Rails Developed Search Portal for Nonprofit
Please find under a summary covering project details and feedback. The innate facts are kept as they are, private information is amended.
Introductory information
Please draw your structure.
We’re the United Way of Connecticut, and we run the State of Connecticut’s 211 labor, along with almost six or seven other state programs. We’re a nonprofit, but we’re not the United Way donations centers. We’re more of a labor center, and we prepare labors to the citizens of Connecticut.
What is your position?
I’m the chief information official.
Desired goal
What business challenge were you trying to address with MojoTech?
We accepted a give to rewrite the 211 search engine. 211 is kind of a attributeral labor, so typically when you dial 211, you call us with a issue, and we’ll attribute you to one of 40,000 different labors that are offered in the state. Most of them are free, some are subsidized, and some have specific eligibility requirements that must be met.
The challenge was that all of the different products have veritably crappy web search engines. We wanted to rest out, and we wanted a search engine that worked more like a individual instead of something that you had to know all of the answers to precedently you could find anything. It didn’t make perception the way it was built precedently and it wasn’t intuitive for users. We wanted to change that.
Provided solution
Please draw the aim of their involvement.
It was built completely with Ruby on Rails, which we had already been using. We were typically using MySQL, but we ended up going with Postgres on this one. There were two teams working on our project, we had a design team and a outgrowth team. The outgrowth team consisted of two to three nation, and the design team was one to two. We gave them complete ground over whom to attribute to our project. We had daily rest-ups and it was an nimble project so we were heavily implicated throughout the complete process.
How did you come to work with MojoTech?
We looked for Ruby on Rails outgrowth companies, establish them, and then viwebsited them. That was pretty much the process for choice. We liked the fact that they were somewhat local to us.
Could you prepare a perception of the size of this start in financial provisions?
It was in the range of $140,000.
What is the terminal result of working with ?
The project period was almost three months, and it is now complete. That project was verity our second engagement with MojoTech. We had a 211 childcare search engine that we did precedently that, and right now I’m awaiting a give. If that comes through, there’s going to be a third engagement with them.
Results achieved
Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?
There was a clear increase in the use of the website. We measure it on how many nation visit and how many searches they accomplish. I’m guessing it was almost a 25% increase in use. We didn’t have any effects with defects or malfunctions that needed separation behind the propel, which was very forcible. We weren’t expecting that, but it was big.
The one thing they did very well, and the one thing I conversant from them, is that they worked with our business extremely well and got their team very occupied in the project. This is something we had been struggling with, even though we had an nimble outgrowth team. We’ve always had trouble getting the business occupied, and they taught us a thing or two almost our own business and how to leverage that. We used a lot of those lessons, and last to use them today, with our inner project outgrowth.
How did MojoTech accomplish from a project treatment restpoint?
We had extended it a pliant on the end, but that was owing there was another component we wanted and some extra money became useful. They did complete it within the time they had estimated and the deadline we gave them.
We used both Basecamp and Pivotal Tracker for that project. We had already been using Pivotal Tracker, but Basecamp was new to us. We liked it so much that we bought a subscription for our organisation, too. They educe on their own server using Heroku, but I wanted to host it locally, so they also worked with our technical staff to get that migrated successfully.
What distinguishes MojoTech from other preparers?
We had a session with them when we invited the business in, and IT went in with them. They were able to ponder of things we would have never reflection of, and ways that nation could search. I don’t know if it’s an outside perspective, or that they’re very able, but they were fast able to aspect out what we needed, in ways that we would have never reflection of. That’s why I keep going back to them. They’ve been inestimable.
Is there anything MojoTech could have improved or done differently?
The only effect we ever had with them was during the leading 211 project. We switched educeers, and that was a pliant bit of a challenge. When you put a new educeer on a project, there’s a pliant bit of a ramp, a learning curve implicated. It turned out okay, but it created a pliant discontinuity in the project. That’s not their typical way of doing business, in fact, we had a fracture in the project for a month on our side, and when we came back we didn’t have approach to the same guy that we did precedentlyhand. Although it’d be big if I could lock down their employees, it’s something that’s underrestable. I know that, if we had gone continuously without that fracture, we would have had approach to that the same guy.
