Custom Software Delivers: Ten Reasons Your Project May be Value Challenged
Bringing Value to Custom Software
The past few weeks, Entrance’s custom software consultants have been in an ongoing discussion about producing quality final products that give our clients value. This week, I’d like to share a few things to look out for during a project that might indicate that it is value challenged.
Custom Software Scoping: Avoid Preconceived Notions and Expectations
Custom Software Planning Requires an Open Mind
A few weeks ago, Entrance software consultants started a conversation on what quality looks like when developing the requirements for great custom software. This week, I’d like to add to Amit’s thoughts and discuss getting past your expectations to create truly innovative custom solutions.
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.
Custom Software: Achieving Solutions that Meet Your Needs
Meeting Business Needs with Custom Software
The following case demonstrates the importance of understanding business needs in achieving a great final result for custom software. The accounting department for one of our clients uses a checklist to track the journal entries they’ve completed that month for a recent project.
Oil and Gas Data Management: Getting Ahead in a Challenging Atmosphere
Oil and Gas Data Management Options
Data management involves handling data throughout its life cycle in addition to the infrastructure upon which it resides. The amount of data that oil and gas companies generate is continually growing, as is the infrastructure upon which that data resides.
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!
Business Intelligence and Decision Making
Using Business Intelligence to Keep Pace
The pace of our daily work life goes ever faster, and for many knowledge workers, business intelligence is a vital tool for keeping up. In particular, companies are finding that decisions they might have delayed for hours — or even days — a few short years ago must now be made within minutes.
Glitch-Ridden Healthcare.gov: It pays to have a custom web development plan
Custom web development gone wrong
NBC reported today that the custom web development project to create Healthcare.gov is many millions of dollars over budget. The website, which is intended by the government facilitate sign up for health care exchanges, has many bugs and appears to be unable to handle the necessary volume.
Lease Compliance and Custom Software: Eliminating the Single Point of Failure
Onshore Drilling and Lease Compliance
Does your company participate in onshore drilling? If so, you would probably agree that lease compliance is an ongoing issue. Onshore wells are smaller, so you have more of them, with the accompanying lease provisions that your company may or may not have a system for tracking.
Oil and Gas Software: Start with Problems, Not Solutions
We Need Oil & Gas Software Solutions – Or Do We?
The Harvard Business Review published an article by Bart Barthelemy and Candace Dalmagne-Rouge called, “When You’re Innovating, Resist Looking for Solutions,” that every decision maker should read before committing to an oil and gas software solution.
Software Selection: the Buy versus Build Spectrum
Software Selection Matters for Your Business
In our evolving world, good software can be one of the most effective differentiators that a company can leverage for growth. Implemented thoughtfully, software can be a multiplier for your existing staff, or it can surface information for better decision making that was previously locked away in spreadsheets.
Custom Software Consulting: Excel and Access as Databases
Simple Databases, and When It’s Time for Custom Software
In our custom software consulting work, we see a lot of companies using Excel or Access as their primary database. Both of these options have their pro’s and con’s.
Oil and Gas Software: Moving the Needle on Decision Making
Oil and Gas Software and Lack of Integration
The Harvard Business Review posted a blog this week called, “Four Areas Where Senior Leaders Should Focus Their Attention,” that applies to how leaders in the energy industry should look at oil and gas software.
Data Management and Actionable Information: Why Bother?
Data Management and Your Team
I presented a lunch and learn called, “SharePoint and Upstream” to a group of fifteen people last week at III Forks. Over the next few blog posts, I plan to go into more depth for some of the key points that we covered. This week, I will specifically cover how data management issues are probably wasting your employee’s time.
Business Intelligence: Stop Wasting Time and Starting Making Money
Lack of business intelligence means wasted time
When employees make decisions without the benefit of business intelligence, your company is probably wasting time and losing money. According to one McKinsey report, employees spend 1.8 hours per day, or 9.3 hours per week, on the hunt for information. So while the investment in business intelligence may seem like a big one for your company, multiply those 9.3 hours per week by 100 employees at $40/hour for a minimum of $37,200 wasted per year!
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!
Agile and Custom Software: Getting the Most from Your Money Part 3
Agile and Custom Software: A Love Story
Earlier this summer, I started blogging about how Agile methodologies can help your company get the most from custom software. For part three of this series, I will share a success story from one of our clients.
Tableau Consulting: Online Version Released
Tableau Online: Moving to the Cloud
Today, Tableau announced a move to a cloud version of their business intelligence services. According to an article in the Seattle Times, “Tableau is pitching its cloud version as being easier and more flexible for companies to deploy. It doesn’t require software installation and is accessible via most browsers on PCs and tablets.”
Custom Software: Tracking Pipeline Damage for Oil and Gas
Releases (or leaks) are very important to pipeline companies. Common causes for these leaks are equipment damage, both internal and external corrosion, manufacturing failures, and natural hazards like shifting land. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is responsible for releasing reports regarding pipeline releases or leaks. As a result, the ability to track damage that could cause pipe failure and report on it is important.
Energy Software: Leading Indicators, Lagging Indicators, and Safety Compliance
When it comes to safety for oil and gas, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the intricacies. A culture of safety needs to filter throughout your organization, and this involves having a plan for how to accomplish this.