Entrance is now a K2 Partner!
Entrance is happy to announce that we have strengthened our K2 partnership with additional training and certifications. This partnership allows us to provide the great services that our customers have come to expect, with the expertise that comes from certification!
“Partnering with K2 is a strategic move for our organization as we continue to offer our clientele best-of-breed solutions,” said Entrance Consulting Practice Lead, Carol Donnelly. “As the only implementation partner headquartered in Houston, we are excited to empower IT teams with an application development platform that allows them to deliver value to their business sooner, while simultaneously removing restrictions imposed upon them by legacy systems. K2’s forms and workflows are highly intuitive and deliver the right information to the right people at the right time, so they can make better, more informed business decisions – which leads to better business outcomes.”
About Entrance
Entrance consultants help companies buy, build, and integrate software that delivers better results for business users. Headquartered in Houston, TX and founded in 2003, we have dedicated practices in application management, application development, Microsoft Office + SharePoint, data management & analytics. We specialize in surfacing relevant information and data sources so that our clients can make the most informed decisions possible for their business.
About K2
K2 software helps people work smarter and get business done faster, with low- to no-code business application platforms and solutions that span roles, departments and data sources. Allowing companies to integrate, configure and evolve on their current systems, K2 makes business more agile while simplifying processes and workflows. With K2, the complexity of traditional software development is eliminated and replaced with easy-to-use, visual tools. Founded in 2000, SourceCode Technologies Inc. – the developer of K2 – is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, and has more than 1.5 million users in 80 countries, across the Fortune 500 and mid-market.
Click here for more information on our K2 consulting services!
Toughbooks, Field Data Capture, and Disaster Recovery
In January, Entrance hosted a lunch and learn, “Field Data Capture for Oil and Gas Service Companies.” I covered some of the key considerations that companies out in field should evaluate before implementation.
During the Q&A portion, one of the big topics of conversation was around toughbooks. Field work is characteristically rough, so choosing and maintaining the right devices can be difficult. Read More
Entrance Demonstrates How to Frac Your Data at Microsoft Global Energy Forum
Showcasing Custom Software Solutions
Entrance is a proud sponsor of the annual Microsoft Global Energy Forum, to take place on February 20th in Houston at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Now in its 11th year, this prestigious technology-focused energy industry event welcomes business leaders from both the Business Operations and Information Technology arenas.
As a long-standing Gold Microsoft Partner, Entrance will showcase custom software solutions for oil and gas. The SharePoint enterprise content management company, KnowledgeLake, will be joining as a co-sponsor to share how upstream companies can leverage digitization solutions.
Actionable Insight for the Field
Attendees of the Global Energy Forum can stop by booth number 116 to learn more about:
- Business Intelligence and Data Management: Tying together disparate databases to reveal actionable insight for the field
- SharePoint and KnowledgeLake: Instant, searchable, digitized access to any paper assets
- Business Process Automation: Reduce overall lifting costs by automating data from the field
Entrance president, Nate Richards, commented on the upcoming event, “Information is the next unconventional play for oil and gas,” said Entrance president Nate Richards. “Decision makers need to be able to frac their data across departments to access intelligence that is readily available and accurate. This is the key to driving up production and pushing down costs for the successful producer.”
The Move Towards Digitization
Now more than ever, the oil and gas industry is grappling with an overwhelming amount of unstructured paper data and paper. Entrance and KnowledgeLake have partnered for the Global Energy Forum to showcase a digitization and well management solution based in SharePoint for land and well files that will help drive true competitive advantage.
“We are excited to partner with Entrance Software to provide the next generation of Energy Information Management solutions based on Microsoft SharePoint. By leveraging SharePoint to manage unstructured content and structured data, we are able to provide upstream customers with real time actionable information for Well File, Land and corporate records groups that was only before possible with multiple point solutions,” said Vice President of Engineering at KnowledgeLake, Ben Vierck.
Visit the team on February 20th for a demo, or to pick up a copy of the first annual Outlook on Energy.
For more, check out our presentation that explains how your company can frac your data to avoid lease jeopardy. Or find out more about the Microsoft Global Energy Forum.
Entrance Out and About: Symphony Young Professionals
Nate Richards, owner of the software consulting company, Entrance was recently caught backstage at a Houston Symphony Young Professionals party. He is joined in the picture by Mark Hanson, VP Business Development – NGLs at BP. Read More
Celebrating Ten Years of Great Custom Software
A Custom Software Extravaganza
The Entrance team celebrated a decade of oil and gas custom software at the Petroleum Club on December 16th. A group of 200 honored guest and Entrance team members gathered together over drinks, dancing, and delicious food.
