Initial Consultation.
The first phase in any bespoke software project is to gain an understanding of
the clients business and the overall objective of the system. Only by
understanding what you want to achieve and how the business works can we begin
the software development and design the right solution.
We are often able at this stage to provide a ball-park figure based on the
nature and broad functionality of your requirements, but while this figure may
serve to help you decide budgetary considerations, a final price cannot
possibly be determined as this stage.
Procedural Analysis.
While understanding the overall objective is of vital importance, we must never
loose sight of the fact that it is your personnel that will be employing the
system on a daily basis. To this end the procedures, both computerised and
manual, existing and new, must be thoroughly understood.
The system also has to interact with real people in the real world, the trick
therefore is to produce a system that carries out its tasks correctly,
efficiently and in a user-friendly manner and this procedural analysis will
form the foundation of the application.
Hardware Analysis.
Software requires hardware to run on, no surprises there! What we both need to
know is whether your existing hardware will require upgrading or replacing, or
whether additional new equipment must be acquired.
If you have an existing IT representative we will be happy to liaise with them,
if not we can advise on this aspect as well.
Functional Specification.
Once we have an understanding of the systems requirements we will produce a
Functional Specification. This document will outline the purpose of the system
and the functions it will perform, and acts as the Planning Permission for the
system to commence development.
Application Prototyping.
As with any design project the purpose of prototyping is to establish the
physical and functional look and feel of the item being developed, and helps to
determine its form and style. With software development this helps you and your
personnel to visualise the proposed system, and our team to uncover any
potential flaws in the functional specification.
Specification Review and Agreement.
This phase is simply a formalisation of what you will be getting, when you'll be
getting it, and what the final cost will be. Nobody likes nasty surprises, so
this ensures we both know exactly where we stand.
Application Development.
This is where we really start to put the whole thing together.
Software development involves many hours of developing the background processes
and 95% of the work we do is never seen by our clients.
We have a saying that "from the clients’ point of view, the best software is
the one that looks like they didn't get much for their money." in other words,
it takes a lot of work to make something look easy! If the user can see more
than 5% it must be complicated to use.
Debugging and Testing.
This is perhaps the most important phase of all.
Thorough testing of a system ensures the minimum of teething troubles when it
comes to implementation, and while we make every effort to ensure that the
system does what it's supposed to, there will always be something that neither
your team nor ours had envisaged. What happens if 'Mary' types a price into a
date box, or Fred turns his PC off in the middle of raising an invoice.
Testing and debugging is performed not only by our team, but by your personnel
as well, they are the ones that will be using the system and they are the ones
that will undoubtedly try to do something it's not designed to do. What we have
to do is make the system durable and accommodate these unforeseen issues.
Implementation and Training.
The software's finished and ready to go. But before anyone can use it there’s a
small matter of its installation, and the training of its users.
Depending on the size and nature of the system, this might be accomplished in a
couple of hours and a read through the manual, but it might also require
several hours of installation time and one to one training of your personnel.
Whatever is required to get you up and running, our team will provide the
expertise.
Ongoing User and Technical Support.
We don't just get you going then leave you to get on with it, our team are on
hand to help resolve any issues that crop up during the systems lifespan.
If your old server gives out, we'll help you install the replacement.
If staff members leave, we can provide training for their replacement.
This is part of our ongoing commitment to support our customers, after all we
want your recommendation, and be able to satisfy any future software
requirements you may have.
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