Recent economic conditions and pressure has made many businesses to re-think their priorities. In software development world it comes down to cost, time and functionality.

In ideal world all projects would have realistic deadlines, enough resources to do the entire features listed in the functionality requirement. However in the real world this is almost never happened. The real world demand compromises and faced with constant changes.

Diagram above illustrates “The Impossible Triangle” showing the relationship between Functionality, Cost and Time. As a software company we’re constantly under pressure to deliver project on time on-budget and fit for purpose but in reality it is nearly impossible to fix all three aspects in a project.

For illustration, it is possible to work on a fix amount of cost and fixed number of features & functionality  (assuming they are clearly defined) but time to complete the project will have to become variable. In many cases with the software development we don’t know the problem until we’re halfway down with the coding work.

On the other hand, it is possible to fix cost and having an exact date on project delivery but there will be some functionality trade-off.

In many cases, throwing additional resources in the mid-project is not as straightforward throwing more bricklayers to build a wall as illustrated by Dilbert:

In my opinion the role of Project Management in the software project are undervalued. A good software Project Manager is incredibly rare. It is disheartening to know that according to research by Dr John McManus, only one in eight IT projects can be considered as truly successful (1998-2005).

On the bright side, In the recent years we’ve seen the rise of Prototyping  and implementation of Agile methodologies, which in Claromentis we’re proudly adopting and continue to learn from mistakes and “Keep Moving Forward”.

Note: “Keep Moving Forward” is a tagline borrowed from Disney Pixars Movie – Meet the Robinsons. There is an interesting scene from the movie when the Robinsons family rejoices and celebrated “failures” more than “success”.

Intranet-Extranet, Services bespoke development, development vision, internal customer communications, software

It is a difficult concept to grasp for a non-technical person, yet without realizing it we’re been storing more data and ever in the cloud at work and at home. The big question is our data secure in the Cloud?

Google claims to have one of the largest and the most secure clouds in the entire industry, we do not often hear they’ve been hacked.

How does Google keep the data centers that comprise its cloud so safe and are they the gold standard in data protection?

Adam Swidler, senior manager for Google Enterprise, laid out how the company keeps its cloud safe at the Cloud Control Conference in Boston this week. The measures that Google goes through are quite thorough. For instance, no Google clients or federal regulators are allowed inside of Google’s data centers. When it comes to tough nuts to crack on the Internet, Google’s cloud is about as tough as it gets…. read more

In contrast relying your data entirely in the hand of mighty Google could have disastrous impact to your life. This is what happens exactly to someone’s google account. His 7 years digital life is now vanished and no one at Google can help him.

Something happened to Dylan’s Google account, and it’s been disabled. He doesn’t know what happened to the account, and no one at Google with the power to help him is interested in acknowledging the problem or letting him back in to the cloud-based services where all of his correspondence and much of the digital trail from the last few years of his life is stored. Google doesn’t own Twitter, though (yet), and he has taken to Twitter to try to draw attention to his problem and urge anyone who will listen not to trust Google with their digital lives. read more…

Another news, which shocked the IT world, recently happened in Australia when one of the largest hosting provider Distribute.IT was hacked and around 4800 sites are gone forever.

Maybe the solution is what the old saying that we should put all of our eggs in one basket. There is something comforting if you know exactly where your data is stored. Back in the old days to have our data stored in multiple locations just in case and always think of worse case scenario. Do you have good and bad experience with the cloud storage? Or you may have strong opinion about this topic please comments, we would like to hear from you.

Intranet-Extranet, Services cloud computing, development vision, Google, hosting, intranet software discussions, permissions, technology

Explore Fund is a global network created by The North Face with a mission to help kids discover nature’s playground.

It’s a global initiative by launching 7 sites in 7 countries simultaneously across Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK) and North America (Canada, US)

Their goal is to inspire and enable the next generation of explorers by funding non-profit organisations that are working to re-connect children with nature. We believe in the physical, emotional and social benefits of a healthy, active outdoor lifestyle, and that a strong connection with the outdoors will lead to greater support and protection of our natural landscapes.

The Explore Fund will support organisations that encourage youth outdoor participation, focusing primarily on creating more connections of children to nature, increasing access to both front & backcountry recreation, as well as providing education for both personal & environmental health.

Find out more from these sites below:

ExploreFund.eu (Europe)
ExploreFund.ca (Canada)
ExploreFund.org (USA)

Custom Development, Services bespoke development, Case Study, Design, environmental, Social Networking, web 2.0

You are probably familiar with 4Ds methodology frequently implemented in the web-design and web-development company.