The menu for the event included lobster bisque, mashed potato martini’s, prime rib, and a make-your-own pasta bar. For desert, guests chose from a selection of mini desserts and a ten year anniversary cake.
Far from being your usual cocktail event, the party also featured a photo booth and a range of video games. Choices ran the board from old school pinball to the latest video game systems.
After guests had their fill of food and fun, Houston band Molly and the Ringwalds took the stage for a rocking 80’s performance. To make things even more fun, party goers received props like wigs, boom boxes, neon gloves, and more.
Entrance rounded out the night by handing out a copy of the Book of Entrance. This pocket sized book commemorates ten years of smart + fun with recipes, photos, interviews, and the coveted rules to Volley Pong.
For pictures of the custom software team and their guests, check out the Facebook album!
Entrance Custom Software Consultants See Doubled Growth in 2013
A Growing Team of Custom Software Consultants
2013 was a landmark year for the Entrance custom software team. Some of the business accomplishments included:
- Doubling headcount
- Increasing revenue by 50%
- Increasing work capacity by 50%
- Addition of several high profile Upstream clients
- Grew the already substantial footprint of oil and gas service company clients
A Bigger Office to Match
As the Entrance team has grown, so too has the need for office space. As a result, the footprint of the business has nearly doubled as well.Many new consultants have taken their place in what the team calls the bullpen.
Desks and cube walls can be moved around at will in this new space. This is meant to enable project teams to work together flexibly and collaboratively.
Most employees can agree that the best part of the phase two expansion is the addition of the Fishbowl. The Fishbowl features a ping-pong table, shuffle board, golf practice areas, and a soda machine, with more fun additions to come.
Company growth is projected to continue at similar rates. As a result, planning has already begun for phase three of the office expansion!
Great Managers for Great Teams
A growing company also demonstrates the need for more managers. In the past six months, Entrance has hired a new HR manager, a sales manager, and four new project managers.
As a result, the team can now benefit from several new skill-sets, like energy warehousing.
The need to keep employees while aggressively hiring new ones has also led to an expansion in fringe benefits. Entrance team members now enjoy a fitness room, locker room, fully stocked smoothie station, gym memberships, and healthy snack options.
Strategy to Lead the Way Forward
While every successful company relies on a little luck, a good CEO will tell you that the strategy behind explosive growth has to be sound. As such, the Entrance management team rolled out a new three year strategic plan in the second half of 2013.
In addition, the team has also developed a new 25 year vision for Entrance to become the world authority on software for the energy industry.
As Entrance closes the chapter on its first decade, the entire company looks towards even bigger and better things in the next ten years.
Said Entrance president Nate Richards, ” It’s exciting to celebrate a decade of successful business! Our success so far really feels like the beginning of the next chapter.”
For more on the growing Entrance team, read this post about quarterly goal celebrations!
Bad Software Consulting: Offshore Voicemails Part 1
Software Consulting that Works for Your Business
There are a lot of bad software consulting vendors out there. Let’s face it, lots of people can write code. But the ability to understand your business needs and execute effectively is another story!
If your company is looking for a software consulting company, it’s important to consider a number of factors, such as:
- Do they know your industry?
Clients come to us all the time saying about their previous software consultant, “They were OK, but they didn’t understand oil and gas.” - Do they understand good UI (user interface)?
There is software, and then there is software that is easy to use and navigate. Not every developer has the skills to accomplish this. - Do they off-shore?
Off-shoring always sounds cheaper from the get-go, but take into account factors like language barriers, different time zones, and a lack of understanding how an American business is run. All of these together can add up to software that is confusing, over budget, or never completed.
We get calls all the time from off-shore telemarketers asking us to outsource our development work. Whose hands do you want to leave the success of your software project in?
For more, check out our post on the “Top Five Signs of Bad Software.”
Entrance Software Consulting Team Celebrates 10 Years
Happy Birthday to Entrance
On December 16th, the Entrance software consulting team will be celebrating ten years of business. During that time, the company has moved to progressively larger offices, shifted focus to serving the oil and gas industry, and grown to be 60 plus people.
