Canada's Software Experts

In some cases, custom software can be considered a last resort. In other scenarios that involve complex and unique workflows or proprietary elements, custom software is the only option. If you can make do with an existing, off-the-shelf solution that meets 80% or more of your overall requirements (i.e. Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets), give it a try and continually re-evaluate how effective the solution is at meeting your requirements.

Custom software has many advantages. Perhaps most important is that it is designed to meet your exact needs and is configured to grow with your organization. Unlike using an off-the-shelf product that needs a lot of 'duct tape' and patience to meet only a fraction of your requirements, custom software is truly an extension of your organization's DNA. It is designed to support your 'secret recipes', proprietary workflows, and work culture. It speaks the language of your organization and creates pride in workers who see their suggestions and feedback implemented within the software.

There are many different software platforms. Perhaps the most popular is the web application because of its universality and ease of implementation within an organization. Native client applications are another type of software that runs on a PC or Mac. These apps are very versatile and can incorporate operating system features such as graphics processing, Bluetooth, webcams, and more. Mobile apps run on smaller devices. These apps are usually somewhat limited in functionality but provide convenient access to information right from an individual's pocket. It's also worth mentioning web APIs (application-programmatic-interface). These 'invisible' apps run in the cloud, like a web application, but only respond to queries.

Optimally, you want a software developer with diverse experience and a portfolio of work that is relatable to your project. Additionally, you need to ensure that the developer is truly interested in learning about your requirements and is not rushing you towards premature development. Diverse experience means that the developer is not only an expert in one area, such as web design. There are, in fact, many required competencies that may need to be considered. These include, but are certainly not limited to: user experience design, web app development (MVC, ASP.Net, PHP, etc.), C#, VB.Net, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, Bootstrap, database architecture, and T-SQL / ORM, Windows Forms, and more. Further, a seasoned developer will have an arsenal of third-party components that they use to avoid re-creating the wheel for things like data grids and various form controls.

Start by making a high-level list of 'must-haves' and 'nice-to-haves'. Talk to intended end-users and have them make a similar list for their job functions. Additionally, you may want to put together a list of existing app examples that you like. Things like preferred look and feel, navigational structures, and workflows will give the developer a better idea of your vision.

Work with the developer to create a roadmap with development items and timelines. Only then can cost be adequately estimated, and depending on the findings, you may choose to limit or extend functionality items. To ensure consistent alignment with your vision and requirements, and to minimize the risk of things getting off-track, you will want to ensure frequent reviews of bite-sized chunks of progress. Request that a semi-functional prototype is developed first so that you and your team can start visualizing the end product and discovering otherwise unanticipated requirements and considerations.

It doesn't have to be. Before your developer starts writing a single line of code, ensure you have developed the roadmap (as described) and that you are comfortable with the overall plan and cost. Also important is to be aware of 'feature-creep'. This is a common pitfall where non-critical features are added to the core requirements list rather than be postponed for future evaluation.

Software should be considered a living artifact. While not unreasonably expensive to support and maintain, it is a good idea to keep in mind that continued attention to user support, security monitoring and updates, third-party control updates, and enhancement tweaks are important to ensure that the software stays healthy and up-to-date.

Absolutely not. In order for us to maintain the highest level of quality control, we stay local. We also fundamentally disagree with software companies charging clients market-rate while paying foreign developers a fraction of what would be paid locally. This practice is both unfair to local developers and to clients.

In a nutshell, we're batting 1000! This means that we've yet to fail to deliver or meet expectations on any of our projects. When we say 'on-time and on-budget', we mean it. In fact, since we started in 1998, our business has been built entirely on referrals.

We avoid 'recreating the wheel,' and we certainly don't feel it is ethical to charge clients for repetitive work that has already been done. We've developed a stable and robust application framework, portal, and code framework that clients may leverage to significantly reduce the time and cost required to complete new projects. Also, we don't buy in to the latest technology fads or flavours. We use what works, and only technologies that are sure to be supported years into the future. The same just cannot be said for a variety of developer frameworks that, unfortunately, are being pushed on clients as 'the best option', despite their complexity and unsuitability for most projects. Life is too short to play those kind of games, in our humble opinion.