Infrastructure – The Backbone

Building successful software infrastructure requires detailed strategy and planning. If you build the best infrastructure for your company, then all of the parts work together like a well-oiled machine.

So, how do you create a successful technical infrastructure?

Nowadays, you can choose from off-the-shelf systems, monthly subscriptions, and custom development. While it might be tempting to purchase an “off the shelf” system, we believe custom development is the best option when your needs are unique. You get exactly what you need – and nothing more. Here is how we can help you create a custom infrastructure for your business!

Step #1: Define the processes your company needs to run smoothly.

Defining processes involves thinking through every business process: How do leads come in? Who/what manages customer information? How are quotes created? How do we track fulfillment? Who/what manages accounts payable? Do we want to automate follow-throughs? What happens from the first contact or after the first year?

Our goal is to capture your specific business needs. Instead of buying a “one size fits all” system, you can create an infrastructure that does exactly what you need.

Step #2: Choose the main parts for each process or function.

Next, you choose the main parts of your infrastructure so we can create the best solutions for your needs. Start by choosing the most important aspects of your business. For example, some businesses focus on the sales/lead process, so they’ll need marketing automation and CRM. Another business might focus on project management, so they’ll need project management solutions.

Many businesses will have several processes or functions – and that’s great! The goal then is to find solutions that work together. For example, you may need CRM software and an accounting system that supports special payment options. The goal will be to gracefully migrate customers from the CRM into the accounting software.

Step #3: Implement your new system and make changes as needed.

Once you have a finished infrastructure, it’s time to make sure that each system is optimized, systems are fully integrated, and processes flow seamlessly. Once you implement your new system, we will work with you to make changes or add/drop services as needed.

Let’s say you chose a process that shares a login system to prevent juggling too many usernames and passwords. However, after you implemented the system, you realized you wanted to check that self-hosted systems were on the appropriate servers. You also wanted to ensure these systems had security, back-ups, and update plans in place. We’ll work with you to add in those features and ensure everything runs smoothly.

Does all of this sound overwhelming? No worries! We can help clients with custom software, integrations, and hosting/support planning. We also have a network of people we can recommend to help with desktops and servers, process planning, and strategy.

Does your site load fast?

Your site needs to load fast. Google is using site speed as one part of their algorithm, so site speed is vital to your search engine ranking. It’s also important for a good user experience, especially on mobile.

If your site isn’t loading quickly, there a lot of things that can be done. I know people get concerned that they need a full new site to improve the site loading speed. But, luckily we can often optimize the site to keep your existing site but have it load much more quickly.

  1. Hosting: Your hosting is the first place to look.  Make sure that you are on business class hosting and your account is configured correctly.
  2. Optimize Images: Graphics are what can really make a site look great and connect with your target audience. But, graphics can be a large contribution to site slowness.  We want to integrate Lossless Image Compression to make sure your graphics are small in file size and load quickly.
  3. Browser Caching: This tactic saves files and assets to the visitors local browser so they don’t have to be loaded over and over again.  Browser caching works especially well if site visitors are going to your web site repeatedly and if they are reading multiple pages.
  4. Asset Minification: Minification is a process of removing all the extra data from the code that powers your web site.  This includes “extra” characters like spaces and line breaks.  So, minified code can be read faster by the browser.  This also reduces bandwidth needs which is very important for sites that get significant traffic.
  5. Defer & Asynchronous Loading: This means that we don’t load the full page when a visitor first opens it.  Page elements, code and images are loaded as they are needed.  You can see this when you are looking at an image gallery or product listing and the thumbnails appear as you are scrolling down the page.  This tactic works very well for pages with lots of assets, like carts, and for long pages.
  6. Server Side Caching: There are a variety of tactics that we can implement on the server side to optimize a site to load quickly.  We can do database caching, implement third party caching tools and change how database queries are made.

This is only a partial list of the optimizations and tactics that we can do to improve your web site loading time.  If you need help evaluating your site’s load time or making it faster, just let us know.

