The following are examples of individual projects we’ve delivered within the last few years. They are all as a result of an analysis of a business process and the need to streamline, save money, or otherwise improve the technology ‘stack’ within a business.

Case 1: Motorsport Event Management System

Kop Hill Climb at Princes Risborough commemorates the historic Kop Hill Climb races held in this famous UK venue between 1910 and 1925. Some 400 vintage and classic motorcars and motorbikes attend each year.

In 2011 Kop Hill Climb commissioned Cleartext Systems to supply a web based registration system to enable hill runners and paddock display vehicles to register and manage their bookings online. The system would also need an administration dashboard for reports and some workflow to progress entrants through the registration and acceptance process. It had to be able to evolve into a full event management platform specific to their needs.

We delivered the following on schedule for the start of the events registration calendar.

• A simple to use registration process that mimicked the legacy system
• A system designed as a platform to build new features on each year
• An Entrants Dashboard allowing event participants to;
  • view the progress of their application to run the hill
  • add additional vehicles and drivers to their booking
  • manage vehicles booked on club pitches in the paddock
• An Officials Dashboard allowing event management to;
  • view, edit and list entries by various criteria
  • use workflow to manage vehicle selection processes
  • view real time registration statistics against targets
• Higher uptime, better reporting and higher email confirmation delivery stats.

Phase two of the project, in progress in Q1/2 2013 adds soapbox registration, traders and sponsors management and administration. Moving further towards delivering a whole of business platform.

Contact us to enquire about designing and building systems for your business.

Case 2: Retiring computer servers, go virtual, save money. (our own story!)

We used to have a server room with a rack and half a dozen servers, maybe we spent twenty to thirty thousand on the hardware (PC’s, switches, hubs, Operating Systems, server licenses etc).

Three years later we started looking at replacing them and part of this process was measuring the utilisation of each server. We soon realised they were all running at less than 10% of capacity.

As an alternative we researched virtual servers (hosted, cloud etc) and realised that we could get the same computing power for less than 10% of the cost of replacement servers.

We could also repurpose funds allocated for software licensing to some software R&D to develop a customised web based customer and contract managment system, without per user licensing fees.

Not only was the cost significantly less but using data centre virtual servers also meant we lost the management overhead and increased the up time of the applications running the business.

Here are a few reasons moving your business systems to the cloud makes sense.

• Cost savings. No capital outlay, IT staff or maintenance costs
• Accessibility. Web based apps which can be accessed anywhere
• Uptime. A hosting provider will do better than you at keeping servers running
• Flexible licensing. Scale seat count or servers up or down easily
• Better software. Design software specifically to fit for your business
• Security. Hosting companies have excellent physical and network security.

To summarise, moving your business systems to cloud based platforms means you can focus on your business and benefit from I.T. not get distracted by it. The money you save can be used to invest into the business rather than being tipped into depreciating hardware and software assets.

You can have big business computing resources without having to own and run servers and all at small business prices.

Case 3: Web Based Application

What do you do when you realise have a customer database, and separate document and contract management systems?

You could move to an ‘off the shelf’ CRM and hope it can be adapted to suit your business or you could commission a software system designed for your business, and integrated with your other business systems like email, IM, accounting and marketing systems.

Modern web development platforms that gave us Web 2.0 (social media) are also able to deliver business solutions in a very short time frame and at much lower costs than traditional software development.

Here are a few reasons why a custom web based system is a good idea.

• Does what you want it to do, how you want it to
• Ideal when staff are in multiple locations
• Very short learning curve as it’s web based
• Can be customised and adapted as your business changes
• Unlimited user count, not tied to costly vendor licenses
• Future spend is for enhancements not licenses
• Built with open source technology to avoid vendor lock in.

The platform described here was designed, developed and is managed by us on ‘cloud’ hosting and is available for demonstration.

Case 4: Mobile Business Apps

iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry

Todays sales and customer service teams are mobile and expect to be able to access company data on the road via mobile devices.

Mobile apps are fully integrated with and mirror the functionality of our web based systems. Client data is pulled over mobile or wireless networks and is available on the device whilst offline and in areas of poor mobile signal coverage.

Apps can be made available via corresponding app stores or direct from a web site or web based business systems thereby avoiding issues with upgrade and rollout delays.

Why use Cleartext Systems for mobile business app development?

• We deliver fully integrated desktop and mobile solutions
• The technology platform has been proven at large scale
• We use a single code base for all mobile platforms
• Unlimited user count, not tied to costly vendor licenses
• Future spend is for enhancements not licenses
• Built with open source technology to avoid vendor lock in.

Contact us to enquire about designing and building mobile systems for your business.

Case 5: Desktop Software

Most Jabber instant messaging programs are consumer style multi window apps with a buddy list and popup windows for chat. They aren’t really suitable for business use.

We had customer request for a desktop application that was as robust as desktop email apps, had a professionally designed user interface and ran on Windows, Apple Mac and Linux. The app also had to integrate with several other messaging services in use at the company and by their clients and suppliers.

The software application development project was managed by us and is now in use at client sites. Among other features it’s multi-platform, self updating via an internet update feature and can be branded with the clients logo and colour.

If you’re thinking about developing a software platform then we can turn your ideas into a specification, mockup and work through to delivery of a finished product.