Entrance started out with only a couple of employees and a few solid energy contracts. The company has grown from there based on prudent leadership, a clear focus on customer service, and a deep hands on understanding of what makes oil and gas software different.
Remarked Entrance president Nate, “Growing Entrance has always been a labor of love for me. I wouldn’t have chosen to do anything else.”
Growing Up to Become an Energy Leader
As Entrance has grown as a company, it has become clear to the leadership team that the energy industry is under-served in their access to software that fits their needs and is well integrated. As a result, we have made it our mission to become the global authority on software for the energy industry.
Celebrating in Style
The team at Entrance knows how to celebrate. Every month, we host happy hours, team lunches, and more. A ten year anniversary calls for something special, however. Honored guests, partners, clients, and Entranceans themselves will take part in a party at the Petroleum Club to mark this exciting milestone.
Said Entrance’s director of consulting Chad, “We think this is a fitting location to celebrate how we have grown into our oil and gas software consulting role.”
Head of HR, Amy, had this to say, “We’re all particularly excited about the performance by Molly and the Ringwalds. I’ll probably leave my neon scrunchie at home, but we’ll be ready to get our smart + fun on to the 80’s.”
Entrance Custom Software Developers Awarded Houston Business Journal’s Best Places to Work
Custom Software Excellence Translates to HBJ Award
This past month, the Houston Business Journal announced the winners of their Best Places to Work award. Entrance’s Houston software developers are proud to be on the list for the second year.
The award celebrates “companies that not only are top performers in their industries, but that truly value their talented employees.”
As Entrance has grown from a fifteen person company less than two years ago to 60 people today, the leadership team is proud to rank on lists like the HBJ’s Best Places to Work.
Remarked Entrance’s director of consulting, Chad Modad,”Our consultants are what make Entrance great, basically our most valuable resources. As a result, we’re always looking for ways to be a best in class employer”.
Keeping Up With a High Bar
Entrance is particularly proud to be part of the Houston Business Journal’s list this year, as the standards for this award were raised for 2013. “A firm must have scored at least an 85 in its employee surveys to be named a finalist.”
Particularly in the competitive market place in Houston, it’s not just awards like these that encourage Entrance to keep up. Said Entrance president Nate Richards, “We’re hiring one and two people per week. They’re just not going to stick around if our offerings don’t keep up with the industry.”
See Entrance’s job openings on our website, or visit the Entrance Facebook or LinkedIn pages for a daily peek into the fun!
Great Custom Software: The Five W’s
Improving Custom Software
This quarter, Entrance is making quality a focus for improvement, both for custom software development and our software consulting efforts. Although we always strive to deliver the best possible result to clients, we know that we can always implement new techniques that will make these results even better.
Entrance Software Consulting Company Wins Best and Brightest Award
Smart + Fun Software Consulting Culture for the Win
The National Association for Business Resources recently announced their list of Houston companies on the Best and Brightest Places to Work For. Entrance is proud to be part of this list for the first time in 2013.
The award, which is based on an employee survey, measures Houston companies based on job satisfaction, benefits, and the like.
Entrance strives to provide a best in class workplace for their software consultants, with perks like paid gym memberships and time off for training, in addition to the more standard benefits like profit sharing and 401k matching.
The Entrance HR team is also proud of their more unconventional offerings, like the fully stocked smoothie station and monthly happy hours.
All of these add up to the smart + fun culture that keeps Entrance winning awards like the Best and Brightest and the Houston Business Journal’s Best Places to Work.
Entrance is Always Looking to Grow and Improve Everything
Said Entrance’s head of HR, Amy Raden, “We’re still on the look-out for new things we can do to make Entrance a great place for our employees to work. I’m thrilled that our efforts so far have paid off!”
Moving into 2014, hiring is a huge focus for Entrance as projects ramp up and new clients get on boarded. Rapidly growing project teams while maintaining a good company culture can be challenging, but Entrance president Nate Richards is confident that Entrance is up for the challenge.
“The teams all are so welcoming of new people. Everyone at Entrance is looking forward to what our growth and expansion will bring to the company.”
Want to join the smart + fun team? Check out openings here, or see what the team is up to every day on the Entrance Facebook page!
Entrance Q3: Software Consulting Wrap-Up
Software Consultants in Oil & Gas
As we look towards 2014, Entrance has spent Q3 preparing to grow as the market leader in oil and gas software. To that end, we created and followed through on a number of new initiatives that will help to grow and improve the company.
