Posted by Matt Caesar on Wed, Jun 17, 2009 @ 03:00 PM
Creating
software that simply collects information is an easy task that any company can do. Actually, it's so easy, I wouldn't suggest spending
any money on a system that just did that. The real differentiator among software packages is how they allow users and administrators to accurately report on the data contained in the system. If your software package is unable to produce the reports that you need, you are wasting your time using it.
Anyone who has any experience entering data into a system, whether it be time tracking software or even a simple inventory system, will ultimately want a report out of the system that doesn't exist. This very well might be one of the most frustrating issues facing end users today.
Throughout my years in the software industry, I have learned that no two people are ever interested in the same report. As a software company, how do you manage that? I guess you could tell your users ‘this is all we have' or ‘hey, everyone else loves it', but that is not what people want to hear. At DSI we integrate our software with standard reporting tools and provide either custom reports, or train users to use the reporting tool on their own. It's a good start, but how many customers have extra staff or time to work on custom reports?
To combat this, we have attacked the problem in a few different ways. First, every report that we create, whether it is for our standard product offerings or custom reports we create during a project, is created using our reporting tool and made available to our user community. Second, we constantly offer refresher trainings for our reporting tool at our annual user groups. Third, we allow users to share their reports with each other via our Customer Forum. Combined, these approaches allow our end users to constantly refine and improve upon the already extensive reporting built into our software products.
Posted by Matt Caesar on Tue, May 05, 2009 @ 12:49 PM
Welcome to my first blog post for DSI/ITI!
If you are a current customer, there is a good chance we have crossed paths at some point in my tenure here. Whether it was when I was a software engineer, or Team Lead or maybe while at my current position as Chief of Product Development. For those non-customers out there (you know who you are), thank you for coming and I look forward to your comments!
Where will this blog take us? That's a great question. I am curious as well! As you may guess, my educational background and first love is Computer Science, so many of my thoughts revolve around our software - how to make our products better, faster, easier to use, etc. I will probably spend many weeks bantering on about new technologies and possibly new features that may or may not have an impact on our product line.
However, as Chief of Product Development, my day to day responsibilities can vary greatly. As a result, there are many non-technical topics that you will find me talking about -implementations, patents, corrections issues. At some point, I'm sure you will see a post on each of these topics.
As I do everything, I will try and keep the posts light-hearted and because I'm a native New Yorker, sarcasm will most likely run rampant. Thanks for stopping by for a read and let the comments fly.