ASTAR, Inc.
Custom SAAS product in Field Tracking and Resource Management
for a US leader in Pipeline OQ Evaluations.
About ASTAR, Inc.
ASTAR, Inc. is the nation’s leader in providing pipeline Operator Qualification (OQ) evaluations and training services starting in 2007. They specialize in Veriforce, ITS, NCCER, MEA, OQSG, Energy WorldNet, eWebOQ and ISNetworld. ASTAR has a new vision in OQ management. They actively work in the field with both pipeline Operators and Contractors, so we understand the complications that exist while trying to meet OQ requirement. ASTAR is the only companies to earn a Four-Star Elite Evaluator status with Veriforce.
The Challenge.
ASTAR’s 300 field trainers & employees relied on Service Fusion software for their routine operations. The complexity of Service Fusion made Astar employees take more time to operate it and even after that couldnt get realtime data about trainer allocation onsite. Customers used to fill in form on ASTAR website, which went down in form of mail. This mail was then forward to data entry operators, who entered this data 1 by 1 in Service fusion. The calendar of admin was so cluttered that he couldnt understand where John was actually allocated amidst 100 employees. The project manager didn’t had any clarity of whether the Trainer was available or not or whether he/she is idle. Such operational inefficiencies wasted time & money.
Due to this ASTAR recognised the need for a bespoke software solution in form of a SAAS product. This would completely digitize their current manual process to record onsite jobs listing and trainer’s job allocation. The plan was to increase productivity of employees using technology. They wanted a Cloud solution which could be accessed from anywhere in the world. This solution also needs to be responsive to tablet & small-size desktops.
They were looking for an expert solution provider in Asp.net zero who can convert their idea to reality with authorized access to Management Roles, Access, Jobs, Allocation Calendar etc. We were already an official partner with Asp.net zero for last 3 years. We had experience of delivering multiple apps in Aspnetzero which we demoed and got selected. This app also had to be cost-effective service as client wanted value to migrate from their legacy software. They also wanted that they could sell this software on subscription basis to other clients. This software could be saving them a lot of revenue as well as create new revenue.
Objectives.
- Job Scheduling
- Clutter free calendar
- Connect data coming from website
- QuickBooks Desktop Integration
- Real time availability check of Trainers
- Better navigation and accountability
- Portal Access to customers
- Multitenancy to allow selling software on subscription basis.
Our Approach.
We went through their entire scope of work and started with due diligence process. We did this to cover the loopholes found during the course of action. Our Analysts asked the right question which even ASTAR folks didn’t thought while using Service fusion for last 3 years. Once they answered our questions we were good to start our Agile lifecycle and dividing the requirements to sprints. The customer wanted this software in less than 6 months as they wanted to migrate from Service Fusion asap. Therefore we had to put in 3 developers to suffice the requirement. First we started with user roles, security, tenancy and database schema. Based on that we decided how differently it should look to host admin, tenant admin, tenant user , customer admin etc.
We wanted to deliver a user friendly design for Jobs, Calendar as well as QuickBooks Integration with Invoice screen. Our team made sure each screen had consistent stylesheets whether it input controls, modal designs or advance filter in accordion. In addition, We researched well for the color codes to help customer act accordingly.
Delivery
Random color generation was done to award each new user & job status with a new color. This helped user to recognize trainer allocation separately in calendar. Our software supported Data export to excel and pdf to make data available across different systems. Security was a major concern for which we had Audit logs & Reporting to our support. As a result, the admin could see who changed record and when.
Users could add time to show their task allocation and utilization each day. A company can work better if it knows what is the utilization rate of each of its employees. Drag n drop functionality helped users to directly put unassigned jobs on specific dates. These calendar events allowed dragging to change dates. Also there were provisions to add customers, users, assignee, services on the fly without redirecting. We had integrated sendgrid through SMTP to send mails. In conclusion, we had covered every feature which a multitenant SAAS system should have.
Solutions Provided.
- Database Design with SQL 2018
- User Interface Design with Angular8, Metronic Theme & PrimeNG Customization
- API Development with Asp.net core 2.3 & Integration
- Client Portal & Dashboard
- Quickbooks Desktop Integration
- Quickbooks Online Integration
Avg Time Saved Per Day => 2hrs (Tested on 100 employees)
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