I was looking at our own Claromentis Intranet home page ( we call ours Atlas ) and I was reminded how much useful functionality, providing real benefits, you can get from just a few inches of space. Here is a screenshot of just the top right corner of our current home page for Atlas :

Atlas Intranet - Home Page

My second thought was how much of that came from new suggestions from our own customer base.

In this case 3 out of the 4 have been provided as components resulting directly from customer feedback or live project requests. Now all of our customers – as well as ourselves –  can use these intranet components, and many other examples.

1)    A simple task manager – we developed this on the suggestion of one of our intranet customers. It is a highly effective simple task manager, which allows groups of users to share collaborative tasks and be reminded in their inbox – in this case on our home page – that they have tasks allocated to them, and what their current status is.

2)    News – these permission based news channels have long been a requirement.­

3)    Who’s in and who’s out. A simple application to dynamically let everyone know who is out today. It has been a pleasure to develop this – it runs directly from our intranet vacation planner. It even has a sense of humor – ‘everyone’s in – but it’s a Saturday!’

4)    Posting directly to Corporate Social Media – our new Innovate application for sharing status and ideas. This is a hugely popular application – allowing permission based discussion streams, follows, likes, replies and referencing anything in the intranet – so users for example can discuss a particular project task or document.

My final thought was that 3 of these applications did not even exist a few months ago, showing the accelerating pace with which Claromentis is developing. This is  thanks not just to our own developers and designers but to the growing customer base that provides continuous feedback and requests as they implement against their own particular requirements.

Custom Development, Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Intranet, Products, The Framework Intranet Components, intranet software

Great to start using Innovate!

As the screenshot shows you can now micro blog and follow users in your own personal channel from right within your corporate intranet – referencing files, documents, links to anything inside or outside the intranet.

Innovate in your intranet!

This is a great product for some companies that are prepared to open up this application to certain types of users to encourage innovation.

One great aspect is that using the interface engine you can enable innovate to exactly the kinds of users you want to based on any combination of individual users, groups, roles or extranet areas for suppliers or customers – but you can leave other users with a more Intranet 1.0 experience – all within exactly the same system.

Companies can also have as many channels as they need – again on a permission basis, so that the right users will be encouraged to communicate with each other and share best practice in their open areas of expertise.

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Intranet, Products innovate, intranet software

Invoicing is a critical component for any organisation, but in some cases, traditional financial packages don’t work in the way that is best for the business.

Take for example a business where anyone in the organisation can create a quote or invoice. Currently, this would have to be sent to the finance people (remember only a few people have access to an organisations finance package) which can often take time and lead to simple discrepancies.

Using our InfoCapture module, we have built an invoicing system that makes it simple for any user (with correct permissions of course) to create an invoice. While we do not pretend it is a full blown financial package, it does do all the basics very well.

Combine this with all the existing power  of InfoCapture (ie an intelligent workflow engine, advanced permissions, auditing and history tracking etc) and the ability to link in with the Claromentis CRM and Document Management modules, the new Claromentis invoice system is yet another great use for any size organisation.

Custom Development, Products, Solutions

As I mentioned in my last post we are frequently asked to compare the cost of deployment of a range of our software in perpetual license models and Software as a Service.

So I went back over a number of recent quotations for projects we have been involved in around the world, and here is the comparison based on medium size deployments – looking at total costs to date for years 1, 2 and 3.

Comparison of SaaS and Perpetual deployment costs over 1-3 years

Unsurprisingly in year 1 – and I included all services as supplied in both sets of figures – Perpetual is significntly more expensive. After all the customer is paying for perpetual licenses of the software.

However after 2 years the situation is almost equal, and by the end of year 3 the SaaS model is significantly more expensive.

I these figures the cost of hardware IT skills are not at all factored back into the equation – and since when we deploy SaaS solutions we are of course supplying both cloud based infrastructure and all the IT support – it is hardly surprising that after some time the total cost of SaaS does overtake the perpetual license model.

