SolDevelo

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the IT System Architect of Swiss TPH (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute)

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Swiss TPH is a world-leading institute in global health with a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries, combining research, services, and education and training.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire SolDevelo to accomplish?

• Development of openIMIS platform
• Supporting developers and implementers of openIMIS platform
• Training developers of openIMIS platform

SOLUTION

How did you find SolDevelo?

Referral

Why did you select SolDevelo over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from SolDevelo were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

openIMIS is an open-source software platform designed to manage social health protection schemes, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Some of our work for openIMIS includes:

• Software Development: Developing new features, modules, and functionalities to enhance the capabilities of the openIMIS platform.
• Integration: Ensuring that openIMIS can be integrated with other health and financial systems, enhancing interoperability.
• User Interface and Experience: Improving the UI/UX of the platform to make it more user-friendly and intuitive.
• Testing and Quality Assurance: Ensuring the software is robust, bug-free, and meets the required quality standards.
• Capacity Building: Providing training and support to users and stakeholders to ensure effective utilization of the platform.
• Documentation: Creating comprehensive documentation to support the implementation, customization, and scaling of openIMIS.
• Community Engagement: Engaging with the openIMIS community to gather feedback, understand requirements, and drive the platform's future direction.
• Maintenance and Support: Offering ongoing support to address any issues, updates, or enhancements needed for the platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Here are some outcomes that reflect SolDevelo's progress or success:

• Feature Implementation: Number of new features or modules successfully developed and integrated into the openIMIS platform.
• Bug Reduction: A significant decrease in reported software bugs or issues post-SolDevelo's involvement, indicating improved software quality.
• User Feedback: Positive feedback and ratings from users regarding the platform's usability, functionality, and performance.
• Integration Capabilities: Number of successful integrations with other health and financial systems, showcasing enhanced interoperability.
• Training Sessions: Number of training sessions conducted and the number of individuals trained, indicating capacity-building efforts.
• Response Time: Reduction in average response time for addressing issues or queries, indicating improved support and maintenance.
• Platform Performance: Improvement in key performance indicators (KPIs) such as system uptime, load times, and transaction processing speeds.
• Scalability: Successful deployment of openIMIS in larger settings or more extensive networks without performance issues, demonstrating the platform's scalability.
• Security Enhancements: Number of security patches applied or vulnerabilities addressed, ensuring the platform's safety and data protection.
• Customization Requests: Successful completion of customization requests from different users or institutions, showcasing the platform's flexibility.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Our experience with SolDevelo's project management was positive. Their professionalism, commitment to timelines, and responsiveness to our needs made the collaboration productive and successful. Here are some aspects on their project management and collaboration:

• Planning and Organization: SolDevelo showcased a structured approach to project management. They began with a comprehensive project initiation phase, ensuring that all requirements were clearly understood and documented. We use Jira platform to track progress, allocate resources, and set milestones.
• Timely Deliveries: Throughout our collaboration, SolDevelo consistently delivered items on schedule. Their adherence to deadlines was commendable, ensuring that the project stayed on track and met predefined timelines.
• Responsiveness to Needs: SolDevelo's team was highly responsive to our needs. Whenever we had queries, concerns, or required changes, they were quick to respond and took proactive measures to address them. Their agile approach allowed for flexibility, ensuring that evolving requirements were seamlessly integrated into the development process.
• Communication: Regular communication was a hallmark of our collaboration. During daily standup meetings, SolDevelo ensured that we were kept informed about project updates, potential challenges, and solutions. Their transparent communication fostered trust and facilitated smooth project execution.
• Risk Management: SolDevelo demonstrated a proactive approach to risk management. They identified potential challenges early on and implemented mitigation strategies, ensuring that the project's momentum was maintained.
• Feedback and Iteration: The team was open to feedback and often sought our input at various stages. This iterative approach ensured that the final product was aligned with our expectations and requirements.

What was your primary form of communication with SolDevelo?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

SolDevelo's involvement in open-source projects, like openIMIS, showcases their commitment to creating solutions that have a broader impact, especially in sectors like healthcare in low- and middle-income countries. Their active participation in community projects and open-source initiatives indicates a dedication not just to business but also to the larger tech community.

Their use of agile methodologies in software development ensures that they can quickly adapt to changing requirements and deliver solutions in an iterative manner. While based in Poland, SolDevelo's impact and collaborations span globally, indicating their ability to work in diverse cultural and technical environments.

Are there any areas for improvement or something SolDevelo could have done differently?

