OPTASY

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the executive director of the Equal Opportunity Community Initiative—an international nonprofit. We serve underserved communities throughout the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Toronto area. We offer education-based programming for kids. We provide libraries, computer labs, and soft-skills training. We also provide recreational activities for kids that aren’t supported by government institutions. For example, we'll provide extra facilities to orphanages such as a library or computer lab, and take the kids on regular excursions. We’re a volunteer-based organization and had over 5,000 people volunteer with us over the past couple of years.

What challenge were you trying to address with OPTASY?

Our website was outdated, and lacked traffic as well as conversions. It was built in 2010 and wasn’t up to date with our new programs. As a nonprofit, it’s not easy to communicate your story and mission in the timeframe when someone’s on your website. Our old website wasn’t telling our story because we’d expanded in many ways. We needed a product that was mobile-friendly, capture the user, and convert them to take action.

What was the scope of their involvement?

OPTASY developed a new Drupal 8 website for us. After we talked about vision, their team got back to us quickly with clear steps to take so that they could get started drafting the design. We gave them the data and information that their team needed. And then, they came back with a nice plan. We were able to tweak the sketch, going back and forth with their team. Then, they came back with a wireframe, which was great. We were also able to tweak that. Their team then created mockups that included the UX design for us to review and finalize. After we finalized the mockup, the project moved into development. They used top-tier technology and implemented mobile-friendly features.

What is the team composition?

In total, we interacted with four people regularly. A project manager who walked us through the project and the operations manager was involved from the beginning. We also worked with a UI/UX designer and one developer.

How did you come to work with OPTASY?

We looked through quite a few different companies that came highly recommended by donors and professionals in the field. We were looking in the Greater Toronto Area. Their Clutch reviews were great, which was one of the stronger factors. We shortlisted 4–5 different companies, went through their portfolios, and was impressed with OPTASY’s work. We reached out to them and received a response right away. Their lightning-fast response times during our initial conversations felt like a good sign.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $17,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted between May 2019–August.

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

The site’s beautiful and performing exactly how we’d hoped it would. The company that manages our Google Ads has found that our conversions have increased. The traffic has remained the same, but the amount of time users spend on the website and the number of actions taken has gone up about ten-fold. That’s what we set out to do exactly. We’re seeing an ROI in a short amount of time: That’s a success for us completely. A couple of our donors are thrilled with the website and have committed their support again. They’re happy to be on the partners' page with a fresh look and approach to the public. They were the most professional company that we’ve worked with as far as the project’s different phases.

How did OPTASY perform from a project management standpoint?

They set up a Slack channel. In general, we communicated daily and they responded immediately so that was impressive. As soon as we typed a message, we got a response. It was easy to provide feedback at every stage. Their team used software that allowed us to watch the project, which was efficient. They expedited tasks and were more professional than other vendors we experienced in the past. We definitely weren’t their biggest clients, but I feel that OPTASY treated us as such. Their team was easy to work with and structured.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re all happy to have chosen them. We would definitely choose them in the future and recommend them to any individual looking for a website that leads to conversions and conveys a message in a smart format. Their team performed well at every stage from the initial conversations to execution. They welcomed our feedback but also balanced our ideas with conversion principles. Their team gave smart feedback for us and ultimately delivered a product ahead of schedule to thrill our community.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should continue to get the word out about their brand. Their team should market themselves because they’re a great, top-tier company. They should continue doing what they’re doing and let people know about it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Reach out to OPTASY.

Please describe your company and your position there.

TESL Ontario provides support and direction to professionals, government bodies and learners involved in English as a Second Language in Ontario. TESL Ontario was established in 1972 as an independent not for profit association serving the professional development needs of English language educators in Ontario.

The Association consists of a provincial office and 12 affiliate chapters and is governed by a nine-person board of directors. TESL Ontario provides an accreditation system for educators working in the adult language training field and a recognition program for TESL training institutions in Ontario.

The association is financially supported by membership fees, a portion of which it distributes to the affiliate chapters for local professional development activities. I am the webmaster for TESL Ontario.

