Praxent

What was the scope of their involvement?

They sat down with us to go over our existing site. We also showed them a few sites with aesthetics we admired. We then began to outline the project. They told us what was expected from our end–content, text and graphics approval, etc.–and outlined a schedule and budget. During this phase, they offered their own suggestions for the project based on their expertise.

The site was built using WordPress and essentially serves to convey information to students and potential donors. Praxent helped us organize strategies for different pages, landing spots, and backend analytics before working with us on the design elements.

We worked together closely as they began populating the content, providing edits and feedback. Based on our suggestions, they worked to reconfigure the strategy around each page.

While creating a visually appealing site was our primary goal, we also wanted it to be intuitive so our in-house staff could make edits easily. Praxent provided training to ensure our team members understood the system.

Having completed version 1.0, they’re currently building the second iteration with more complex features.

What is the team composition?

There were three people in total. Kevin (Hurwitz, Managing Partner, Praxent) connected at the beginning and end of the project. I worked primarily with a project manager and a technical specialist who built the site and provided the training.

How did you come to work with Praxent?

They developed a complex web project for another department at the University of Texas. They came highly recommended as competent developers who could deliver on time and on budget.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2017 and our relationship is ongoing. Having completed the last round a year ago, we’ve engaged them to help with the second iteration of the site.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our current applications are all separate and designed to address specific needs, but none of them are connected or integrated. Looking forward, we want to have one application to address all the previous requirements that were met by the disparate apps, and for it to also have the ability to include risk algorithms. Praxent’s primary objective is to build the user interface of the application and to incorporate the ability to display geospatial data via a map representation of the pipeline. So far, we have worked with them to create a prototype, and we have recently begun our collaboration on the full version of the app.

How did you come to work with Praxent?

We did research online about them and the last project that they spearheaded. Seeing a diversified portfolio of work was important to us. We needed a vendor that specialized in UI development and also had experience with utilizing geospatial data. After we worked on the prototype, we conducted a review of them and our other potential candidates. They needed to demonstrate both the technical capability we sought and the ability to understand our specific business needs quickly. Once we agreed that Praxent met all of our needs, we engaged them to begin the project in earnest.

How much have you invested with them?

The three-week-long work on the prototype cost us $15,000. The cost of the full project has yet to be determined.

What is the status of this engagement?

The prototype was completed during July 2017, and we made the decision regarding the full project in October of the same year. We have only just begun work on the actual application.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The integration work was focused on product intake in our facility—what was inbound, how it was processed, and the timely nature of how it was processed, the cycle time for all the different work-in-progress steps required, from receiving and registration, testing and wiping, to the equipment sale. All of these were touch points along the way, which had to be fully-integrated with the customer’s systems. All of this was tightly-managed and delivered by Praxent.

How did you come to work with Praxent?

We had already identified an outsourcing partner, and they had begun the process of engaging with the customer in the planning phase of the project. It was not meeting the expectations of my company nor our customer, so we started to look for someone who could step in and transition in a very seamless and non-transparent way for our customer. Praxent was recommended by common acquaintances. Austin is a fairly small technology community. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Praxent in May 2017, with the initial project lasting 3 months. However, the collaboration is ongoing. The result of our initial engagement led to a wide variety of increases in scope and to other work we have planned.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Praxent is performing a complete overhaul of our current on-demand tool and rebuilding the user interface from the ground up. Praxent is also moving the platform to AWS [Amazon Web Services] from a different web service provider. They added many new features built around the database.

It’s a marketing platform for our customers and the internal organization, including salespeople from our operating companies. During multiple workshops, we identified what we were looking for. We interviewed our customers and users.

Praxent is helping make the new frontend more intuitive and customer-friendly. For example, they put in a video that shows users how to build a menu. They can enter all of their recipes and menu items on the platform. 

The new platform also has customizable templates for background designs. For example, Mexican or Italian restaurants can select and customize one of our designs. They can also get matching marketing materials such as napkin dispensers and inserts that announce back-to-school specials and other events.

We’re also in the process of integrating a third-party print-on-demand service. Once that’s done, all of the marketing materials and menus can be automatically transferred to the printer, who will then ship them to customers. With Praxent’s help, we’re building and integrating these functionalities into a one-stop shop.

What is the team dynamic?

Praxent is working with our in-house IT on the integration and security points. Praxent is also collaborating with another external team, Slide UX. Praxent is in charge of development while Slide UX handles design.

How did you come to work with Praxent?

Slide UX recommended Praxent. Slide UX, in turn, was vetted by our internal organization. We made a background research on Praxent, as well as checking all of their references. After looking at internal and external partners, Praxent came to the top of the list.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Praxent in June 2016. The collaboration is ongoing. We continue to talk daily with their team. They’ve been a great partner, so they’re getting our business for the next fiscal year.