OrgChart Analysis
Name: Manager Studio Express
Client: Organization Design Firm
Description:
An organization design firm was looking for a way to reduce overhead costs and manual errors by automating some of its data analysis processes. Three Point Turn built a report studio that reads organization data from Excel and builds an org-chart. From there, the client has the ability to run 12 different reports, ranging from summary to extremely detailed, which provide insight into the organization hierarchy.
Challenge:
Challenges for this project were based in “teaching” the application to write proper English grammar while putting together sentences and paragraphs in its document-based reports. We got around this challenge by building context-sensitive matrixes of plural and singular verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, and English numeric wording that the application could quickly reference to ensure proper grammar and flow of text.
Another potential challenge was how to manage such a large suite of tools, and also be able to update a single tool without affecting the rest of the application. The system was designed ahead of time with pluggable modules so new tools could be dropped into the application and automatically appear in the menu, without changing the code or risking any other part of the application. The preferences screen automatically picked up any new pluggable modules and presented configurable options to the user, based on the tools that were added to the suite.
Client Success:
This suite of tools has empowered our client to take on larger projects without needing to hire additional staff, and has saved countless hours by automatically building thousands of pages of documentation over the years.
Grant Management:
Name: Research Grants Management
Client: Charitable Foundation
Description:
A charitable foundation was using an outdated Microsoft® Access application to manage grant requests. The system had become a burden – business processes had changed over the years and a lot of manual data entry was required. Three Point Turn was able to bring together several disparate systems to build an ideal solution, modelled to automate a key area of the foundation`s business processes to increase efficiency.
Our tool is able to process grant requests through three stages of approval, fill out score cards based on specific criteria, define budget programs and assign available funds, track donation commitments and pay requests, and automatically generate form-based responses to applicants as the request is processed. Emails are automatically sent to the appropriate chain of individuals as the request moves through the system.
Challenge:
The main challenge for this project was bringing together many disparate systems to create one solution. The final product makes use of Informatica workflows to extract data from several different Oracle databases, and connects with existing Cognos ReportNet reports to create a seamless user experience. The application is also capable of receiving grant requests from several different sources, including an external website for requests from registered charities, and two intranet portal sites where employees can submit requests for grant matching and volunteer compensation.
Client Success:
Our tool has allowed our client to move on from expensive, error-prone, paper-based processes and is now used to manage every request that comes through the organization.
eDetailing:
Name: eDetailing Portal
Client: Pharmaceutical Sales and Marketing
Description:
Our client’s sales force had been using several different systems throughout the workday, some very difficult to work with. Three Point Turn was engaged to build a single point of entry, where sales representatives could manage all of their contact lists, planned calls, and marketing materials. This system connects to several different client-side systems to bring all data to one convenient location, where representatives can now launch sales presentations, save data about who they presented to and when, what samples and materials they dropped and to whom, and quickly move on to the next call.
Challenge:
Our principal challenge was with performance, as the applications that were being integrated were notoriously slow to perform certain operations. We wrote a local queuing service, which delegates startup costs to the machine boot time (not login time), warms up some of the slow data access engines, and writes data back to data stores that would otherwise been visibly slow to the end user.
Client Success:
Our client actively uses this tool for their 500-person sales force and continues to engage us every six to eight months to continually improve ways to engage target audiences.
Synchronization Tools:
Name: SyncTool
Client: Consulting Company
Description:
A large consulting company had deployed dozens of different tools and thousands of different reports over the years and was in need of one tool that could synchronize all of their applications, tools, and reports. SyncTool was conceived with the idea that the end user could launch the tool and click on a single button to synchronize all of their applications and reports. SyncTool would connect with a variety of different systems, both proprietary and out-of-box, and synchronize data based on the client’s machine and security clearance.
Challenge:
SyncTool’s main challenge was the need to support so many different systems without having to change the source code for the application. Our end result was a pluggable sync engine that was extremely flexible and expandable.
New enhancements are underway in 2010 to add an administrative console and automatic background synchronization to download updates while the client is not using the computer and turn the application into a launch pad for all of their applications and reports, both online and offline.
Client Success:
The client has successfully used SyncTool for over five years to deploy software, data, and reports, to synchronize offline applications, and to deliver beta software to smaller pilot groups without having to make a single change to the source code.
