I am very pleased to say that Claromentis has received ISO9001 accreditation for Quality Management.

This includes the audit of our bespoke and core code processes, which are end to end from specifications to sign off.

It ensures that we :

• Have a set of procedures that cover all key processes in the business;
• Are monitoring processes to ensure they are effective;
• Keep adequate records;
• Are always  checking our code for defects, with appropriate and corrective action where necessary;
• Are regularly reviewing individual processes and the quality system itself for effectiveness; and
• Are facilitating continual improvement.

Thanks to everyone for your help with the work we put in over the last 6 months to gain this important certification.
]]> http://www.claromentis.com/blog/claromentis-receives-iso9001-accreditation_245/feed/ http://www.claromentis.com/blog/the-importance-of-setting-expectations_237/ http://www.claromentis.com/blog/the-importance-of-setting-expectations_237/#comments Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:16:21 +0000 Emrah Omuris http://www.claromentis.com/blog/?p=237

Exceeding client expectations is one of the major key parts for sustainable success, specially during times of economic downturn.

As an interface developer working for one of the best corporate intranet software providers, I need to make sure that a client is satisfied when it comes to their expectations - whereas the client needs to make sure that the software provider is delivering results on time, to specifications, correctly and efficiently.

A comprehensive intranet solution like Claromentis has so many different aspects. For a client, they receive one piece of a software suite and most, if not all, that matters to them is whether it works or not.

Although the other side of the story is complex - in essence the sales process has set expectations, and I need to deliver against them. To help me I have mentors of course, and developers - but to be honest coding intranet interfaces from approved designs is a job I can normally just get on with. So how can I make sure that I exceed customer expectations..? A lot needs to take place before I code a single line ..

• Marketing: Make sure that the product is described accurately, and is the current release not vapor ware - a potential source of miss-matched expectations, in my experience.
• Quotation: Understand the client expectations, analyze the work involved and quote correctly. Try to get technical Claromentis input here!
• Review: Review the response from the client to the quotation. If positive but we need something else, plan any future requirements for delivery of the product and allocate to a release schedule.
• Design and develop: Here I go - create the interface based on client’s requirements.
• Custom development: Develop the custom functionality if required and embed into the product. A  review process takes place here, with client staff, development and myself. We involve the account manager wherever possible.
• Configure: Set the product for review on a staging server and make sure it is working to final specifications.
• Support: Assist the client on solving complex intranet software issues.

The important part here is setting the expectations of… both sides actually. It is important to assure the client that they will get the software as promised whereas our staff should have enough material to  deliver what is required - and not something else entirely!

It is fun though - getting it right takes talent and a lot of creativity… but we do create some great designs for information management in a VI!

For those of you that don’t already know, LAMP is an acronym for Linux - Apache – MySQL - PHP. It’s a collection of software that can be used to run servers and dynamic websites. It’s one of the most popular alternatives to Microsoft, and according to statistics provided by netcraft.com not only is Apache holding around 60% market share in the delivery/presentation of websites, but it’s thriving on the open source platforms and continuing to grow and compete (successfully) against Microsoft. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that any piece of software that can even compete (let alone lead) in its market against a super company like Microsoft has to have something special about it. Well, it’s no secret why the LAMP solution is so popular, it just works, it works well, it’s reliable, it’s robust, it’s resilient, and it’s free.

Without going into all of the nitty-gritty debates about why you should and shouldn’t base a corporate solution on an open source platform (there are enough of these debates on the Internet already), it’s not hard to realize why Claromentis run all of their development on the LAMP platform. The LAMP platform allows the development team to manage all aspects of their programming environment without relying on Microsoft to ensure the stability of that environment. Depending on who you talk to, avoiding Microsoft can be complete suicide, or a dream come true. Personally, I’m a believer in the statistics, and if 60% of the websites are running on Apache, my money is on that platform to deliver the best of everything. And I’ve never met a PHP developer who programs on anything else.

However, Claromentis doesn’t believe in limitations, so we let you decide which platform you wish to run the applications on. The Claromentis framework is compatible with LAMP, Windows, and ORACLE, so it works the way you do, integrating easily with your existing IT infrastructure.

For more information about Claromentis and the platforms it can run on, please contact sales@claromentis.com or call us on 01273 666 355

But the use of plugins doesn’t just stop there…

When you think about integrating the InfoCapture Application with another (or several) of the other applications within the Claromentis Framework, plug-ins step into a whole new league .

The InfoCapture Application can already integrate easily with Claromentis Sales Manager, to embed e-forms within pages about each company (to work in conjunction with Contact and Opportunity management), but combine that with InfoCapture plug-ins, and not only are you extending in the CRM system by intergrating with Infocapture, but you have the ability to extend it even further with the use of plug-ins.

I should also not fail to mention that InfoCapture and the Claromentis Document Manager application are also close friends, with linking to documents available within e-forms as standard(while still applying the correct document permissions!).

So where else can this go…

InfoCapture has envolved over the years to become such an adaptable data collection application, it could sit comfortably with so many of the Claromentis Applications.