For what projects/services did your company hire OPTASY?

We hired OPTASY to develop several data import processes so we could import data into modules we use on our website. We also had them update several features that we used on our website as well as update elements on the web layout.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to provide us with a way to update information that we provide in a timely manner to our members so they could access their current accreditation certificates and have them automatically emailed to themselves through our Drupal module. We also had them update several items in the layout of our website.

How did you select this vendor?

We did an extensive web search for Drupal website developers and read several reviews about the company. We then interviewed them on the telephone to ask specific question relevant to our needs. We used them for a smaller project at first and were extremely happy with the results so we then engaged them to do several other items for us.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They built several import processes to our specifications which allowed us to update online information from our inhouse database. This meant that we no longer had to do double entry, once for our inhouse database and second for the online database.

We could now update the online database with a simple upload which had been exported from our inhouse database. We also had them update elements of the layout such as the links to our social media platforms to add new ones and remove old ones that we felt were not being useful.

What was the team composition?

The team was the TESL Ontario webmaster, TESL Ontario Operations manager as well as one main contact with OPTASY.

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

Requests for members documents were reduced and instead emails were usually thanks for the fast and easy process for receiving their documents.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

After and initial document was sent outlining the exact needs of our organization we then used an online tool called Slack to communicate at each step and provide additional information as requested and feedback on our testing until the project was complete.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The communications and the speed at which the project was undertaken were both excellent.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Any improvements would had been at our end to completely explain how the process should work. It would have saved some back and forth questions and answers and sped up the project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of digital marketing at a web-based SaaS company. We develop and support environmental health, safety, and quality management software.

What challenge were you trying to address with OPTASY?

We hired OPTASY to be our web developer and support all of our website needs. Our site needed security updates and general performance optimizations.

What was the scope of their involvement?

OPTASY helped update and maintain our corporate website. They fixed security and performance deficiencies and did general maintenance and updates to different pages. They did Drupal development.

What is the team composition?

I just had one point of contact.

How did you come to work with OPTASY?

We needed a new contract for web development, and OPTASY was already working with another business unit within our organization.

How much have you invested with them?

We probably spent $50,000–$75,000, but I’d have to check with our finance department.

What is the status of this engagement?

We signed a six-month contract that went from April–October 2019.

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

OPTASY got the site up to date.

How did OPTASY perform from a project management standpoint?

They were really good in this regard. The team was reliable and very knowledgeable. We communicated 3–4 times per week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their Drupal knowledge and experience with the platform are really strong. No matter how difficult the challenge was, they were usually able to find a solution relatively quickly. They delivered the exact level of performance and services that we set up at the beginning of the contract, so they were very consistent.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their responsiveness could’ve been better from time to time.

Any advice for potential customers?

Establish the parameters of the project upfront and manage expectations. If it’s a Drupal-related environment, they’d definitely be a great fit.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the manager of a small nonprofit organization that gives awards to people who have made strides in anti-corruption human rights work.

What challenge were you trying to address with OPTASY?

We had just changed the structure of our organization and separated from a previous organization we were affiliated with. In addition to needing to rework our website and rebrand upon our departure, we had some security concerns and some inefficiencies in the backend that we needed to address. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

OPTASY redesigned our website and addressed our concerns and inefficiencies to the Drupal backend. Their team removed a bunch of the unused modules and ensured everything was running efficiently. They also changed our Google translation services to be automated where previously we had manually translated pages. 

Their team helped update navigation menus on the backend and reworked our security controls on our user accounts, such as automatic password resets. OPTASY provided updates to the look and feel of our site—small things like adding photo carousels. They provide offsite hosting for our website archives. We are still currently working with them on a comprehensive redesign of our page. 

What is the team composition?

I was in contact with two members of the OPTASY team, including Adrian (CTO, OPTASY) and another developer. I was also in contact with three additional members of their team in a more casual manner.

How did you come to work with OPTASY?

We have a contact that serves as a go-between for us and OPTASY. He was responsible for identifying them and they sent us a proposal afterward.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent between $20,000–$25,000, and we also pay them a few hundred dollars per month for regular maintenance and updates.