An area for improvement is resource allocation. At times, we had challenges related to resource allocation and ensuring that the right expertise was available at crucial project phases.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the General Manager of Vitalliance, a Supply Chain services organization with multiple clients across Africa in the pharmaceutical healthcare space.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SolDevelo, and what were your goals?

SolDevelo are our trusted partner in providing customized development and maintenance of OpenLMIS, an Opensource logistics information management system. At this stage we have asked SolDevelo to ensure that the core solution is maintained and to bring in new developments from around the OpenLMIS community as well as develop some new functionality as requested by the community.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We have had a long working relationship with SolDevelo and they have grown with us and have invested resources in getting to know the solution and have successfully developed it into what it is today

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Design, develop and test new functionality for OpenLMIS and ensure that features developed by the community are incorporated and made available in the new releases. Also engage with the partners and the end users to support where required

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

A team of 6 to 10 people depending on the size of the need over time

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

On time delivery and high level of quality. Very few come backs of the developed completed. Excellent communication and project management.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Very friendly engagements. Team are very fluent in English and are punctual, precise and professional in all their engagements. Time commitments are closely managed and kept as far as it is dependent on them

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They are agile and can respond very quickly to a myriad of different requirements. They have many different experts to develop and support the various requirements we have.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

They have ticked most boxes. Potentially being more proactive on new development opportunities could be helpful.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the associate director of technology at Digital Impact Alliance, an organization hosted by the UN Foundation, designed to support governments, nonprofit organizations, and NGOs in deploying digital technologies to achieve the UN’s sustainable development goals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SolDevelo?

Our company has a platform called the Catalog of Digital Solutions. This custom web application was developed a couple of years ago by another development team, and back then, we designed a roadmap of what needed to be completed by 2022. We needed a service provider that could work with us on developing new functionalities in our web app to support the delivery of some new features.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We self-host the web app, and SolDevelo developed the new features using Ruby on Rails on the backend and Reach and Next.js for the frontend. Additionally, they maintained and updated our backlog, ensuring our sprints were captured properly on Jira and that our processes were followed.

Our web app was designed to aggregate information from a wide range of sources, scrape web content, and read data from several partner organizations. This function collects information about software tools and technologies that can help address the UN’s sustainable development goals. The platform gives users a comprehensive view of relevant or useful software to address health, education, and agricultural issues.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two backend software engineers and three frontend engineers from SolDevelo. We also worked closely with their CEO. Additionally, they brought in two part-time developers.

How did you come to work with SolDevelo?

An employee who had already worked with SolDevelo recommended them. We held a long RFP process, and different vendors applied to it. After an interview and selection process, we ended up choosing SolDevelo. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested $180,000 with SolDevelo.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from March–December 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When we first developed the web app, we designed a roadmap; this helped us track SolDevelo’s progress. We outlined all the new features we needed to develop throughout the year, and SolDevelo delivered all of those key features according to plan. 

How did SolDevelo perform from a project management standpoint?

SolDevelo got familiarized and started contributing to the coding really quickly. We gave them a straightforward initial task to get them familiarized with the code, and they started delivering functionality almost immediately. Our cadence ramped up, and SolDevelo could grasp, define, and provide recommendations about the work needed.

They stayed on track with our roadmap throughout the year, which was impressive and rare. We used Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Slack for meetings and Jira for everyday communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was struck by how efficiently SolDevelo accomplished all the goals we set for the year. Other vendors we talked to would provide 2–3 developers, whereas SolDevelo provided a complete team of software developers. This offloaded work from me and was really helpful for the project’s management.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I only have positive things to say about SolDevelo. I can’t think of anything for them to improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d encourage customers to lean into the enabling team SolDevelo provides and let them manage or improve their software development processes because they’re really good with that. They have a lot of experience with sprints and Jira.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Partners in Health is a non-profit focused on providing high-quality health care to patients in low-resource settings. I am the product owner for their in-house logistic management information system (LMIS), OpenBoxes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SolDevelo, and what were your goals?