Define, Design, Develop, Deploy

A classic waterfall approach which is very easy to understand but in practical this is hardly the ‘right’ process. The biggest drawback with the waterfall process is there is no room for changes and everything has to be perfect from the beginning to guarantee a project success, which is something that almost impossible to achieve in the real world.

The requirement is always ‘hazy’, it’s incredibly hard to visualize final product, there are too many factors to consider and business & technology and budget may change.

Familiar Project Cartoon

Image credit: projectcartoon.com

When it comes to the question “what is the right process?” we always get the lawyer answer, “it depends”.

A good project manager will realize that every project is different and need different methodology.  How about “Agile?” are they good?

The terms of “Agile Methodology” has been greatly abused and there are just too many different variations which sometime company adopting it for the sake of adopting it. “Yes we do Agile!”.

For us the ‘right methodology’ is an evolving process, we understand that we have to think from the customer point of view. We have to welcome changes!

“We shouldn’t put anyone to the dreadful task reading 200 pages of specification and hoping they can sign it off.

We have learned that we shouldn’t put anyone to the dreadful task reading 200 pages of specification and hoping they are having enough understanding to sign it off.  We all know pictures and models are better way to help us understand complex problem. We want the client involve in the process every step of the way, it is not just for us but good for them.  We want to put things into rigorous testing and not turning them into beta-tester. We want to make the entire process fun and constructive.

And we came up with this!

Custom Development, Intranet-Extranet agile, bespoke development, development vision, fun, humor, internal customer communications, software

“Some things are just better together”

For quite sometime now Claromentis supports Microsoft Active Directory and LDAP to provide seamless Single Sign On to the Intranet. With the rise of Google Apps for enterprises and many organisations are migrating to Google Apps, it is about time that we shake hands with Google.

How we did it?, We start by giving a technical team less than 2 days to complete the challenge and we are now proudly announce that we do have single-sign-on solution for Google Apps.

“it is about time that we shake hands with Google.”

Claromentis Intranet users will be able to connect their intranet account with Google Apps account and login seamlessly between two systems.  For instance, checking email in Google Mail, jump in to read News in the Intranet, navigate away to Google Docs to work on documents and back to check latest status updates in Claromentis with no login interruption.

For the external partners who aren’t part of Google Apps users can simply log-in as normal by using username and password.

It is a first step for more exciting future enhancements, we have start investigating how user details and group can be sync between two system and pushing and pulling information between Claromentis and Google.

We view this partnership with Google as a major step toward the future of enterprise software. Our vision is to build seamless integration of cloud services into your corporate Intranet, making it a truly central hub for information and apps!

Google Single-sign on will be available in Claromentis 6.2

Intranet-Extranet 6.2, Google, intranet development, online collaboration, technology, web 2.0

Bridgewater Bank is the only Canadian Chartered Bank with head office located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The bank is wholly owned by the Alberta Motor Association (AMA), the largest membership service organization in the province. With assets more than $3 billion, employing more than 215 employees and serving over 60,000 customers, Bridgewater Bank continues its expansion with wide-range of product service offering from Mortgages, High Interest Saving Account and Credit Cards.

Partnering with Claromentis since 2010 we’ve been working on the highly complex and sophisticated portal deployment for a banking industry, and we are delighted to see the project has been well received by the executives, staff, brokers and their customers.

“I went through the app from start to finish including saving and re-entering to edit. Very slick application and user friendly process. I like it., I want to thank you for the time and effort you put into this over the past week to get it done.”

Peter Flannigan │ Director, Customer Solutions

All Star Broker Portal

All Star Portal is the result of Bridgewater Bank’s commitment to their brokers and their business. Having visited several broker houses in Canada and understanding their day-to-day job provides tremendous insight of what they actually need, instead of just working of the requirement documents. The result is outstanding the broker loves it and the project has been a great success. Here are some of the key features:

• Secure and Robust Permission
• Ease of Access (any browsers, PC, Mac, Smart Phones, Tablet)
• Real-Time update
• Drag-and-drop secure document upload for mortgage application
• Automatic email notification
• Auto-sync with third party Mortgage system

Broker Information System

Broker Information System is the back-end of central database for Bridgewater Bank ‘s Brokers. We have done complete transformation on what it was difficult to use in-house software into an integrated web app with the portal itself.

Key Features:

• Broker’s profile database
• Broker-Sub Broker
• Ratings & Super Broker Concept
• Red Flag warning
• Commenting facility
• Integration with Google Map
• History
• Fully integrated with Broker Deal Management

New Website

We are also working with their team giving their tired public website a new live with complete redesign and implementing Claromentis CMS.