What is the status of this engagement?

The first part of our engagement with OPTASY ran from May–July 2019, when we launched the website. They still provide maintenance and are working on the website redesign.

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

Thanks to our improved analytics, we can see that the website is functioning as it did before and in some cases, the performance has improved. I haven't had the opportunity to test the backend functionality, but we plan on it. The website is functional, efficient, and secure. 

How did OPTASY perform from a project management standpoint?

OPTASY performed quite well. There were maybe a couple of instances of missed communication between myself and the developers, but when those popped up they were super helpful about it. They established what needed to be done and contracted out a team to make sure that everything was fixed with minimal inconvenience on our end. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are incredibly responsive. OPTASY worked to keep us engaged with what was happening and make sure we understood all of the changes being made. We had input over every part of the process. It was very collaborative—they wanted to ensure that the final product was something that we were really happy with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. We didn’t encounter anything out of the ordinary. They worked really well with us. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

OPTASY was super responsive to our technical needs as well as some of the less easily defined aspects like content or content migration. Be really explicit with what you need and make sure you’re on the same page to avoid that.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital marketing manager at RIZE Inc. We manufacture 3D printers for industry.

What challenge were you trying to address with OPTASY?

When I started at my company about a year ago, one of my first tasks was to revamp our entire website. RIZE Inc. had an existing relationship with OPTASY, so we hired them to help us develop and design our site and make it more professional.

What was the scope of their involvement?

My team gave OPTASY mockups that we’d designed in Photoshop, and they gave us a timeline of how quickly they could implement the changes. They migrated our Drupal site to WordPress and handled all development. They also did some design work.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Adrian (CTO, OPTASY) and 1–2 developers.

How did you come to work with OPTASY?

OPTASY was already providing RIZE Inc. with web development services when I joined the company. I’m not sure how they began working together.

How much have you invested with them?

RIZE Inc. has spent between $10,000–$15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The website revamp spanned October–December 2018.

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

The more professional and serious website has helped us to brand ourselves as a key player in the 3D printing industry. My team and my company’s upper management are very happy with their work.

How did OPTASY perform from a project management standpoint?

OPTASY had great time management skills. They often made changes for us within an hour or two. I communicated with the developers nearly every day via Slack or email, and the team was responsive and easy to get in touch with. They addressed any issues or concerns that we had on our end, and they were very quick to give what we as the client were looking for.

What did you find most impressive about them?

OPTASY is one of the most responsive and timely web development companies that I’ve worked with. The speed at which they got things done and the ease of communicating with them was impressive. Their pricing was very competitive compared to some of the other companies I’ve worked with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything. They were a well-rounded, efficient, and affordable company.

Any advice for potential customers?

My advice would be to look at some of the projects they’ve done and give them a call. Adrian is very responsive to clients.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the project manager at a healthcare consulting company.

What challenge were you trying to address with OPTASY?

We wanted to find a developer with Drupal development expertise.

What was the scope of their involvement?

OPTASY developed our Drupal-based website.

What is the team composition?

We work with Adrian (CTO, OPTASY) and two other Drupal developers.

How did you come to work with OPTASY?

I wasn’t the one who did the sourcing.

How much have you invested with them?

My company has spent $50,000–$55,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2018, and the work is ongoing.

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

They’ve been a very integral part of the team. Our clients are satisfied with their work. Internally, we’re also satisfied with what they’ve done.

How did OPTASY perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is very good. OPTASY is efficient, and they complete all tasks well and on time. We communicate throughout the day, and they respond quickly. They’re fully a part of our team. We use a project management tool and have phone calls and scrum sessions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The rate at which they get things done is impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we haven’t had problems from any member of the team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give them room to do their job. They’re experts.

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I’m a senior developer at Telus.

What challenge were you trying to address with OPTASY?

We’re setting up a new Drupal 8 site for one of our clients, and we needed someone who had expertise with Drupal. We contracted Adrian (Senior Drupal Architect, OPTASY) and OPTASY to help us with that.

What was the scope of their involvement?

