Many potential clients and partners request a sandbox to allow them to experience the full Claromentis functionality.

This had been an issue for us, as our live intranet demo actually locks down the users permissions in order to maintain the integrity of the site.

So using our cloud servers we now have available an intranet trial where you can request an instance from our sales team, who once they know your requirements can make your own personal trial instantly available. There is nothing to download – it is a fully functional Claromentis web platform that is ready for you to use immediately.

The official release day is Monday – but I happen to know its available from Friday – so if you would like to evaluate a professional intranet environment, just get in touch!

Claromentis 7, Intranet-Extranet, Services, Solutions

We really should talk more about our customer base and how Claromentis is making a real difference for so many types of businesses around the world.

As we continue to grow we in sales and marketing need to pedal faster just to keep up with our customer base and all the interesting ways they are using information management, web processes and custom applications to make a real difference in what they can accomplish and how competitive they can be.

One way we can do that faster peddling is just to post about events that generate real interest in our own internal corporate social networking about new clients – if our staff are fascinated then maybe you will be!

Internally we use both News channels and our Innovate application – and I noticed that the news today that Twilight producer Summit Entertainments LLC had selected Claromentis to become their intranet supplier generated a lot more interest – and requests from all the girls to be part of the onsite team in Hollywood – than any recent post about new clients.

This lead me to think about sectors – and taking this as an example we do have great examples of movie producers that use the Claromentis framework for their internal communications.

Let’s take two – Omnilab in Australia and our new client Summit Entertainment in California. Opposite ends of the world, and judging by my very limited experience producers of very different movie experiences.

Disclosure at this point – I am 50-something, male and really like walking my dogs. I also have limited interest in vampires.

Their external image could perhaps be represented like this – with every girl in our office leaping up and down about Twilight, and myself having really enjoyed Happy Feet – an animation about penguins that like to dance:

Not a lot of similarity in that external face to the world..

What I am planning to do in a future post is get both of these great movie production companies to allow me to share images of their intranets – it would be so much fun to share their internal comms with their external production!

Do Summit have dreamy girls on their intranet pages? Does Omnilab have animated cartoon figures as signposts on the intranet?? Or great sound tracks?

Does either company walk the talk when it comes to internal communication?

We shall see!!

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Process, Solutions film companies, hollywood

We are working with a client under our sponsored development scheme to provide an e-learning module with the upcoming Claromentis 7 – and today we had the first prototype review with the client, the lead information architect and staff from Claromentis sales and marketing.

I thought some aspects of the meeting were really instructional.

The value of the prototype

Following on from the initial scoping meeting the client had provided a well thought out specifications comprising several pages of written specifications. Comparing the understanding from the written specifications with the prototype that we created is just inspiring – how any company would want to code business logic straight from written specifications is beyond me.

The value of the framework

Coding in the Claromentis framework gives us so much access to instantly available and powerful functionality – such as permission systems, universal tagging, business processes – applications can be coded so much faster and with greatly increased quality.

The value of Claromentis 7 Standards

Now that the design standards of Claromentis 7 are available in the custom development team everything is so much more consistent, giving a much better end user experience as they move from standard platform products to their custom applications.

All in all a great meeting and we look forward  to the second iteration – the prototype can be shared with all stakeholders in the client team and round two will just be a few days away!

Claromentis 7, Custom Development, Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Intranet, Solutions, The Framework

I hope this is useful – we are planning an extensive series of instructional videos for all levels of expertise and across all the platform in terms of subject areas. We will make those videos available for download as training aids – and of course from the support portal at Discover Claromentis.

Please do provide your feedback : all of us in support and marketing are excited by this and are motivated to provide a resource library that helps all of our customers get the most from their investment in Claromentis.

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Intranet, Solutions, The Framework intranet news, news management

Great effort from all 5 from team Claromentis!

Some serious pain was walked through by the team – raising over £2,000 for the charity.

Congratulations to all for going through the effort, showing up and enjoying the experience!

Solutions charity, Claromentis

This evening I was listening to an HBR interview about Net Promoter : www.netpromoter.com : and it really made me sit up and take note – because just an hour ago I had got off the phone from a potential customer who was looking for a reference for us as an extranet supplier, so they made a call to one of our customers – and that customer said ”hey Claromentis is great – but Hannah is just awesome”

And listening to that HBR podcast I thought that was so relevant – a real example of  ‘remarkable customer experience’ – and how one of our team had created that from her own personal passion. In Net Promoter terms Hannah had earned us a 10

Customer Loyalty – ‘The ultimate question’ – but how rarely we close that loop – formally we ourselves as a company don’t do that Net Promoter process – we only got this feedback this evening because a potential new customer called our client, and was so excited that they then gave us back the story of how one particular person had scored a 10 for us.