It is also reasonable to argue that the complete flexibility, stop at any time, scale up and down side of SaaS should come at a price. Nevertheless we see a rapidly growing percentage of our new clients opting for SaaS solutions, and we do understand why.

Our job is to offer our customers choice, advice and pricing transparency to help them make the decision in an informed way.

I hope that sharing these general figures over time is of interest!

Intranet-Extranet, Products cost, perpetual, SAAS, software

I am often asked by potential clients to provide information on how project funds can realistically be allocated across the spectrum of software licenses, services, support and custom design and development.

I think one of the best ways to think about this is to take an example small project and a very large one. So I did this for two recent projects – one a very standard example of a standard Claromentis Intranet product led engagement with a UK company of less than 50 staff, the other a recent deployment in the United States for an unlimited user system with a very significant custom development to provide specific sales related functionality, integration with third party systems and reporting through an Extranet.

Small Project Analysis

What we see with this project is that

• There are only 3 areas of spending – Software, Services and Support
• Software is 75% of the project spend
• Services and Support equally share the remaining 25%

Large Project Analysis

Large Project Financial Analysis

By contrast a large project has significant spending on Development and Design, as well as international travel and general expenses.

• Software licenses are one third of the spend
• Development and design are equal, totaling half of the project

Clearly these are just two examples, but comparing these to our license records for many projects does show that simple projects have a larger proportion of costs related to software licenses, and adding 25% for support and services give a good approximation to the total budget.

However when estimating budgets for larger deployments with more complex and custom requirements half of the project costs are concerned with the delivery of the custom functionality.

In my next post I will be comparing the customer costs for deploying intranets and custom frameworks through our cloud based SAAS offering, compared with a perpetual license model. I will be comparing these costs over a 2 year period.

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A short summary of our products in the Intranet, Business Process, Quality management and Document Management space – and the fact that customers are increasingly selecting more than one product line to create an embracing web platform for their businesses.

All comments welcome!

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Content, Prod-Document, Prod-Intranet, Prod-Process, Prod-Quality, Products, Solutions products

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

One of the most powerful aspects of Claromentis is the combination of Visual Interfaces with the business application requirement of the users concerned.

I find this hard to clarify without simply referring to images. People are used to interfaces being ‘branded’ – by which they mean the application of a logo and adherence to a style guide – and permissions controlling access to information.

It is quite a leap for clients who have not experienced it to understand that the ability to make available applications, change the interface and also of course access to data creates an extremely powerful web based framework for any business – large or small.

How can the same system provide integrated corporate social networking as well as formal project management? How can users benefit from a comprehensive collaboration framework when in the office, and fast access to prioritized information from a mobile device? How can extranet users have a totally different experience from intranet users in the main office?

Corporate Social Networking

Corporate social networking belongs in the intranet – enabling single sign on, following of corporate information and engagement with the content within the platform.

Formal Project Management

Project management is the next step up from ideas – the act of turning them into reality.

Corporate Home Page

Corporate home pages vary significantly but the general concept is similar from client to client.

Fast Access from a Mobile Device

Staff View

Users from the main company have one view, extranet clients are normally focused on understanding data and KPIs concerned with their own projects.

These images might help to understand that a powerful system like Claromentis can indeed match these requirements – by using permissions, interfaces and applications in the holistic way they deserve.

Client View

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Intranet, Products intranet software, visual interfaces

Recently we’ve been busy working on revamping the free live demo experience. Using the same username and password generated when you are signing up you can now experience 3 different products:

• Intranet – The most versatile business Intranet
• Quality – Quality Management System & Compliance
• InfoCapture – Business Process & e-Forms Software

All of these products are created based on Claromentis Framework.

This demo also a sneak preview what’s coming in the Claromentis 6.0 Framework.

Universal Tagging
Modular Applications
SOAP Interface
And many other improvements…

As well as our branding exercise which will be reflected on our main site very soon

Stay tuned….

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Claromentis has created a simple procedure which allows a documents administrator to export all documents stored in Claromentis with its metadata into some location on the server / network drive for backup and archiving.

Click here to learn more about this functionality.

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Document, Products, Services