You could use InfoCapture with other applications such as…

• Creating Special Calendar Events (Calendar)
• Booking meeting rooms (Room Booking)
• Booking holidays (Holiday Planner)
• Managing your email (Webmail)
• Managing your un-qualified sales leads (CRM)

The list could go on….

Imagine combining the Claromentis Project Manager Application with InfoCapture, and using plug-ins to extend the capabilities of them both.

The effectiveness of easily customizable and incredibly powerful e-forms solution combined with a project management application is a sure guarantee to gaining a decent ROI.  How many other project management applications allow such flexibility and extendability with the aid of an application like Claromentis InfoCapture and plug-ins?

So I ask the question again… how powerful are InfoCapute plug-ins??

And the answer appears to be… incredibly so….

Today, almost all content management solutions offer you a WYSIWYG text based content editor, which means what you create on the editor section is what you will see on the actual page. Cool, but nothing special!

What makes Claromentis special is the way it interacts with your content. Let me explain you a bit further:

In Claromentis, it is possible to create templates and define editable areas. Let’s say you have a page which contains 3 sections; one for the menu, one for the main content and one for the links of websites you visit frequently. I also presume that you would like to have some images within your main content section.

With Claromentis easy-to-use content management software, you define the areas above and their field type. For consistency purposes, you wouldn’t want your intranet and/or users to change the overall look and feel of your template, so you wouldn’t want them to change the main title font size or colour. So you can define the header section of your main content area as ’string’, which means your users will only be able to change the content of the header section but not its styling.

You have your template ready and its sections defined. The next step is populating the actual content. How would you do this? Simple. Just look at the following picture and you will get the idea:

Easy to use content management solution

It is also possible to create areas within your template which are not editable by users. This could be a company slogan or a footer area which contains company address information.

Customizable Intranet Software: Works the way you do…

But as soon as you add e-forms – to enable paper based processes to go online – the possibility misunderstandings and the need for patient listening and careful explanations becomes much more acute.

It just seems that there is so much potential for a natural disconnect. Customers might be under the perception that :

* Forms are documents
* E-forms are just like web forms
* All paper based processes should be automated instead of those that deliver value if they are moved online.

None of these are true.

Fortunately we have the staff to listen, to be advocates, and to explain what we can deliver.

The software will help them launch and control form based processes and workflows, not just on their internal intranet but also when interacting with the general public in the UK.

Department of Communities and Local Government

The project will start during November.

The exciting parallel development is that we are scheduling long term visits from our core outsourced team into our UK team as well. This will produce a healthy cross fertilization of best practices and closer cooperation, with the UK team also helping with tighter core product specifications to go back to the core team.

At the same time we are decoupling some of our core intranet applications to allow them to be developed more rapidly than the 3 or 4 releases per year of Claromentis core code. At least one of these applications, Sales Manager, will be taken over by UK developers to increase the efficiency of customer feedback for this important application.

While this is all great – I would be really interested in hearing from anyone who has been through a similar process of combining in house developers with offshore development of complex products.

Pudsey traveled a total of around 450 miles on his trip to Brighton, and was reported to be suffering from tiredness at the end of it all.

Pudsey Bear said “It was a long trip, but I’m glad I took it.  The Claromentis Intranet Software is a great application framework and I’m pleased I was given the chance to see where it comes from.  I’m really tired after the trip, but to watch the sun going down over the South Coast was an amazing experience and I’m glad I did it”.

Claromentis looks forward to Pudsey returning again sometime in the near future.

Pudsey Visits Brighton

Although this is exciting - new applications get us to new markets and are great fun for us all -I am reminded that some progress is incremental, and benefits from our continual flow of customer enhancement requests.

A case in point today - I was reviewing Claromentis 5.5 and saw the latest format of the notifications that are sent when information has changed that is relevant to the recipient.

Now I can see in the notification itself, sent to my email, exactly what has changed, what the version is, and one click to review the actual information - the application file or any other object. In previous versions this worked, but was not so elegant or convenient.

Intranet Notifications

These kind of incremental improvements do not get shouted from the rooftops, but collectively make a significant difference to our intranet software suite and we do indeed recognize their importance!

1. The corporate talking head. This is common in certain more corporate Marcoms solutions - where departments see these are a way to get the management story across in a more friendly way.

2. Training videos. We have manufacturing customers that use videos to show agents and distributors how to perform various hardware tasks - highly effective. Pictures here really do speak a thousand words. Especially if the audience is not always English speaking.

3. Software training - short animations of people using the software demonstrate how to perform various tasks. Becoming easy to produce and very low cost.

There are some problems, in my opinion, with use of videos on corporate intranets.

For example a user will get very irritated once they have seen any talking head animation more than once. So the idea of promoting a departmental home page using a manager discussing the departments goals and contributions is fine – providing it does not play unless I click on it. Before it plays – I should see something else in its place. In general this is a good example of where the phase 1 system might need replacing with phase 1.1 very soon after launch!

