the site was compatible with the larger and overarching Tufts brand. Isovera’s involvement at that point was to augment our development resources. They worked very closely with our in-house Web developer.

We did an evaluation of about three or four different options. WordPress was in there, and we looked at Joomla and Sitecore. What pushed Drupal over the top for us was the robust community of developers specifically writing modules for Drupal that had library implications.

Could you describe the scope of work assigned to them?

They worked in tandem with our development team on the functional development and implementation of the new design of our site. One of the things that really spoke to me as a benefit that they could bring was that they had a very collaborative approach. They were willing to walk our Web developer through some of the processes that would be involved in working with CSS.

We really wanted a knowledge-sharing relationship, so that our Web developer would feel confident in being able to continue to develop the site after the engagement with Isovera concluded. That was another big check in the win column for Isovera. They had that model, and that worked really well for us. When we started the project, it wasn’t clear if we were going to host internally or externally, and Isovera was able to provide some really good consultation to our infrastructure team to make sure we had everything in place, just basics of load testing, redundancy, performance tuning. They were helpful in that regard as well.

How did you come to choose Isovera as your solution partner?

They were part of an RFP [request for proposal] bidding process that went out to a dozen companies, and they probably came up in that initial scan. They had done a lot of interesting work in the field of information science, specific to Drupal, improving search. I remember thinking that’s why I wanted to include them in our shortlist. The proposal they submitted was very convincing, and we felt very comfortable with their approach.

Could you provide a general cost estimate for the size of this engagement?

It was around $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We don’t have anything ongoing at the moment. The engagement we had with them has concluded, but as we look to expand the functionality of the site, I would certainly call them again.

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the quality of their performance?

We have noted that site traffic has gone up. More importantly, the feedback from students and faculty has been overwhelmingly positive. The user experience is what we wanted, and it’s much better than it used to be. Also, we’re now in a position where it’s not just our Web developer who’s updating content on the site. We’ve been able to distribute that to content owners in a full CMS model.

I think since we launched the site in Drupal, there’s been great deal of interesting activity around Drupal throughout the university. I think our site was something of an exemplar that contributed to that.

I was very satisfied from a project management standpoint, too. I have a project management background myself, so I took on some of that responsibility. Then, at some point, it made sense to turn it over to them, and I thought they did a fantastic job. I thought their communication was spot on, and I was especially impressed because this was something of an unusual project as they needed to work hand-in-hand with an external graphic design firm. So, there was a lot of coordination of activities in regard to who was working with what and when and how to coordinate these deliverables. I thought that was effective.

When working with Isovera, is there anything that you would consider unique about their strategic approach or development methodology that distinguish them from other vendors?

I think they’re very flexible and very collaborative. They’re really interested in finding out what you’re trying to do and why, and I thought that worked really well for us. Some of the models of competing firms were a little constrained, and we would have had to alter the project in order to work with them.

What advice, if any, would you give a future client of theirs?

Unless you’re hiring them to do the discovery work for you, it’s good to have your project scoped out really well before you bring a development shop in.

Please describe your company.

We’re originally a U.K. company. We manufacturer predominantly Wellington boots, that’s been our main product historically. We are now branching out into new products, so we also manufacture apparel, handbags, and things like that. We’re traditionally a British heritage brand originally from Scotland, but now we’re a global brand.

What is your position?

I’m the head of our global websites.

Could you describe the business challenge you were trying to address when you first approached Isovera?

We needed to develop an e-commerce site for the American and Canadian markets.

Could you describe the scope of work assigned to them?

At the time of launching the U.S. site, we had very limited in-house development resources. We didn’t have a development team, so they did everything on the development side. They worked with our warehouses to scope out the fulfillment integrations. They did the payment integrations and PayPal. We facilitated the assets and the design, which they then put together. We also undertake all of the final UAT [user acceptance testing] as well.

How did you come to select Isovera as your partner?

I don’t have that information. That decision was made by my predecessor, and she’s no longer with the company.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

It is several hundred thousand dollars a year.

When did the project begin, and are you still working with them?

The relationship began in 2011, but I don’t have an exact date. The American site launched in January 2012 and the Canadian site in December 2013. Since that time, we have engaged them for maintenance of those two sites. We’re in the process of transitioning to one global site, so we expect our relationship with them to change. We think they can potentially still support us with some other work, but it won’t be in the role they have currently.

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the quality of their performance?

In 2012, our e-commerce sales were around 8 percent of our global business. They’re now approximately 25 percent of our business. I can’t attribute all of that to Isovera, but what I can say is that their support and their work has been instrumental in giving us the platform to process those sales. They have very good project management skills. I find their response times and level of detail to be good, I don’t have any concerns in that respect. On a maintenance and support level, I don’t have any problems with them.

When working with Isovera, is there anything that you would consider unique about their strategic approach or development methodology that distinguish them from other vendors?

I’ve worked with quite a few agencies, and they’re better than some that I’ve worked with. They take the time to understand their clients’ business and objectives, which makes a huge difference when it comes to the actual development process.

In retrospect, are there any areas in which you think they could improve as a service provider?

When we first started working with them, they had a very "9 to 5" approach, which really isn’t appropriate for an e-commerce project. It requires more flexibility. However, they did take that onboard and they have become more flexible in time. I would say that if they want to continue working with large clients like us, then an even greater degree of flexibility, working hours, and support would be to their advantage.

What advice, if any, would you give a future client of theirs?

I don’t have any particular tips.

Please describe your company.

The organization is an association of international educators. It’s a nonprofit association serving international student bodies on college campuses.

What is your role position?

I was the director of Web services.

Could you describe the business challenge that you were trying to address when you first approached Isovera?

We worked with them to migrate an online publication to the Drupal 6 platform and totally customize it to our audience needs. It’s a subscription product.

Could you describe the actual scope of work assigned to them?

We handled the e-commerce side of things, but it had heavy customization of the Drupal module that required their expertise. They trained our main content author on how to use the site and worked with him extensively on customizing it to his needs. They basically built the whole site. We did the design, but it was a very light design, it was mostly a technology buildout and site build.

How did you come to choose Isovera as your partner?

We had a previous experience with them on a small strategy project back in 2005, when they were under a different name. We added them to the pool of people that we sent the RFP [request for proposal] to, and theirs came back as the best solution.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

[It was approximately] $150,000.

When was the site launched?

I believe it was in 2010.

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the quality of their performance?

All of the feedback we have received from stakeholders and end users has been positive. It was a significant upgrade in terms of functionality and reliability of the product. On the project management side, everything went very smoothly. We didn’t experience communications issues or any defects with their delivered code.

When working with Isovera, is there anything that you would consider unique about their strategic approach or development methodology that distinguish them from other vendors?

I think they do a good job with support and customization. They seem to put a lot of effort into thought leadership in the Drupal community, which is nice.

In retrospect, are there areas in which you think they could improve as a service provider?

No. I thought they did a really good job. They’re very strong at what they do, and they know their strengths.

What advice, if any, would you give a future client of theirs?

It would have to depend on the client’s needs. I think their strengths are more towards larger and more custom projects, maintenance upgrades, incremental enhancements, and those sorts of things. I wouldn’t use them for a small straightforward project. There are plenty of less expensive shops that do very straightforward Drupal projects.