Insurance
Health Care
Construction
Professional Services
Financial Services
Mobile
Real Estate
Project Management
Client Background
In 2020, a consortium of Canadian insurance industry leaders identified the imperative to simplify sourcing, purchasing, and managing Group Voluntary Benefits for employees, association members, and organizational stakeholders. Leveraging decades of collective experience, the Perigon leadership team conceptualized a revolutionary and accessible voluntary benefits platform, drawing insights from organizations of all sizes across Canada.
Challenges
The client, boasting a robust client base across the US and Canada, sought to enhance their existing solutions by transitioning from a desktop application to the web. While the move to web-based functionality aligned with modern business needs, the complexity of their existing database structure and diversified application suite posed challenges. Rewriting the entire suite would be counterproductive, time-consuming, and cost-prohibitive. They required a technology partner capable of comprehending their existing system and delivering a cost-effective, efficient, and scalable solution.
Solutions
Rheal proposed a hybrid solution, preserving the desktop application's core functionalities while selectively migrating key information to the web. Through collaborative discussions, essential data points accessible to stakeholders were identified. A web application was meticulously crafted to incorporate these functionalities, seamlessly integrating with the desktop application through two-way synchronization. Heavy payload functionalities remained within the desktop application, catering to office-based end-users. The scalable architecture ensured readiness for future additions from the legacy system to the web interface.
Key Functionalities Integrated:
Job List :
Job Details :
Job Attachment :
User Management :
Company Setup:
Company Management:
Email Notification :
Timecard Setup :
Timecard Entry:
Task Reminder:
The Result
Migrating limited functionality to the web resulted in a drastic cost reduction of 1/10, coupled with expedited delivery timelines. Existing users continued utilizing the desktop application without disruption throughout the development phase. Upon completion, seamless onboarding to the web system ensued. The client lauds the efficient handling of the entire process and continues to augment the web application with additional features regularly, catering to the evolving needs of their end clients.
"Rheal helped Contractors Software Group. a leading developer of A-Z software for builders and contractors in the United States and Canada, take our on-premise or monthly hosted application suite to the web. Given the scale of our application, it would have been a huge effort both from a time as well as cost perspective to migrate all of the applications to the web. Over a series of detailed discussions and after more deeper understanding of our applications, Rheal recommended we migrate to the web in a staged manner only what was necessary. In close collaboration, only the functionalities that we were needed for external users were identified, which was about 30% of the entire application. The rest 70 % was encapsulated in the core desktop/server application. This helped in bringing down the development cost drastically. A two-way synchronization was implemented for the desktop/server and web application to talk with each other. The functionality to be developed was broken down into smaller deliverables following agile methodology to decrease the time to market and collect quick feedback, while the other components were being developed simultaneously. Over a short period of time, all the pieces of the puzzle were in place and resulted in a seamlessly integration between our Professional Series, a complete suite of integrated software and CSG Central, the new web application for sharing job information with clients, vendors and employees, giving us best of both worlds."
Jeff KnutsonPresident, Sales Manager & Product Development, Contractors Software Group