Estimate & Approval Systems

“Where is that estimate?” “Did the manager approve that one?” “Did the client get it?” “How many got approved last month?” “Why did that one get rejected?”

Sound familiar?

If so, it might be time to update your estimates and approvals systems. An outdated system can create a lot of problems for businesses, including:

  • Missing or incorrectly filed paperwork
  • Miscommunication between teams and clients
  • Wasted time on approvals or estimates
  • Estimates and invoices not matching
  • Loss of revenue or good reputation
  • Projects mistakenly pushed through without proper approval by management
  • Lack of tracking for estimates, proposal approvals, and ultimately, revenue

If you need to improve on how your estimates or proposals get approved and processed, we can easily optimize the system through our online tools. We’ll work closely with you to design a system that includes as much or as little automation and tracking as you need.

Approvals

Online approvals with tracking give you end-to-end access to estimates and proposals 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We can build every aspect of the system from the ground up, or simply integrate a new system with your existing software. Your business can also opt for a full-featured system to automate approvals and streamline the process. You choose which estimates need manager approval, and which ones can be automatically accepted/rejected based on pre-set parameters. Automating parts of the estimate and approval processes saves you valuable time and gets your project moving to the next stage more smoothly.

Our estimating system enables customers and clients to view their estimates online and approve them with one click. This is a great feature, especially if you’re working with international clients who work during your off hours! Once estimates are approved, the system syncs up with QuickBooks and your client portal to create the initial invoices and notify the appropriate people. It allows you to easily review all estimates for all customers to ensure that everything is running properly, or to make changes as needed. This system also gives any team member the ability to create estimates without needing access to QuickBooks. Before being sent out, all estimates are reviewed by management to prevent mistakes or misunderstandings. The estimating system is also integrated with your customer portal to track the correct hourly rate for each customer.

If you want to improve your company’s estimating process, then let’s talk about what we can do to help!

10 Signs You Need Better Software

How can you tell if your company’s software is truly working for your needs? As your company grows and evolves, it’s important to reevaluate your software to ensure it can effectively handle your company’s processes.

Here are 10 common things to consider when evaluating your software. If you have any of these problems, don’t worry – all of them can likely be fixed with better, more customized software! We can work with you to expand your existing software, like CRM, with custom dashboards and reports. Let’s dive in!

1. Your staff spends too much time on tasks that are repetitive or annoying

Do you find yourself doing the same thing over and over, and worrying that it’s a waste of your time? That’s a sign that your software system could benefit from automation or tracking tools! These tools ensure that nothing falls through the cracks and can save you a lot of time on administrative tasks.

2. You need to recheck or audit regularly

Do you find yourself spending too much time double-checking every report, document, or other process? Does your system have issues with forms or reports not matching? Instead of wasting time checking for inconsistencies or errors, update your software to send you automated reports or flags if things don’t match or need auditing.

3. You are using Excel/Google doc files for tracking

If your software doesn’t have its own tracking system, you need to upgrade! Using other software, like Excel or Google Docs, to track your processes means your software isn’t truly working end-to-end. We can help you build a custom dashboard and reports to automatically track processes, create status reports, and make notes a part of the system to avoid double entry.

4. You are overwhelmed with the same customer complaints/service calls

Is your customer service department tired of answering the same few questions every day? Why not create a software system that helps customers and clients find the information themselves! You can create an online portal to get information, answer questions via IVR or chat engine, and even create a “More Information/Alerts” function into your system. This allows customers to find answers to questions easily, and take some of the load off your customer service staff!

5. Your staff uses “Workarounds” that everyone knows

Creating workarounds for your software’s weaknesses is a red flag that it’s time to reconsider your options. Your software should work with you, not against you! If you need an intricate list of instructions to do even basic tasks, your software isn’t intuitive and needs a refresh.

6. You rely on Post-Its and other reminders for avoiding errors

Another sign that your software isn’t intuitive is if your staff uses written reminders, such as Post-Its or notebooks, to avoid errors or complete a process. We can work with you to create a software system that everyone can use with little worry about making errors!

