Saving Time
It’s exciting when you realise that the tool you’ve built could be useful for others. You get the rush and excitement of having solved the problem all over again, combined with the knowledge that you can help people overcome some difficult hurdles in their own business. That’s what has happened for Stoy with CivilVisor.
Before entering the world of software development, Stoy worked for a longstanding concreting contractor working out of Blacktown, NSW in Australia. As part of his job, Stoy was managing workers across multiple work sites, while also trying to keep a stack of paperwork under control. A major part of this was keeping track of site documentation, which includes photos, planning and safety documentation.
In 2016 Stoy embarked on a project with the aim to recover his time that was being lost personally managing worksites, making his job easier and removing the need to commute between worksites multiple times a day. As the project progressed, other benefits, such as readily available site photos and documentation were soon realised.
Stoy’s app CivilVisor, allows streamlined management of worksites by providing workers with the necessary information to do their jobs when they need it.
One of the key objectives for the app was to reduce the need for his workers to come to him for additional information. CivilVisor achieves this by performing all the calculations needed for each area of the job, including all required materials, and presenting each type of worker with the information they need to get the job done.
Productisation
Once CivilVisor had matured, Stoy began to look at helping other businesses by offering CivilVisor as a product.
However, deployment for new clients was complex and took a fair bit of time due to the many parts of the app and the configuration required. Stoy needed a streamlined way to quickly onboard new clients without complications, and then to be able to manage their access to features of the system.
So we built Stoy a way to manage all that within the app...
Client Controller
The client controller dramatically speeds up the onboarding process for a new client, taking the complex task of setting up a new client file, simplifying it, and putting the full process in Stoy’s hands.
Stoy is now able to deploy a new client at any time, anywhere, using his iPhone to configure the system while he is on the phone with the new client. When all of the required information is gathered from the client, Stoy deploys the new client file with the tap of a button, and within minutes the new client has access to their new CivilVisor file.
The Email Problem
Key to the operation of many businesses is the flow of jobs coming in from clients. Unfortunately this means lots of job communications coming in all of the time, needing to be sorted and filed against the correct job.
In CivilVisor we have almost completely eliminated the need for manual sorting of new job information by importing incoming email into jobs.
To do this we link into Gmail using an API. This allows the app to download from an email account set up for each CivilVisor client as a sort of Inbox for jobs.
Job details may be found in PDF, Word or Excel attachments which are automatically translated into usable data within CivilVisor, thus creating the job record without human intervention. Additionally, any site photos or planning documents that come through are attached to all of their associated jobs.
Outcomes
Stoy’s app achieves a lot when it comes to saving him time:
- Remote management means no more revisiting worksites throughout a day
- Worker assignments can be automated
- Route planning can be automated
- Accuracy has been improved using appropriate data display and automation
- Details on any job, including photos and videos, are available instantly
- Council compliance achieved without any additional effort
By making life easier for his staff, Stoy’s app has saved him time that can be better used elsewhere, be it to grow the business, or to pursue other endeavours. Stoy has been using some of his recovered time to further develop CivilVisor, and is now working on developing other opportunities using the Claris FileMaker platform.
With the implementation of the Client Controller and Email Receiver components, we have saved even more of Stoy’s time by simplifying and streamlining the new client deployment process. The simple configuration afforded by the new Client Controller allows him to be able to quickly:
- Create and manage new and existing client solutions
- Manage licence seats
- Allows configuration of features for each client
Supplementing this, the new Email Receiver allows new clients to be deployed without any additional developer time required, while still providing all the benefits of being able to pull, parse and sort emails for new jobs.
These changes have resulted in faster deployment and onboarding for new clients, along with time and cost savings for Stoy.
