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Category: Software

PHP

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At I-Tul we work primarily with PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor). We build interactive and dynamic web-based software solutions using the latest tools that offer the most benefits for your company’s needs.

What is PHP?

PHP is an elegant language that is optimized for cloud-based applications, making it the most widely used server-side programming language. Since it was created for back-end web development, PHP is an ideal choice for many different kinds of business applications.

PHP is open source, which means it’s free to use and is maintained regularly by its own community. It works on platforms like Linux, Windows, Mac and leverages MySQL, Nginx, and Apache as part of the “LAMP”, “MAMP” or remote origin stack to allow the creation of dynamic content for your websites and web applications.

Laravel is currently our main programming framework, but we also use a custom framework and a few others when needed.

We build our marketing sites in WordPress, a PHP based platform, that is the industry leader.  The power, flexibility and control are the top reasons we standardized on WordPress in 2009. We also love the thousands of plug-ins available to expand functionality.

Why Use PHP?

Here are just a few key benefits to investing in PHP for your company’s software solutions:

It’s Flexible & Versatile
We like using PHP solutions like Laravel because they run well on a variety of platforms, such as Windows, Linux, Solaris, and UNIX.  The worldwide online community keeps the language and add-ins alive, robust, and up to date; All while allowing you to render HTML and JavaScript components seamlessly!

It’s Easy to Learn
PHP’s language is incredibly easy to learn, even for new users. The syntax and core are based on C, which means you won’t have to invest extra time and money into training, manuals, or workshops. If your web developer is already familiar with C, they can easily pick up PHP!

PHP is well documented. That makes is easy for programmers to maximize their knowledge to build the best solutions.

It’s Fast
PHP runs incredibly fast compared to comparable languages like RUBY and C# because it is not weighted down by superfluous libraries, saving your development team a lot of time building and maintaining your sites and applications. It is not only built to connect to databases quickly but maintain those connections so as to expedite data extraction, which makes sites load substantially faster – even if users are working with slower internet connections. This is a huge benefit for sites that require flawless database management and faster load times, like ecommerce sites.

It’s Cost Effective
Since PHP is open source, it doesn’t have inherent licensing fees, making it a great option for small businesses on a budget. For example, the local “LAMP” or “MAMP” stack is a combination of open source software that allows businesses to create powerful programs without maintaining costly third-party licenses.

If you want to learn more about how we integrate PHP and Laravel into our software solutions, let us know and we’ll be happy to help!

Custom or Packaged Software: How Do You choose?

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When it is time to choose a new software solution for your business, there are two choices: Packaged or Custom Software.

Most business applications are ‘off the shelf’ packaged software, like Intuit QuickBooks or Microsoft Office.  Packaged software is designed to serve the needs of thousands of users.  By contrast, custom software is specifically created for your company and is developed to match your business needs exactly.

Which is the right choice for your company? 

The best choice will be driven by your business needs, budget and future plans.  With these in mind, you can select the best choice. Companies are often surprised at the cost effectiveness and high level of functionality available in custom software.

Packaged Software Benefits

  • Development costs can be spread over a larger install base
  • Can be very sophisticated and full-featured
  • Fast integration
  • May be training classes or books available

Packaged Software Drawbacks

  • May include functionality that is not used. (The average Microsoft Word user employs about 10% of the functionality)
  • Large feature set can add complexity and increase training time
  • You must change to meet how the software has been designed
  • Popular applications will be used by competitors, forgoing any advantage
  • Difficult to make change requests

Advantages of Custom Software

  • Most flexible and can be modified as your requirements and business practices change.
  • Integrates with existing software to create a end-to-end solution
  • Requires less training since only the functionality wanted is present
  • Matches your current processes
  • Direct say in the development and feature set
  • Professionally developed custom software can provide an edge over your competition.

Drawbacks of Custom Software

  • You are responsible for maintaining source code and documentation. Otherwise you are wholly dependent on your developers continuing existence and good will. Choosing a developer with a solid reputation and keeping local copies will resolve this.
  • Substandard code may be unstable, unreliable and full of bugs (This is also true with packaged software!).
  • Longer development time

Which costs more?

Cost is completely dependent on the solution.  For utility programs (accounting, anti-virus and email) packaged software will likely be less expensive.  For line-of-business and data management solutions, it is certainly a good idea to do some research.  The internet and open-source software, have lowered development costs for custom software.  In addition, compare recurring license fees.

Choosing a Custom Developer

If you decide to investigate a custom solution, your software developer will be critical to the success of your project.  Choose a developer that you can easily communicate with and who understands your business needs. The best company for you will be able to explain the options in a way that you understand.

Software is an integral part of your business infrastructure.  Make the best choice by focusing on your business needs and weighing all the available option.  Then you will clearly know whether packaged software or a custom solution will be the right fit for your company.

Alerts

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When important things happen, do the right people know about it?

How long does it take to get vital information into the right hands?

From schedule changes and updates, to upcoming product launches or recalls, how do you alert your team or customers about what’s new with your company?

Do you still rely on email and phone calls to send out important information? Great! However, it might be time to add text message updates to your software system! With text alerts, you can inform your team about news or changes in real time. You can also help your customers or clients stay informed about their projects and products. We can help you set up an automated alert system to save time and keep everyone in the loop on important projects, processes, and information.