OPTASY set up a development server and a code repository, which they used to create a base Drupal 8 installation. The team then worked with outlines and designs from our client to put together the different templates that we needed. Adrian also took my designs and implemented them on the frontend of the site. They built both the frontend and the backend in Drupal.

What is the team composition?

I worked exclusively with Adrian.

How did you come to work with OPTASY?

Our HR department put together a list of 7–8 resumes of various organizations, and I picked 2–3 to interview. OPTASY stood out amongst the rest.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent somewhere between $25,000—$75,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We reached out to them in February 2019, and work began in April 2019.

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

The quality has been excellent. I’ve been very happy with that. We haven’t launched the site yet and still need to train clients on it. Also, we’re expecting a few rounds of revisions. But, from what I’ve seen so far, Adrian has done everything that I’ve asked. I don’t have any issues at all with the work that’s been done.

How did OPTASY perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management has been exceptional. I couldn't be happier with it. We haven’t experienced any delays, aside from the ones that I’ve caused.

I communicated with Adrian throughout the week on Slack. We had about one meeting a week during the development phase to go over process details and discuss progress. We used Jira for task management, and his delivery was always quick.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Adrian has a depth of expertise in Drupal. He knows everything and never has to look up information. We’ve had him on conference calls with the client, and whenever they offer ideas, he knows exactly how to implement them because he’s done them all before. That’s what we’ve been most impressed with, and it’s the reason why we brought him on as a partner.

Outside of this website, Adrian attended a few sessions with us when we were experiencing issues with another project. He was able to get that fixed as well. I’m grateful for his willingness to step outside of this main project to help us with another one.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I haven’t come across any issues. I can’t think of any at all.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go for it. I couldn’t recommend them more.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm one of the owners and the president of GSATi. We're a web development firm specializing in the direct sales industry. We build e-commerce, back office, and commissioning systems for companies that use independent representatives to sell their products. Our internal team builds those platforms with assistance from some external developers.

What challenge were you trying to address with OPTASY?

We were looking for Drupal specialists. It's a difficult system to develop for because it takes a long time to learn, so there's a lack of quality developers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve helped us with three different projects so far. A lot of their work involves doing third-party integrations with various service providers that we use, including the Avalara AvaTax system, the CyberSource credit card payment system, and the 3PL order fulfillment system. They've also integrated a learning management system onto our website and done extensive work improving our e-commerce features and functionality.

In addition to that, OPTASY's done a great deal of work improving the personalized, replicated websites we offer to independent sales representatives. They also perform general maintenance and bug fixes for our Drupal system, which even includes fixing issues for our in-house developers. We task them with anything we need because they're so versatile.

What is the team composition?

We have one developer from OPTASY who’s basically serving as an extension of our team and he works for us as an independent contractor.

How did you come to work with OPTASY?

We've been working with Drupal since 2009, so we've gone through quite a few developers over the years. A lot of our in-house developers are self-taught and didn't have many years of experience with the framework. We put out a request looking for someone with that expertise so that we could scale up more projects. Of the 10 or 15 people we interviewed, OPTASY definitely had the greatest depth of background knowledge, so we hired one of their developers to work with us full-time.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $150,000 at this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2016 and the relationship is ongoing.

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

We've been able to add new features and functionality to the sites we offer our clients, including the ability to deliver commission payments, manage taxes, or offer e-learning tools. OPTASY’s also improved system and site reliability, and we go to them when we receive customer reports about bugs or other site issues.

How did OPTASY perform from a project management standpoint?

They're very good at keeping us up to date throughout a project. They participate in our daily scrum meetings and deliver status updates, use Jira project management software to track different project tasks, and provide us with detailed notes of what they accomplish each day and where they've left off. Aside from that, they're also good at taking direction and changing plans on the fly when urgent issues come up.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate how detail-oriented they are. That's not a strength everyone has. Developers have very different personalities and sometimes they can be challenging to work with, but OPTASY is calm, flexible, and willing to go with the flow. I've been very impressed with their knowledge and how well they deliver their work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Really spend time thinking through exactly what you want and document it well. They're very good at executing exactly what you ask for according to your needs. We've had challenges where we didn't really think through what we wanted and consequently didn't like the end results, so we had to rebuild it, which wastes time.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the technology manager for an artisanal shortbread business. During my time here, my primary task has been to create and maintain their website.