7. Only “certain people” know how to run/manage a process

When everyone else has to rely on a few “experts” to get their work done, it creates information “bottlenecks.” Bottlenecks make your staff more vulnerable to making mistakes or getting behind if the “experts” aren’t there to help. To prevent this, you can update to a system everyone can use – and give your software “experts” a well-deserved day off!

8. Your company is struggling with missing data or double entry

This should be a clear sign that something isn’t working with your software. Missing information and double entry wastes time and money, and it can hurt your company’s reputation in the long run. We can review your process and use API to connect data sources, make clear paths from one system to the next, and prevent future mistakes.

9. Your employees/customers are not getting information or losing information

If your employees or customers don’t have a central place to get the information they need, or they can’t remember where information is located, that’s a sign to make changes to your software. We can create a dashboard that has all of the information you need in one place. We can also help you create alerts or reminders that send people to the information they need. For example, you can send out an annual reminder with an online form to fill out, such as updating tax forms, performance reviews, customer satisfaction surveys, and more.

10. Your company is losing orders or missing opportunities

Finally, if your company is missing out on valuable clients, customers, or opportunities, your software might be to blame! Losing or delaying orders due to mistakes will ultimately hurt your company’s reputation and lose your company money over time. We can help you create better online tracking and auditing, automated reports to catch matching errors, and alter you when a process is incomplete or deleted.

Employee Portals

Does your web site support your team?   Your web site is the foundation of your business’s technology.  By offering an employee portal or intranet, you can provide clear paths to help your team do their jobs effectively.

An employee portal can provide a variety to tools and power a host of interactive functions. The ones you need are the ones that will make your team happy and let them do their job better.

Here are some ideas from our past projects:

Consolidate Links.

If you use third party web sites, like a time clock, payroll or project system then consider an employee dashboard to consolidated links. An employee dashboard is a single place to host disparate information and provide notes for background and helpful information. This can save time for new employees to find the resources they need and save your HR team from answering the same questions over and over again.

Announcements

With an employee portal or internal blog, you can have one place for announcements and updates. Employees can set this page as their home page. If some announcements, like schedule updates, are urgent, then add in an alert system.  That way, people can receive emails or text messages when new announcements get posted.

Job Management

You can provide a central spot for employees to get information on current jobs or projects.  This section could provide common downloads, main contacts, important dates, and updates. You can add in interactive tools.  For instance, let people dynamically create common forms, upload pictures, clock in and out.  Or, add in more interactive tools to enable online management approvals or create estimates online.

Time Clock

There are many time clock systems available and many of those have APIs so that we can integrate them with your custom employee portal. If your needs are very specific, we can build a custom time clock system to add in the unique features, like job costing, that you need.

Collateral & Files

An employee Intranet is a great place to save common files and marketing collateral that your team may need on the go.  You can also offer branding guidelines and links to purchase branded collateral, like uniforms.

———

Make sure your team has the resources and information they need at their fingertips. If the team is spending time on internal processes or you keep encountering the same problems, then let’s talk about the options for an employee portal and see which tools would bring value for your company.

Question: Can this be done? How could this work?

Clients often wonder what is possible in the world of custom software.  The good news is that we are very rarely asked to do something impossible. So, let’s start by assuming that whatever you need done is very doable.

Common Requests

Common requests involve moving data between different people or systems, creating documents, automating tasks and managing workflow. In general, all of these things can be done with full custom and hybrid solutions. We also get asked to integrate into phone systems, video, image management or other hardware. All of these requests are in our wheelhouse.

Different Approaches

A full custom system is built end to end exactly for our customer’s needs. When you want it to work exactly the way you envision, then this is a great approach.  A hybrid system is built with a combination of third party and custom software.  Hybrid systems are a great fit if you are working with a third party solution that does a lot of what you need, but not everything, and it has an API.  Then, we can build custom dashboard, reporting, tools, and integrations to expand on what already exists.

Next Steps

The best first step is to schedule a call and talk through your needs and we can brainstorm the best approach.  We can evaluate your business to see where software may help, what tools are working well and make a plan to make it all run better.

Skip to content