The challenge

We were tasked with the challenge of being able to deliver online training to a remote work force that handles door to door sales leads and then feeds prospective customer information into a central lead generation team to follow-up.

The remote work force have each been supplied with Apple iPads, to manage their lead generation (online form completion) and to also enable learning of the products whilst on the move.

The types of training material that would be delivered to the iPad online learning portal would be:

• Videos
• Podcasts
• Exam (assessments)
• Documents (PDFs and Powerpoints)
• Online Surveys

One of the biggest challenges was the fact that the Apple iPad does not support Flash, so the choice of video formats and assessment controls would be very important

The solution

The iPad online learning portal was built and delivered following a 2 week Development sprint.

The portal was released with all of the of the differetn types of training materials detailed above and the remote users were up and using it straight away enhancing their product knowledge, initial feedback was very positive with users detailing how it was easy to use and navigate and it greatly improved their product knowledge so they could confidently talk to a perspective customer.

Since launch all training content that has been completed via the iPad online learning portal is tracked and reported on via Datamine (Cirrus Reporting Tool)

Next steps…

If you are interested in this custom iPad online learning portal, or in another similar custom web application, we would be happy to assist.
Please use the form on the right to detail your requirement, and we will get back to you. We are always happy to discuss ideas and will do so under non-disclosure agreement.

Web application development

Are you in the early stages of a development project and not sure how to describe it?
Then have a look at our application development helper, this can assist with defining your project. It gives you an idea of the sort of things you will need to tell a development company, and will hopefully help you with your thoughts as well.

If you have any other questions about our custom online learning portal– please ask.

There are some differences with the retail environment though. In retail, the focus is on answering a question and keeping the “customer” buying. As there is real money about to be exchanged, there are typically many online “chatters” who can handle the calls.

Our requirement was somewhat different. Under constant pressure to reduce costs, the training team could not affort to place many people online to cover the learning environment.
Additionally, they wanted to be able to timetable certain trainers to be available online.

Our custom chat application

Fast operation is a must, as well as neatly handling handover to other trainers, and also allow multiple trainers in the “room”
Features of the real-time chat system
• Many trainees can log in at once
• The system only allows people in who are already logged into the main site
• Trainers can set up a “chat room” at a given time when they are available
• On site icons show when the trainer is available or not-available
• The trainer can send “room wide” messages to all users, as well as conduct 1-2-1 conversations
• The trainer can easily handle many people in the same room at the same time. Active chatters are highlighted to make timely response easy.
• A range of smileys and icons are available in the text
• All text is recorded, and stored within a database. Our academy application shows the chat history within the users training record.

How our custom chat application is used

The application has been well receved by the trainers and by users. The trainers benefit through having a single interface to see everyone in the room. User have said its very useful to have someone there that they can ask questions.

Its “just reassuring that there is someone there, even if you don’t have to use them”
The chat application has been widely used for induction training programs, were there is a mentored approach to completing a number of elearning modules.
The mentors and trainers are there to support the learners, on what is a focussed and effective 5 day induction process.

Next steps…

If you are interested in this custom chat application, or in another similar custom web application, we would be happy to assist.
Please use the form on the right to detail your requirement, and we will get back to you. We are always happy to discuss ideas and will do so under non-disclosure agreement.

Web application development

Are you in the early stages of a development project and not sure how to describe it?
Then have a look at our application development helper, this can assist with defining your project. It gives you an idea of the sort of things you will need to tell a development company, and will hopefully help you with your thoughts as well.

If you have any other questions about our custom chat application – please ask.

Our intention right from the start was to be a customer focussed, technically excellent software company.

Our development expertise was based around VB, .Net and SQL Server. It made sense then to continue with that mix. As an independent software vendor (ISV) we wanted to demonstrate that commitment and set up to join the Microsoft Partner Program.
Unlike some partnership programs, there are ongoing quality levels that need to be acheived in order to join and maintain partnership status.

We are proud to be a Microsoft partner and have been part of the program since 2002 when we started

Our credentials can be checked here: Microsoft Partner Website

Project Title:Management Consulting Tools – Desktop Application
Customer: BT Global Services

Our original brief was to create a suite of Management Consulting tools To increase quality of engagements and reduce consulting delivery costs. There were a number of outcomes that were envisaged a a part of this project.

How do we provide management consulting tools to ensure…

• Management Consultants have access to the sum knowledge of the entire team?
• Speed up the consulting engagement process?
• Ensure best practice processes are adhered to?
• Enforce a consistent, high-quality standardised approach to consulting?
• …And then teach everyone how to use the new tools

Management Consulting Tools – Background:

Bt Global Services has a large consulting team, made up of a range of specialist skillsets. Customers pay for their accumulated skill and their ability to identify and make real differences in complex companies.
In a large consulting organisation, individuals form teams for a project and then disband for the next. As consultants move around, the knowledge acquired becomes the most valuable company asset.

However, as with any large organisations there are challenges to delivery a consistent high quality consulting product along a standard methodology. By gathering those knowledge assets in one place and making those available to all we will achieve a central source of best practice

Making it so easy that to “go-your-own-way” becomes a harder path.

Our customer did have a collection of management consulting tools, These were loosely organised in central file shares and not consistently used.
In order to use that knowledge to its potential, we needed to ensure it becomes the easiest way to operate, be easily accessible and consistent with the consulting methodology that we promote.
We want to tap the best of our brains and make that available to everyone. Making it so easy that to “go-your-own-way” becomes a harder path.