What challenge were you trying to address with OPTASY?

For general website development adjustments, we have an in-house developer. When we need work that is more extensive, however, we contract the work externally. This particular engagement was fairly small and just barely beyond the skillset of our in-house developer. We have previously used two other dev shops, and this was our first time engaging OPTASY.

What was the scope of their involvement?

After I first reached out to OPTASY, their owner got back to me quickly and said that one of his developers would assess our request right away. The quote they provided was exactly within the range of what I knew it should cost, and when I agreed to go with them, they gave us an estimate of three business days to complete the work. In the end, they were able to have it done within what amounted to a little over one business day.

Our website is a Drupal-based website, so one of the skillsets required for this project was a high level of experience with that specific open-source content management system. A fundamental aspect of Drupal is being able to either build or modify existing PHP-based modules and then put them into the framework. We needed them to take one module from our website and extend it out to give us more options, modifying it as per our use case, and then plug it back into the site. Once that was done, our project lead showed what it would look like to outside visitors, the backend for us and how to configure it as administrators, and the options we had for enabling or disabling it as a feature.

What is the team composition?

I am not sure how big their organization is because I only had contact with one person, our project lead, and he handed our task off to a developer.

How did you come to work with OPTASY?

Our online search focused on Canada-based, Drupal-specific development companies, and OPTASY showed up on the first page of results. After finding five development shops that reached our basic requirements, I reached out to around three for quotes, and the other two came back with prices that either exceeded or vastly exceeded a reasonable amount for the work we needed. I went with OPTASY because they responded quickly and with a reasonable price.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent less than $10,000 CAD.

What is the status of this engagement?

We engaged them last Friday, and the work was completed by the following Tuesday.

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

When the work was complete, they suggested we check their work and try out the solution, and I was able to go back to them after we had done so and say that it was exactly what we wanted. I have never been able to do that before while working with an external development company, and I would definitely go back to them again. Their success was in the simplicity of the work.

How did OTPASY perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project lead was quick to communicate about everything and ensured that the job was completed far faster than I had anticipated. When the work was finished, he provided all the information that I needed in order to assess both completeness and accuracy. I never had to ask any questions; he was good about anticipating what we needed to know. Even though the end product was a fairly simple piece of development, the turnaround was faster than expected and the communication overall was excellent.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the most important things to me was that they understood the scope of the project and that they needed to come to us if they thought anything else needed to be done outside of that scope. Dev shops deciding on their own to do more work than we had agreed upon, and charging us for it, has been a problem for us in the past. When we first engaged OPTASY, I spoke with the owner and told him in no uncertain terms what the project scope was to entail, and they stuck to that.

In particular, I was impressed by both the exceptional pricing of the project and the speed of completion. Regarding the cost quote, I admired the fact that they were completely honest with me about how many hours the work would take, especially when one of their competitors gave me an estimate that was literally six times greater for the same project. The other dev shops assumed that I didn’t know anything about the work involved, and OPTASY never treated me like that. They were able to perform the work quickly and professionally and gave us exactly what we wanted, so they checked all the external contractor boxes. I would definitely recommend their services, and I would have no reservations about returning to them in the future for larger projects, given how well they handled this smaller one.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m not even sure that I would consider this a negative, but I feel that it is worth at least mentioning. Most contractors—especially for short jobs like this one—end an engagement by trying to sell further services to a company. OPTASY did that as well, but the way that they presented it did not feel like a “sell” to me. They offered it as a suggestion, in reference to certain aspects of our website that would benefit from being updated, and then immediately dropped the subject when I said that we were going to take care of that in-house. It felt to me more like a recommendation than a pitch, which I appreciated.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

This advice is more general, in terms of contracting external development work: Make sure to define the scope of your work very well. A good contractor will see that and be able to work within your clearly set expectations.