Nextide

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. I’m responsible for managing our IT operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Nextide?

We were looking to develop a large, complex, internal intranet and required additional expertise on the Drupal CMS platform. We decided to augment our team with additional development resources.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Over the course of the last several years, the Nextide team has taken on a huge range of initiatives around specific development requirements. In the beginning of the engagement, we provided the Nextide team with wireframes and specific documentation that detailed our system architecture and business requirements. They devoted hundreds of hours to building our intranet, and subsequently involved in the development of a prototype scientific website on Drupal that’s very unique. They’ve also done some UX/UI development, but we typically provide them with design assets. Essentially, they’re our go-to resource on anything related to Drupal. We only required ad hoc work/maintenance last year, but we’re now in the process of starting a new project with them.

What is the team composition?

My main point of contact has been Tom, and their technical lead varies from project to project. I also speak with their account manager as necessary.

How did you come to work with Nextide?

We researched Drupal-focused development firms and quickly identified Nextide as a potential partner. They are based locally and have made major contributions to Drupal itself. They’ve contributed several well-known Drupal modules including Maestro, a popular workflow engine. They’re also prominent and often representative at Drupal workshops held throughout the country.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first met with them in August 2011, and the partnership is currently ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s difficult to assess quality and benefits beyond the number of hours they’ve devoted to our business, but they’ve dramatically increased our capacity to develop software. They’re hardworking, highly effective, and provide very deep expertise in the Drupal platform.

How did Nextide perform from a project management standpoint?

We manage project management internally and typically use Google Docs to track progress. We meet face-to-face fairly regularly, especially around planning cycles.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their skill sets are very impressive. They have a few very senior developers on the team that haven’t moved to management or architectural planning, which is very hard to find in a development team. We really appreciate their availability during more complex phases of the projects.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Since they’re a small group, they don’t have a full range of development skills. They provide very deep and specific technical skills that need to be supplemented by others, such as frontend design and project management.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the manager of business development at George Brown College. We manage a series of online technical training programs and I'm responsible for digital marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Nextide?

We were looking for a company to help us develop a new website for our School of Distance Education.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The School of Distance Education delivers a number of online programs, which are a subset of our larger continuing education division. Nextide helped us develop a Drupal website, coming up with a look and feel that was consistent with our other websites. They set up all the templates and built a system through which we would either pull the information from other websites or populate them through Drupal 8. We used Drupal 7 previously, but Nextide introduced us to Drupal 8 and helped us get up to speed with it. They continue to support our website on an ongoing basis.

What is the team composition?

We mostly work with a project coordinator and a designer.

How did you come to work with them?

Once we defined our requirements, I went through the process of identifying candidate companies. We were looking for a vendor that had expertise in Drupal because part of our existing website ecosystem was already set up in Drupal. We liked the look and feel of Nextide's website, so we reached out  to them. After we reviewed their proposal, we decided to hire them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2017 and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They delivered exactly what we were looking for. The website has been working great and we haven’t experienced any issues with it. There have been very few typos, which is quite surprising given the breadth of the work that was done. We're very pleased with the results.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

We had a very positive experience. We talked with them on the phone every week to discuss the project and we used Google spreadsheet to track the progress. It was a fairly seamless process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We appreciated their service and their level of expertise. They came up with a number of slick technical solutions that really amazed me.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They were very strong on both the project management and the implementation side.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They were a perfect solution for us. I would highly recommend them to other people.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My name is Ismail Pishori and I'm the CEO of Cloudvisor Wealth Inc., a cloud-based software provider in the digital wealth management space.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Nextide?

The main challenge was to develop web-based screens for the investor-facing part of the software. We're a startup, so we needed a working user interface so that we could demo the product to potential clients. The user interface also needs to integrate with our backend system that manages that all the client and wealth information and transactions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, Nextide had to learn the API through which they would connect to the backend of our system. Then Nextide started building mockups of the screens. We supplied the flow that we wanted, as well as the look and feel, and they started developing them with their designer.

Through that design process, they helped us think through the logic needed for the user interface. Nextide developed multiple screens to capture the client’s information, which is fed into our system in order to determine an investment recommendation. They used Drupal, and the screens are responsive for mobile and tablet.

Nextide also developed our company website.

What is the team composition?

Tom Walker [owner, Nextide] provided oversight to the project. There was a lead designer, a lead developer [Blaine Lang], and a secondary developer.

How did you come to work with Nextide?

I've known Tom and Blaine for over 20 years, so they were the first people I reached out to. They were able to take on the project, so we didn't look at anybody else.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $115,000 Canadian dollars ($92,116 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

Work started in May of 2016. The first part of the project is finished; as we get clients, they will continue to do work as changes or customizations need to be made.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There aren't any specific revenue numbers yet, but they were a key part of us getting to market.

We haven't gone through the rigorous testing that will happen when it goes to production, but so far the functionality of their code looks good.

How did Nextide perform from a project management standpoint?

It was good. It was a challenging project because our API was being developed at the same time as they were developing the screens. So if there were bugs in the API, they couldn't make progress until we fixed it on our end. They handled a lot of changes and pivots, and were very accommodating.

They were also very flexible in keeping the project within scope, even though we were making changes and fixing things as we went along. There was a lot of back and forth, and they were willing to work with us on everything.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Because I've known these guys for a long time, there was a built in trust factor. They delivered quality work but also were flexible enough to work with a startup trying to go to market.  

They were very patient with us when we couldn’t always answer their questions. We worked very closely together, and it was always a positive collaboration even if things got a little tense because of deadlines or things not working.

Are there any areas they could improve?

On our end, we should have made sure the API was stable before we engaged a developer. That was a tradeoff we made in order to not delay our release, so that was not their fault.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you give them a defined scope, they will give you a statement of work, a fixed price, and deliver on both. If you're not sure exactly what you want, or need help figuring out what you can do within a reasonable cost, they'll work with you to come up with ideas you may want to consider or better ways of doing them. They’re not just a Drupal shop; they truly are consultative and can work with you to flesh out and design whatever you're trying to accomplish.