The challenge of the Management Consulting Tools project

• A tool to be able to see all elements of the consulting best practice, arranged logically in process steps.
• By selecting the steps and elements of work, a consulting engagement could be designed.
• The benefits of doing and risks of not doing of each piece of work, ensure that the engagement is designed with every element understood.
• Adding timeframes and resources against the work elements would enable outputting of reports and provide estimates to clients.
• By linking work elements with each other, recommendations can be made of which other works should be undertaken and hence promote the consulting methodology
• Very visual, contemporary, easy to use, powerful.
• Best practice tools can be managed centrally and distributed to all desktops without any technical intervention

Development Approach:

A windows based approach was approved, and a number of design iterations delivered a screen presentation that was aligned to the consulting methodology, very visual and the design outcomes included;

• Clear buttons and an intuitive interface
• Two separate visualisations of the methodology and work elements depending on the users preferences
• Pre-defined templates so that a consultant can get a “boiler plate” engagement up and running in minutes
• Helper “mini engagements” at each stage assist with selecting the right works for a particular outcome
• e.g. select “engage management” will trigger recommendations of Management meeting, stakeholder maps, business case works to be completed

The Management consulting tools application, automates creating project documentation

Once an engagement has been designed (by selecting the work elements) it can be printed to provide a consolidated document showing

• all of the works that are going to be completed
• expected Client outcomes (exported as an MS Word document)
• Consulting team outcomes (exported as an MS Word document)
• team resources required (exported as an MS Word document)
• timelines (exported as an MS Project document)
• risks that need to be addressed (exported as an MS Word document)

As all activities have a timeframe and a resource against them, at the press of a button the plan can be exported to Microsoft Project.

The Outcome: Global Services Navigator

this was without doubt a challenging project, Gathering together all of the best practice documentation within a company is always going to be time consuming and resource intensive. However a contributions process was put together along with an editorial board to ensure consistency and quality.

Tools such as this always thrive or falter dependent on the content contained within. In this case over 100 “work packages” were defined and entered into the system. The work packages were made up of smaller tasks all clearly defining the inputs (decisions, documents, meetings, actions) and the outputs (more documents… actions, activity) A significant hiqh quality body of work

The Bt Global Services Navigator we created supports all parts of the consulting process, all of this content is securely sent to the consultants laptops, and all documents are encrypted.
Any projects being worked on are also automatically backed up and send back centrally. Where a project has also been a success and seen as “benchmark” that can go through the editorial process and be distributed out again.

The consulting approach tool has delivered on the original brief. Best practice pieces were gathered and managed centrally. Each piece of best practice is categorised and the consulting plans generated can be saved and shared with the rest of the team.
The application is loaded on each Consultants laptops and the methodology and best practice documents and tools are automatically synchronised to ensure everything is up-to-date

Next Steps:

The consulting project was completed successfully in 2 6 week phases. Our agile approach and lots of involvement with the client, delivered a successful project where others had said “it could not be done for the money”
The merits of the project make a lot of sense and often resonate with consulting managers. Please note: we do not sell this application as a “product” however the hard-won experience of the project is certainly something you can benefit from/
If this project has inspired you, we would love to discuss it further. Please contact us or fill out the form to the right, and we will get back to you within one working day.

End project overview: Management Consulting tools.

We often get asked if we can provide an export to excel. Everyone wants to be able to view data on screen and then download it for use later.
Certainly….
And then the fun starts.
Excel comes in many flavours more recently (Office 2005+) the standard format of excel files is xlsx. this is an “open” format that is widely adopted and very flexible. However, lots of our corporate customers have remained on Office 2003 (or earlier) which relied on the (excel Biff) format. Those older versions of excel are easily catered for but sometimes forgotten.

The main benefit of XLSX for us is that it will hold a lot more data.

• the old XLS file format you are “limited” to 65,000 (65 thousand) rows of data in a single worksheet
• the newer XLSX format you can store up to 5 million rows.

Who needs more than 65,000 rows?…. Well often we do come up against that limit and it can be a frustration for companies that are still using old versions of MS office.

The approach we take is to understand what the users of this system have installed and build an export to excel solution to fit that. if there is little information available, or its a public site we can often export to XLSX

Export to excel, without installing Ms Office on your server

When exporting to excel, we avoid running excel on the server.
Microsoft do not recommend it, and experience shows that excel can crash on your desktop, last thing you want on a server is a crashing application.

In order to export to excel we use components that will write the file in Excel format. The benefit is one of stability and also speed. In tests we are able to generate a 1 million row spreadsheet in under 10 seconds.

Another technique we often use is to create a template in Excel and populate the excel template from the database. the excel spreadsheet then has all of the calculations built in and we can do some “smart work” publishing data into that spreadsheet.
It avoids the user having to have connections to databases and again can be done at high speed.

We also have reporting tools that will generate data in excel and can email reports at regular intervals to anyone you choose. Powerful stuff if you need to send a weekly report to arrive at 08:00 every monday morning.

Can Cirrus export to excel – certainly, what do you want to export and when?

The export to excel tools we use

Exam - Question window

Exam - Question Answer window

Cirrus Software designed and delivered the Assessments as a significant set of enhancements to BT’s existing Learning Management System. 700 people have already been invited to take the assessments, as part of compliance requirements, and the project was delivered on time and to budget.

We are keeping our fingers crossed and practising our acceptance speech!