Partners in Health hired SolDevelo to complete a new version of our legacy LMIS system, OpenBoxes. This included a revamp of the UI and several additional features. The goal was to deploy the new version to country sites, with a new product master structure, by 2019.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We found SolDevelo through the OpenMRS community. They had good recommendations from parts working on Open Source software.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

SolDevelo initially helped PIH rebuild the front end of our LMIS in React. Over time their developers have become experts in most aspects of the application. They are currently supporting migration to a new version of grails, and have brought in a UX consultant to increase ease of use of the software.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

SolDevelo provided a team of 3 developers, a PM, and one QA who worked with the supervision of the OpenBoxes product owner and lead developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The new version was delivered on time, and feedback from clients was positive. We were able to deploy to multiple countries in 2019. We chose to keep the SolDevelo team on to continue work on the software.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

SolDevelo project management style has become much more hands on over time. They are proactive about managing performance and suggesting improvements to our workflow. They have helped us refine our use of the agile process to make it work even better for our team.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Low turnover and committed employees! Our program manager, QA, and lead developer have all been with us for the past 4 years, which is unusual in tech. The team is very invested in the software solution and the mission of the organization.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

It took some time in the beginning to onboard the new developers, but that was partly due to issues with our documentation and onboarding process. SolDevelo has actually helped us improve those things over time, and the onboarding for the most recent new developers went very smoothly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

VillageReach is a non-profit organization which seeks to improve access to healthcare amongst the world’s most remote and underserved populations. We create and rely on software and other technology to achieve this goal. I am a software developer and project manager privileged to be part of the effort.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SolDevelo, and what were your goals?

Developing countries need an affordable way to manage their inventory and distribution of healthcare commodities. Without insight into what’s in stock, an easy way of reordering items from their appropriate sources, and a sensible way of determining how to allocate stock amongst competing regions, countries can’t properly manage vaccines and other healthcare commodities to ensure they’re available to their citizenship. Because every country has a its own bureaucratic structure and unique needs, any globally useful software solution has to be extremely configurable.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We hired a well-known and expensive American-based technical consulting firm to create the software. The results were dismayingly poor: they simply weren’t up to the task. Their craftsmanship was clearly shoddy, they left no useful documentation, and we ended up discarding everything they provided. Although we learned from the experience that relying on internal and therefore trustworthy developers may be better, we had neither the budget nor desire to create a large internal team. Instead, we turned to Soldevelo for staff augmentation.

A very small set of internal developers worked with Soldevelo’s much larger team to ensure that the software they created met both our technical and business requirements, as well as quality standards. We provided direction and oversight, and Soldevelo admirably performed the work. Overtime, we had to provide much less oversight and, today, have come to trust Soldevelo as a full-service consultant rather than merely source for staff augmentation.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Soldevelo created and continues to develop open-source software called OpenLMIS. Additionally, they customize, host, and support individual versions of it for various countries reliant on the software. They provide project managers, DevOps engineers, software developers, and the QA personnel necessary for all of these parallel projects. The core software was and continues to be developed iteratively with two-week sprints over the course of many years.

Meanwhile, the country support contracts typically span a year at a time and have well defined SLAs. Soldevelo has consistently done a good job meeting them, and we’ve thus consistently been able to renew each country’s annual development, support, and hosting contract.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Over the past several years, we’ve worked with about 30 people within Soldevelo. Approximately 80 – 90 percent of them have been software developers, with the rest being project managers, DevOps engineers, and QA personnel.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Soldevelo has a long history of delivering new software functionality on time, meeting uptime requirements for the versions of it they host, and of achieving SLAs for helpdesk tickets they field.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Soldevelo has grown their project management capacity over the past several years, and it is quite good. We meet regularly and use Slack, Jira, and Confluence to communicate. Soldevelo’s project managers are proactive, responsive, and highly effective.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Soldevelo has done a really nice job of meeting our variable and growing needs over the past several years. We started by asking primarily for staff augmentation, and they gave us great developers and QA professionals. We gradually progressed to relying on their project-managers to simultaneously juggle the various development and support projects we simultaneously have with them. Soldevelo nicely stepped into this role too, demonstrating that we can trust them to handle everything we throw their way – whatever our needs.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

As a slightly smaller company, it’s understandable if Soldevelo can’t support many idle developers on the bench. This means they may not always have developers immediately available to devote to our projects. Although this can be a disappointing, Soldevelo is honest about their capacity and what they can and cannot deliver.

BACKGROUND

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

• Techical Advisor
• Implementation
• Technical Support

SOLUTION

• Online Search
• Referral
• Other

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

BACKGROUND

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

• Develop two eLMIS V3 requirements – Monthly TB form and automatic bottom-up quantification.

SOLUTION

• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

1. Gather necessary requirements and develop the Monthly TB Form and Automated Bottom-Up Quantification feature. In development of both features, SolDevelo will involve technical experts to provide guidance and reviews to make sure that the highest code standards are provided.
2. Provide regular showcases to present progress on developed features and provide bi-weekly reports on the development status.
3. For each task, prepare acceptance criteria based on the confirmed requirements to assure common understanding and formalize and align the expectations about the finished product. 
4. Conduct functional, regression, as well as API testing, performance, compatibility testing, to name a few.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App