In general this idea of “information before I play it” can be extended – it is much better to have a gateway page describing and cataloging videos on the intranet – preferably using universal metadata as used in Claromentis to optimize relevancy and speed of searching – so that a user is well informed before they select a video to watch – rather than surprising them with possibly irrelevant animations on an otherwise useful resource.

Similarly make sure the files are optimized and delivered for fast access. In fact – some useful media files need no image at all – for example on people profiles why not have an audio clip from the user about their interests and current activities – or perhaps in global corporations have an audio file of how to properly pronounce their name. Effective, personal and simple.

In summary I was commenting that clients often don’t give nearly enough emphasis to the effort involved in actually creating content - deciding the appropriate delivery mechanism for each type of content - and to getting that content moved across to the new solution.

It is as if there was some kind of time lag - they seem concerned whether intranet vendors like Claromentis have some technical feature, whereas it is almost always the case that not only do we have it, we now have multiple solutions  for the same requirement – and the client needs to invest time in deciding which one to use for each business need.

We now offer a service to actually migrate intranet information to the new Intranet solution – Claromentis – and we should encourage all new clients to consider this service to maximize their intranet projects chance of success. The solution we offer provides business consultancy, technical delivery, content migration and documentation to ensure intranet projects have the maximum chance of achieving the desired return on investment – in an acceptable time frame.

But at the end of the day we sometimes don’t pay quite enough attention to the individual employees of the client that have a role to play – as a general advocate – or as departmental editor/content generator.

At a personal level these people need to be engaged with, planned for, mentored, coached and trained. They need to have what to us are relatively basic concepts – like permission dialog boxes – demonstrated and explained until they are very comfortable. When that is achieved they are more than capable of pushing their department forwards.

Sometimes, on both sides – the intranet software supplier and the client – the individuals a level below true system administrators, but those who really understand what is important to make a departmental area more efficient – get poor attention in our shared excitement to deliver against client management goals. But these are the foot soldiers that make things happen in intranet projects, and we should recognise that and encourage their informed participation.

They really resent their current intranet supplier, to the extent that they are seeking approval to move to a new intranet technology partner in the next budget cycle.

This is despite the fact that they have many thousands of pages and files to move across - they still feel that the account management approach, and indeed the software functionality with the existing supplier has just broken down so far as to be impossible to continue.

It is so hard for new clients in this situation – to be reassured the new relationship with Claromentis will be better, and that the information migration will be dealt with. As our technology increases so very fast, it is no longer about what we can do – but how can we do it? How can we prove that we are  the best intranet supplier to work with ?

Well – it is fun trying!  Because we honestly have the aspiration to be the best intranet supplier around. But I can understand this companies fear completely – it is the natural worry that they will move ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’.

To help customers in this situation we now offer an intranet content migration service, which takes place as soon as the proof of concept is signed off and delivers all the deep structure, menus, content, document sand interfaces needed – before the upgrade to the full commercial license.

So I set up a small rule for myself. Sort by subject, and if there are any attachments, delete everything by the latest one, that way, hopefully I would end up with the “latest” version…

It never ceased to surprise me how large companies (and my client is one of the largest blue chips in the world) still do not take advantage of Document Management software or Online Collaboration tools. The irony is that these companies bought various tools and software, however they are disparate, IT driven, too complicated to setup, and ended up not being used. And people end up with the frustration of losing files, version confusion, same document duplicated all over the network, and full mailboxes..

The approach we use in delivering intranet training on these longer visits is becoming standard in the sense that we now completely prioritize a generous amount of flexible agenda. We do this for two main reasons:

1.    We know the staff will be under pressure to deliver their real work while also attending the training.

2.    We know individuals will react to the system at certain times with a real sense of the potential for their role or department – and we need to be able to explore that properly to make sure the business value is identified, and training time is allocated on the fly to make sure the project can react.

But in addition – we frankly know from experience that the first time you go from a proof of concept to a full training workshop we will meet a whole new set of interests and challenges that the initial client specifications did not cover – and we need to reserve time to make sure we can respond.

Overly detailed planning of our intranet training agenda would just prohibit the exploration of these very important aspects which often contain true insights on where the value is for the real users.

They stock everything you need to get the CVS back on track

CVS = Concurrent Versions System - it’s the platform that we manage our core developement on

In contrast, a relatively modest investment in the Integrated Claromentis Intranet Platform ensures that disparate business information is stored in a single integrated and extendable data model, which allows common data to be shared by various applications. On top of that, additional bespoke applications to provide specific business need can be built within the same model to ensure a coherent business focus application environment.

This includes :

• Document management
• Java based fast searching for large data volumes
• Web based project management
• Document commenting
• Extranet access for construction partners
• Web based project management including Gantt charts

This solution is fully available on Linux and Windows.

Babcock Case Study

With a client list including the Ministry of Defence and local authorities as well as major private sector companies, Babcock Infrastructure Services (BIS) manages over 15,000 properties across the United Kingdom. Part of Babcock International Group PLC, the Company services nationwide contracts both directly and through subsidiary joint ventures Debut Services (South West) Ltd, Babcock DynCorp Ltd, and mouchelbabcock education.

Reed the full version of Babcock Case Study.