Smart Applications

For the ‘cherry on top’, we’ve created custom web-form allowing web visitor applying to their products such as Mortgage and Smart eSaving Account through the built-in easy to use web form

Features:

• Strong Field Validation
• Saving application to submit later
• Auto secure password generator
• Email Notification system
• Real time application status

At Claromentis we believe that user experience is paramount and cannot be compromised, however sophisticated the technology we always put human aspects behind it.

If you would like to know more about this project and find out more on how we can help you. please contact us.

Intranet-Extranet, Services, Solutions bank, bespoke development, Design, intranet consultancy, online collaboration, portal, user interface

We had a great visit from people behind The Bridges Center (Atlanta, GA).
They provide care and help for Georgia citizen who has problem with their relationship, career difficulties or parenting issue. Learn more about their work from thebridgescenter.com.

They spent 3 days with us in Brighton Office (UK), having training, workshops about what they can do with Claromentis. Check out their video…

Intranet-Extranet

One of the biggest riddle using Microsoft Projects is the confusion between Type : Fixed Work, Fixed Duration, Fixed Unit.

If you ask any hard-core Project Manager who uses Microsoft Project every day they will be able to explain it to you immediately but if you are newbie I can guarantee you will be still confused.

Here are some of the quotes I gathered from numerous forum & blog post:

Project.net

“When creating a task, you have the choice of fixed units, fixed duration or fixed work. Most use fixed work tasks, but what exactly do these terms mean? “

“In order to get my mind around it, I had to rewrite it in my own words and try to work out example cases for each type in order to try to understand it.”

TheDailyReviewer.com

“it is, I now a famously tricky concept to get hold of or to teach”

Tek-Tips.com

“I am confused about Task Types in project planning. I am using MS Project for a requirements project. Up till now we have not utilized any formal project structure to get this job done.”

Take a look at the option of adding a task in Microsoft Project there are 5 tabs and at least 30 options to choose from not to mentioned options within options.

It is a real issue, Microsoft Project is just too complex for most of the projects we’ve undertaken, yes it is a sophisticated tool but you probably need a week course before you can use it.

Recently I read about  “Designing the Obvious” by Robert Hoekman Jr. on my kindle and the principles in designing a software is the fact that the software must be able to

• help users to get started quickly
• hide advance & unnecessary features out of sight
• deliberately persuades users to take a specific action.

We are currently developing a web-based project application, powerful enough to manage complex project yet it must be easy enough to use.

Check out the video below showing how we’re planning to solve the same problem with a simpler solution.

Solutions Design, online collaboration, Prod-Project, user interface

Recently we’ve developed an attractive way to read a policy online. Some of the blog reader might be familiar with ‘Bookshelf’ one of application from Quality Management Product that allows you to create and publish policies & procedures online (as web pages).

Bookshelf user can now choose from standard available themes, read in full screen, changing font-size in real-time, ease of navigation.

Intranet-Extranet, Products Design, quality management software, user interface

Background

The United Bible Societies is a fellowship of 146 national Bible Societies (NBS).  This fellowship is served by the UBS Service Organisation (UBSSO) that operates from the World Service Centre in Reading, UK and has four area offices across the world.  From time to time the fellowship meets as a World Assembly.  At the last one of these in 2004, it was felt that it would be helpful to have a worldwide picture of the combined resources and work of the whole fellowship.  The Global Stewardship Report (GSR) was developed to meet this need.

Report History

A small trial of collecting the report data started in 2008, followed by the first full exercise in 2009, in which all Bible Societies were asked to participate. Almost all have now sent in their return.

Data collection was in an excel spreadsheet that could print on one A4 page. The form used is included as Appendix 1 and the accompanying notes to explain the data required are in Appendix 2.  Experience from the first round of collection is that not all Bible Societies read the notes carefully and that some information is still missing or obviously incorrect.

The Way Forward

Working together with UBS Service Organisation, Claromentis develop a bespoke Global Stewardship Web-Application within UBS Intranet/Extranet allowing member of the National Bible Societies to fill in the information online on the web.

Using a wizard-style approach, built-in checking, and dynamic currency conversion, users can simply guided through the forms, minimize mistakes and no training is required

All the details are kept in a secure central database from which, at any time, the most updated consolidated stewardship report can be easily be generated online and a hard copy can be printed from a print-friendly view of the report.

Solutions bespoke development, intranet 2.0, online collaboration, web 2.0