Building in automation for text alerts is great for saving time with administrative duties. It allows you to schedule messages and alerts ahead of time, which is great for sending alerts during off hours. You can also automate regular text alerts to your staff. Companies can send customers reminders about new product launches, services, and more!

Here are some other ways you can use automated text message alerts to help your company run more smoothly:

  • When you update a project deadline, the alert system could send a text to the appropriate people on your team. They can easily make changes to their schedules or processes to stay on target.
  • You can set up daily alerts for things like team scheduling, meeting reminders, and more. For example, if you set schedules for your team, you could send an update at 7:00pm every night.
  • It can alert your team when they need to start a new task. For example, the moment an estimate is approved, the next person in the process is notified immediately to start on their part of the process.
  • You can send monthly or annual alerts for things like conducting performance reviews, updating tax forms, performing system audits, and other administrative tasks.

No more waiting on your team, clients, or customers to check their voicemails or inbox! You can easily send out alerts on a set schedule, or send out an emergency alert immediately to prevent wasted time and money!

If you’ve noticed that people aren’t getting important information when they really need it, then let’s talk about how automating alerts can help keep information flowing!

VOIP Integration

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Do you need to integrate your phone system and software?

Are phone conversations an important part of your business? VOIP integration can streamline processes and make your team more effective.

We developed a system for a client in the collections industry that enabled their internal team to call people from a local phone number.  Online line of business software managed the entire process.  All the team members had to do was click the customer’s phone number to start the call.  The system would create a local number for the destination number and automatically ring the team member on their desk phone. When they picked up, the system would begin the call and show the person being called the local caller ID.  If the person returned the call at the local number, the software rang the desk phone to the team member who placed the call, opened their account and logged the call in the software.

Another website that maximized VOIP Integration integrated phone calls and ecommerce.  The client ran a paid phone consulting business.  When a new customer ordered consulting online, they were given a number to call. As the customer called, the system would link to the consultants personal phone line (often a cell phone) and host the call.  After the call was completed, the system  automatically billed the customer for the entire length of the call.

How VOIP Integration Helps

Systems can integrate VOIP to save time by making repetitive tasks, like dialing a phone number or making notes, happen automatically.  Integration also reduces user and data entry errors. The system can call the phone number without requiring someone to read it and dial it. Systems like this can also track incoming and outgoing calls, maintain a history and provide robust reporting on usage and time.

Next Steps

If your business relies on phone calls, integration could be helpful.  To see, schedule a call for a free consultation. We will look at your current systems, pain points and goals.  We’ll evaluate how VOIP integrations will help your team work better, give you executive reporting and provide a seamless interface.

Estimate & Approval Systems

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“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

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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

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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.

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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.

Come on in!

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Technology allows us to communicate with each other instantly from anywhere, which is great for business. However, we sometimes miss the one-on-one connection of meeting in person. Because of this, we gladly welcome visits from our clients!

The best times for in-person meetings from our clients are at the very beginning, the very end or whenever we’re at a tricky part of our project. In the beginning, meeting in person helps all of us to come together to create a shared vision and create goals for the project. At the end of a project, making time to meet in person is a quick way to work through all the final details and reflect on the process. Testing and updating small things when we’re together can save days of emails sent back and forth. If a project hits a tricky point, then meeting in person can help communications run a bit more smoothly. When you can’t figure out how a section needs to work, or a design isn’t quite right yet, taking care of it in person is much quicker and more effective.

Communication is the key to a successful custom software project. That’s why we prefer to schedule weekly meetings for our development project teams and clients with robust support needs. By reviewing progress, setting priorities, and making plans together, we can keep the project on track and make any changes along the way.

Since we have clients across the United States, we understand that not everyone can visit our office in person – or not as often as clients would like to. That’s okay! If you can’t meet us in person, we use videoconferencing tools like Zoom to put a face to the voice.  Videoconferencing connects us to our clients in real time.  We typically use standing meetings to make it easy to schedule and to join in on conversations.

Our management team uses Calendly to help clients schedule meetings. This online scheduling tool enables clients to view our schedules and pick the best time that works for everyone. We use tools like this to automate scheduling and put the power in our client’s hands.

Finally, if you are from out of town and need help planning your visit, just let us know. We can recommend hotels and arrange for transportation.

Ready to meet face to face? Reach out and we’ll schedule the best time for everyone.

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

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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.

Taking Over PHP Projects

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Everybody knows that we build new custom PHP software projects. But, did you also know that we take over existing PHP projects?

If you have PHP online software that is in production or in development, then I-Tul can step in as your new developer. Clients bring us in when their current development partner becomes unavailable or is no longer a good fit.

The first step is a code review. During a code review, we will login to view the PHP code and database configuration, approach and details to verify if it is a good fit.  If everything looks good, then we will make a copy on a staging server so that we can do a deeper code review to understand the architecture.  When the current developer is available, we like to schedule a hand-off meeting to capture the particulars that don’t appear on the code, like planned updates or past issues. Occasionally, we find significant problems. If that happens, we discuss our findings and make a plan together.

When taking over a production system, we will meet to plan the best testing and launch procedures.  We’ll also talk about change requests and any special needs.

For projects in development, we’ll review the current status, vision, and goals. Then, we can restart with our dedicated team approach.

Wherever you are in the software life cycle, I-Tul is ready to partner with you.

Ready to deliver your vision? Learn how we can help.

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1420 East Roseville
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