Goals for our software consulting organization in Q3 included:
- Growing our team with a goal of two people per week
- Building out partner relationships
- Re-vamped bonus structure for team members
- Improved project management processes
These initiatives should provide the basis for better employee retention and happier clients.
Q4 Entrance Consulting Initiatives
Moving into Q4, we will continue to grow the Entrance consulting team to meet the needs of our many projects. In addition, the company is moving forward with goals to create an energy software lab and database.
One particular focus for the month of October is to find strategies that will improve the quality of our work for clients even more! For an inside view on our internal discussions on this topic, check out our ongoing blog series from the software consultants themselves!
Custom Software Projects: Planning, Projection, and Agile Methodologies
Agile and Custom Software
Starting a new custom software project is both exciting and daunting, both for the customer and the developer. I read a blog this week on Microsoft’s website that highlighted one of the most difficult parts: accurately estimating the scope of a project.
Entrance Expansion: We Have Lift-Off!
A Beautiful Space for Our Growing Team
This past week, Entrance was excited to complete the build-out of our expanded office space. We have rapidly grown in the past year, so this new space couldn’t have come any sooner.
Stand-Up Working: Entrance Gets Healthy!
Working Out While We Work!
I came across on article today called, “Why Changing Your Desk Changes the Way You Work,” on Fast Company. It seemed like a great opportunity to share something new we’ve been trying at Entrance: stand-up desks!
Entrance Software Consultants Getting Ready for Techfest!
Our Software Consultants Speak About SharePoint 2013
We are excited to be a sponsor of TechFest again this year on September 28th. In addition, one of our software consultants, Theresa, will be presenting on the topic of “Who Moved My SharePoint (to 2013).”
Entrance Named Number 2064 on the Inc. 5000 List
Entrance Sees 181% Growth
Inc. 5000 announced their list of the 5000 fastest growing companies in the US this month, naming Entrance number 2064 on the list. This award was given based on 181% growth over the past three years. For the Houston metro area, we ranked number 43.
This is the fourth year since 2009 that Entrance has made the Inc. 5000 list. We join other Houston companies including Willis Group, Cimation, Microseismic, and Strike.
Entrance’s president, Nate Richards, commented on the award, “As we grow into the world authority on oil and gas software, we’re proud to see the steady growth that puts us on the Inc. list year over year.”
Performance the Common Denominator
As Inc. acknowledges in their article, ‘One Thing Inc. 5000 Companies Have in Common: Performance,’ “The Fortune 500 traffics in consumer products, oil, pharmaceuticals, cars, retail, and the kinds of telecom services and software most people use every day. The Inc. 5000 is, by and large, a more esoteric crowd.”
Performance and growth are are the only real commonalities for those on the 5000 list. Entrance is up there with the best of them, providing the oil and gas industry here in Houston with top quality custom software and software consulting services.
For more on the winners, check out Inc.’s infographic on the best and worst company ideas. Or check out our culture blog for more on Entrance and what makes our company great!
A Great First Ride!
Entrance Expansion: Week 2
Walls are up! Demo continues, and the electricians were running wires on Friday. Watch the blog for more to come on the new space!
Custom Software Application Provides South American Producer with Improved Inventory Tracking
Preventing Inventory Loss with Custom Software
Entrance has long partnered with Midstream service company TG Mercer to develop a custom software application, called SpreadBoss, that provides cradle to grave pipeline tracking. This past year, TG Mercer started working with one client in South America to provide better tracking of their inventory.
As they looked further into the project, TG Mercer realized that adding modules on to SpreadBoss would be the best way to provide the visibility this producer needed.
The first of these additions is the ability to divide large yards into zones, with a catalog of corresponding inventory in each zone. In addition, as employees check inventory into a given zone, they have the option to define a new item in the database, which was previously not possible.
See the picture to the right for an example of zoning in the application.
Quality Control Capabilities
An inventory reconciliation module takes this process a step further. On a quarterly basis, the customer can validate the complete inventory in a given zone. Employees scan every item, and when this is complete, SpreadBoss compares the expected inventory with actual inventory. Items that are lost or in the wrong zone can then be logged for action.
This quality control process will help TG Mercer’s clients to achieve better control of high value inventory. Particularly as the size of oil and gas facilities increase, this level of visibility will help prevent assets from hiding in plain sight.
For more on the benefits of custom web applications, check out this page. Read more about our partnership with TG Mercer here!