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Then I thought that just in the last two days we had more great performance from staff stepping up to things that make a difference to our company and to our customers – effort that is way outside their ‘job description’ but where they had the skills to contribute :

• Julian and Andy – help with the NW demo today for implementing a great BPM process – a developer and a designer don’t have to do this – it is not their job – but they did. And they did it really well. Thank you.

• Will and Hannah from support – giving a demo for sales – it is not their job, but they did it, and they did it really well. Short notice, after 5pm on a Friday. Thank you.

• Sweta – attending an all day technical demo for us that took her out of her normal responsibilities as a testing manager. Thank you.

In the Net Promoter system these guys all created ‘promoters’ today. According to that HBR podcast a leader needs to give the ability for people to get a 10 from customers.

It’s that Seth Godin purple cow – that ‘remarkable experience’.

But – remarkably – in Claromentis the leaders are not directly, formally driving this through any process like Net Promoter – the Claromentis team are just working passionately, caring about results – helping each other and putting in  long hours. They really care about what we do.

To me it is inspiring.

It is remarkable.

Thank you.

Intranet-Extranet, Services, Solutions

In a previous post I committed to creating a series of articles about how in my experience a web platform like Claromentis might contribute to discrete value chain components in your business.

In this second post in this series I take a quick look at Research and Development.

The significance of R&D

New products, and specifically their design and development – is important to the growth and even survival of a company. Competitive pressures or the natural evolution of buyer preferences will ensure that innovation is highly placed on the agenda of many senior level meetings.

Leveraging a web platform can greatly assist the innovation agenda. This is true both for

1. Larger corporations with significant information stores and internal resources that need to be encouraged to share diverse expertise

2. Organizations of any size that need to reach out to partners for collaborative R&D efforts.

Fundamental characteristics of R&D in a business context

Although R&D is a general phrase, the included activities for any company will often have the following characteristics :

1. The outcome is of course unknown.

If we knew what we would get as direct benefits – this would be an investment stream with well quantified budgets and predictable return on investment – rather than R&D

2. The required resources are similarly uncertain

Similarly as the project starts and evolves, the findings and progress will require resources – both human, time and material – that were not recognized at the outset. Flexibility and locating those resources are therefore significant.

3. The returns are hard to quantify

Since we do not know the results it is impossible to estimate the returns.

4. Alliances are becoming increasingly significant

The extended enterprise includes a range of interested parties, and often an agreed alliance can offer predictability and efficiencies

5. Processes and reportability are important

From the initial submission and approval of research ideas, through to quantification of outcomes – processes and reportability are extremely important.

6. Information Centric

Clearly research and development is centered on capturing, assessing and then generating new information – often comprising relevant papers, temporary project stores and of course the publication and re-use of results.

7. Team based collaboration is central to the project

By their very nature R&D projects need the timely contribution of different resources and subject matter experts, working effectively as a team as the project evolves.

What do companies spend on R&D?

Although it is immensely variable companies in general might look to spend 2- 5% of their revenue on R&D. Sectors of course vary considerably – pharmaceutical companies might expect to spend 15-20% of their prescription sales on research and development.

What Claromentis technologies are appropriate to Research and Development?

The core intranet platform, with the included extranet permissions, form the central deployment for R&D centric portals. Business Process Manager is used to implement processes, for example internal to the project or for the approval and funding of R&D efforts at the outset.

Graphing and presentations of dashboards, status and results are also important, although these can be implemented of course within the application files if this is preferred.

How can Intranets, Extranets and Process Management in a Web Platform  Contribute to R&D?

There are many ways that a web platform can contribute to R&D, I have just suggested 6 that seem to me to be particularly important.

1. Encouraging Innovation

Corporate social networking, often reaching out to staff in partner organizations, forms a powerful way to seek out and leverage relevant experience.  Informal collaboration networks encourage contributions from people who initially may not have been identified as a valuable resource based on more conventional criteria.

These weak ties can then be explored further, strengthened and leveraged as the project team matures.

Applications such as FAQ and more formal discussion boards are also important, allowing the posting of questions and voting on answers to rapidly move information forwards.

