Trigent

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

There were no instances of our servers going down during our tests with Trigent, or in a real environment. Ever since we started our work with Trigent, there were no cases of downtime during registrations.

How did Trigent Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We've primarily worked with one person from Trigent, and kept in touch through Skype calls, both before and during testing. He will let us know what information is showing up on their systems, and what their tools are doing, while we provide information on CPU usage, and whatever else is measured when servers are under load. We've always had a positive experience working with Trigent.

We don't have much to share regarding documents. We simply provide the link to our registration site, and a Trigent's technician will go through our 50-60-question application form, creating an Excel of that data, and sending it back to us to make sure that it matches what would come from real registrants. At the end of the engagement, we will receive a report of the results, as well as the script.

Trigent has been very flexible regarding hours, always working within Boston time.

What did you find most impressive about Trigent Software?

Trigent has been very easy to work with, accommodating, and knowledgeable. We've only used them for load testing but, for our purposes, Trigent has been very helpful.

Are there any areas Trigent Software could improve?

Trigent's tool couldn't handle HTTPS on our last testing run, so we had to turn off our secure protocol, and switch to HTTP. We plan to figure out a way for Trigent to test HTTPS in the future.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I can tell you that from a customer perspective of Trigent, we're pleased in terms of the quality of the software. They use a scale called the CMMI [capability maturity model integration] scale, and it's a real indication of the quality of the software vendor and the processes that they follow before they deliver their software. Trigent has been consistently high on the CMMI scale, so we're very pleased in terms of the quality that we get from them in relation to the cost.

Trigent has both an onshore United States presence and an offshore presence in India, and so we can leverage a lower cost resource to do some of the more repetitive support-type functions. They do develop software offshore as well.

How did Trigent perform from a project management standpoint?

It's a joint effort. They've typically provided a project manager. Navistar has to provide a project manager as well. Trigent uses their project manager to make sure that they're on track and delivering to the statement of work, and then Navistar uses its project manager to make sure we coordinate properly with any interfaces we need to provide. Navistar is accountable for final testing and signoff for the delivery of the software and the implementation on our production servers.

We're using what's called an agile method of development, and that allows them to deliver incremental deliveries via sprints. They space out a series of sprints during the course of the project, and they do pretty well in terms of the delivering to the sprints.

What distinguishes Trigent from other providers?

Their ability to leverage onshore and offshore resources and keep the cost reasonable is distinguishing. They do deliver a quality product to us. They do have a real knack for listening, understanding, and breaking down a complex problem and coming up with solutions for that problem. We always get Trigent involved if we're struggling with understanding a problem and coming up with solutions because they have a real good knack for identifying a solution.

Is there anything Trigent could have improved or done differently?

There are some cases where they may miss a requirement. Through the years, some of the requirements we ask for get a little bit lost or skewed in translation when we give them to the U.S. Trigent president expecting them to be sent to their offshore developers. We've found that when we actually sent somebody from Navistar to India to work with the team, it helps to bridge a communication gap and make sure that the folks sitting in India understand the requirements.

Could you share any statistics, metrics or other feedback from this engagement?

Some of our projects have gone over their original estimates, in part because getting an accurate scope from our internal staff is sometimes quite difficult. We often work with higher-level people in our company. They want a magic button that will solve a problem when pushed.

Once specific example of this is a job costing application through which we monthly collect the actual costs and hours for specific jobs. Through it, we can see what our profit is for any job. That process involved capturing information on the different components of the layout and plate making for the presses, printing time, assembly time and costs for ink and paper. All of those factors have their costs; collecting this from the various tracking systems, inputting this information on a monthly basis for different jobs and calculating the output would have taken our controller a couple of days of work.

The vice president of finance wanted a solution that would automatically input that information for her. We went a step further: because so much of this information comes from different systems which were access-based, we already had databases for how many plates are produced for a job and an accounts database that tracks the amount of time necessary for a job by either days or shifts. We also had someone who could produce reports for ink and paper, so we actually expanded the scope of the request, from simply doing an input to collecting the information from different resources and putting together a review sheet which can be examined by a controller who can then determine if something is out of order.

If someone made a mistake in keying something, it would show up. Our vice president can look at this data and, when she’s happy with what the report is showing, she can choose to import the information and send it to the job costing in-post. If the data inputs come out clean the first time, the whole process will only take 45 minutes, instead of a day and a half.

How did Trigent perform from a project management standpoint?

Trigent’s team generally delivered projects on time and within budget. On our part, any development project will greatly depend on how accurate the instructions are from our customers and how well we understand the data. If we’re given a vague description, we will have to work with Trigent in order to refine the scope until the solution performs as it should.

For example, we’re now working on a functionality which will give us the ability to have period reports, rather than single-job ones for postage and mail efficiencies. Identifying the categories for mailing, as well as how postage is applied—it differs based on the weight of a piece, discounts and so on—involved collecting figures from three or four different records, rather than a single one for all different pieces. We have been working on this for a couple of weeks. Today the programmer who has been specifically working on that project nailed it. We are down to 10 million total pieces in one mailing report, with tenths of a cent difference between the projected report and the actual data.

We use Basecamp for project tracking. We can post example files, spreadsheets, and run discussions. Despite the time differential, Trigent is very good at working with us. They sent a project manager from India to our company for two days at the end of April 2016 in order for him to work with us, see all the processes, the printing, binding and everything else. He acquired a real understanding of what our processes were actually about, rather than only having an abstract view from discussions and data. This made a good impression on the staff here. We could show him what each member’s role was and their importance within the company.

We have standup calls at seven a.m. every day. We can see the work being done and discuss it using Basecamp. It’s a very good collaboration. When something is nailed down in terms of what needs to be done by Trigent, they generally beat their assigned deadlines. I have a dedicated project manager who keeps things in focus and a very good team of programmers with whom I can communicate well. We schedule and manage the development process effectively. Any time a deadline is not met, it will be because I haven’t given Trigent the information they need to accomplish the work. Trigent’s own process is excellent. 

What distinguishes Trigent from other providers?

I have not worked with many companies in terms of development, but I have worked with vendors for support, product implementation and so on. I would put Trigent within the top one or two percent of all software companies I’ve worked with for support, overall responsiveness and quality of work.

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