2. Extending out through Extranets to partners

Research and Development is often an effort that needs collaboration between companies – even those companies that in other projects might be competitive. The powerful permission systems of web platforms allow such sensitive collaboration to take place securely.

3. Version control of information

The natural version control of information, such as documents, lends itself to the evolution of information as a research and development project proceeds.

4. Free collaboration on information

In contrast to formal version control and ratification systems, direct and informal collaboration can speed up team based contribution to information. Historically such technical scratch pads were the natural domain of Wikis, recently we have seen Google docs as a natural evolution in this area. This is mainly because they do not require any understanding of unusual syntax and are a more natural evolution for those staff who are used to using application files like word and excel to store information.

5. Project Planning

As research projects start and evolve they need of course an element of planning and control, web based project management tools provide access to all parties, wherever they are located, to the appropriate task and project status.

6. Research Project Approval

For many organizations processing project applications for research and development is extremely important – they need to be seen to be clear and transparent in which projects are approved, or receive funding.

For example the Nottingham University Hospitals Research and Innovation Extranet www.nuhrise.org describes a very clear process for the submission and governance approval for any research project impacting their patients, staff or facilities.

Claromentis are currently working with a national Innovation Agency for their own approval of projects. The organisation was established by the government and is responsible for the National Innovation agenda. In line with one of its core functions, it is required to ensure that government investment capital in innovation is efficiently allocated. Business Process Management starting from a public facing Extranet for project submission, and with internal approval processes and proactive notification systems, is ideal for such a process.

Summary

Web based platforms are ideal for research and development projects. Permission systems allow the collaboration of various stakeholders in a secure way, and business process management allows for clarity and transparency as decisions are made.

Modern corporate social networking implementations within web platforms are also significant – allowing companies to draw in talent that might not initially have been formally identified as relevant to a particular project.

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Document, Prod-Intranet, Prod-Process, Prod-Project, Solutions business centric portals, extranets, R&D, research, web platforms

I had an interesting meeting with the MD of a potential new retail client last week who had allowed the IT systems used in his rapidly expanding company to gradually grow over time. This had just happened naturally, as he purchased systems to meet the separate functional needs of various parts of the business.

He is opening new premises regularly, and the business plan calls for this to continue and even accelerate.

Apart from the obvious need to try to make available accurate version controlled information and news to each new business unit, he shared with me that one of his main requirements for the intranet was simply to allow a single portal to provide access to the other systems.

He had done an internal audit, and his managers now require 17 separate log ins and passwords to access all the systems they need to do their job.

I realized that although all of our clients do use the Claromentis permission system and extensive single sign on support to provide gateway access to other web based applications, I had actually not really thought through how valuable this gateway approach is. Having discussed this with him we added a series of simple slides featuring ‘Puzzled Pete’ – the business owner of a small, growing company without dedicated IT support who feels that life had got to be easier than this!

It is one of those great features that is really easy to understand and also to provide – requiring a simple once only set up effort in the Claromentis config files and then allowing single sign on systems like Active Directory, Novell e-Directory, or others to just do what they are supposed to do – provide a single access credential for each user, and making it easy to keep up with new hires and staff exiting the business.

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Intranet, Solutions, The Framework intranet software, single sign on

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

As we set our strategy and roadmap for the coming financial year, starting April  – it already seems clear that one element will be to build on our  strong reputation for helping businesses to best use web based software to meet their goals.

Our extensive code base includes information management, process management and custom applications. However in addition to software we also offer wide ranging advice and consultancy.

This is based on our expertise and pragmatic experience over the last 13 years of working with such a wide range of companies at different levels of their own understanding of what web based software can offer them, and how  it can change or enhance their business models.

Under these circumstances it is interesting to us to try to define what world  class intranet consultancy might look like.

Clear elements would include:

• A determined focus on clarity.
• Expert staff sharing knowledge and experiences.
• A focus on the business models of our customers not on our software and processes – these are a means to the end.
• Honesty – recommending products from best in class suppliers of point solution where these are clearly appropriate and can be integrated.
• Risk sharing – through prototypes and innovative delivery of complex solutions.
• Cultural and global sensitivity
• Removing all barriers – so we can focus on getting to the goals : whatever the platform needed, whatever the functionality, via any deployment model, on any device.

It will be an exciting year for our staff and clients as we continue to refine our intranet consultancy – keeping world class standards as our ultimate goal.

Intranet-Extranet, Prod-Intranet, Prod-Process, Solutions intranet consultancy