CostTracker

AI Purchase Order Management System

web app

ABOUT PROJECT

About company:

CostTracker is a company born in Norway, which set up the goal to create an innovative cloud-based FinTech platform that helps companies save time and money through total control of costs in the organization. The software’s main functionality is an extensive purchase management system, which enables you to order items from various suppliers and plan your expenses in advance. As we at Railwaymen are growing it continuously since September 2018 in our Krakow HeadQuarters, you can find inside a catalog of over 185 000 different suppliers, and as this case study is being published (June 2023) – more than 110 000 purchase orders have been successfully registered and proceeded through this platform.

OUR WORK

Project Management

Frontend

Backend

QA

UX & UI

Business Consulting

Future Strategy

1. PROCESS

WORKSHOPS

The first design workshop was the result of the client’s initiative, who, after doing research on software houses, selected several with whom they considered working together. Railwaymen was among the companies considered. We had a chance to meet our clients in person – they visited our office and, what’s more, we organized introducing workshops for them with the whole development team to discuss all the details and organize brainstorming sessions. It was a great experience for both sides and thanks to that we were sure that we clearly understand their business needs and expectations. Our meeting focused on the technical aspects of the project. The client came to us with specific assumptions and a vision for the project, while our task was to verify the idea and propose a possible implementation. As a result, we were able to conduct a feasibility analysis and lay out optimization processes

Katarzyna, Project Manager

“Working on the CostTracker project has been a rewarding experience as a project manager. Taking over the project presented its fair share of challenges, but I am fortunate to work with such a talented and dedicated team. Together, we have successfully navigated complex requirements and implemented effective solutions, ensuring transparency and efficiency in our purchase order processes. The collaboration and expertise of our team members have been instrumental in overcoming obstacles and driving the project toward success.”

COMMUNICATION

At the beginning of the project, a complete understanding of the business needs was essential due to the specificity of the financial aspects in various companies. Our team had the possibility to familiarize with the product vision as well as analyze business requirements that were delivered by the client. The dedicated team consisted of several professionals specialized in different areas. Therefore, we were able to deliver the first version of the quite complex platform within 3 months and release it in September 2018. Since that date, the application is evolving very dynamically, fulfilling more and more needs coming from the FinTech market. We as Railwaymen have been responsible for 100% of the development throughout the whole time.

Over the years, the composition of the team members changed several times depending on the current needs and requirements of the project. The project’s exact Team Structure looks as follows now (June 2023): 1 x Project Manager, 1x Tech Lead, 1x Frontend Developer, 1 x Quality Assurance Engineer, and 1 x UX/UI Designer.

Maciej

QA Engineer

Sylwia

UX/UI Designer

Karol

Frontend Developer

Piotr

Tech Lead

Katarzyna

Project Manager

During the development process, we have established a communication flow that was agreed upon by both sides and still remains effective. Thanks to our client’s engagement, from the very first day and weekly calls we were sure what is needed and what might be obsolete. They came to us with a defined scope and vision of the project – that also helped us in understanding the idea and make it possible to deliver a working software product that meets our client’s as well as end-users expectations.

WORKFLOW

For ticketing purposes, we are using Jira and our clients feel comfortable tracking all the issues. Besides having the “QA” column and status for the dedicated QA specialist on our side, we also added the “Review” column in our workflow to make it visible and accessible for our clients. That was the place where they could verify completed and tested tasks on the staging environment. For daily communication, we also used another tool – Slack. Thanks to integrating Jira with Slack, all changes made on the platform and updates were transparent.

New client’s request

Verifying request by the team

Adding task to Jira

Taking care of workflow

Assigning client for task review

Completed task

Katarzyna, Project Manager

“Assuming responsibility for a project that has been ongoing for several months (when I took on Michał’s role in the midst of further app development) presents a significant challenge for any project manager, and I was no different. Now, reflecting on a year of working on the project, I can confidently state that the individuals involved, including the customers and developers, have formed an exceptional agile team that has successfully overcome numerous obstacles.”

2. WEB APP

CREATING PURCHASE ORDER

To make it possible to create a purchase order (PO) in a seamless and user-friendly way, our development team implemented ReactJS components. Thanks to that, the user experience on the site is on a highly satisfying level and is also meeting strategic goals. One of the most interesting and complex features is a Supplier catalog, which automates the process of adding items to PO from the same supplier in the company. Company employees that have assigned specific roles are able to search for items within the supplier’s items database. Such items are automatically added to a catalog if they were previously added to the Item List.

Tomek, Team Leader & Senior RoR Developer

“It was very exciting from the very beginning of the project. Starting with workshops where we defined core features and the application’s main flow, and ending with its implementation. I enjoyed working on the Purchase Order form where we used ReactJS components because of the many user-friendly features. Also, the financial parts of the application were really interesting from a database perspective. Mentioning the best parts of the application, I could not miss the approval process with different user roles and privileges.

During the development of the first CostTracker version, we had to take care of the frontend cool features, privileges access and flow process, and substantial database queries. We also had to make sure that the MVP we’re building will be easy to expand in the future. And seeing how the CostTracker app has grown since the first release, I believe we did that part well!”

Piotr, Team Lead

“Working with invoices is a demanding activity and requires a lot of focus and attention. OCR comes with help, which relieves accountants at least a little, reading data from the invoice and based on them completing the required fields. In addition, thanks to cooperation with Cradl AI, using a set of invoices that go to CostTracker, we have introduced the feedback loop function, helping AI learn to read data correctly. Feedback Loop contains data read by OCR, the percentage of the correctness of the reading, as well as the actual, final value verified by the accountant. In further stages, we plan to automate the process of document flow so that the system becomes more and more autonomous.”

REAL-TIME BUDGET PLANNING & MANAGEMENT

Thanks to the CostTracker purchase management system, you can plan your budgets and divide them into specific categories. Every Purchase Order created through the app is assigned to a specific budget – thanks to that, as a cost approver, you can easily track and plan all of your expenses! Inside the application panel, you have a clear view of your budget’s state: if any of them has been exceeded, how much has been already spent, which part of them has been blocked for your future expenses and how much money you have left for your next orders.

If you already know that there is a set amount of money you want to dedicate to your purchases, and don’t want to exceed it at any means – you can turn on the “strict” budget functionality. In this case, only the app Administrator will be able to approve the costs that exceed that set level of expenses.

For example – if you are running a marketing department, you can create separate budgets for ordering Items for your events, recording equipment (cameras, microphones) or else. Thanks to that, you can easily track and see in a visually appealing way how much money you have spent on your department’s procurement needs, look for the most cost-efficient suppliers and analyze the price-quality ratio of the Items that you receive from them. No more making financial decisions based on hunches or competitors’ activities – thanks to CostTracker, you’ll be able to make much more educated decisions based on hard data!

CASHFLOW & MILESTONE

The CashFlow module is used for expense planning. It provides the functionality of breaking down payments, where, by default, a single payment is treated as a one-time payment. However, there is also the option to divide payments into stages (milestones) and spread them over time, according to expected transfer deadlines. CashFlow divides budgets into various categories such as pending payments, current payments, overdue payments, etc. Users can browse through these categories to track the status of payments. This module also allows checking payment data within the budget. Users can view information about planned expenses, current payments, overdue payments, etc. This provides users with a comprehensive view of their finances and enables them to monitor expected payments and take action in case of payment delays.

PLANNING PURCHASE ORDER (PPO)

You know that feeling when your company Christmas Eve’s dinner is approaching, and you are starting to stress out whether you have enough funds to make it truly exceptional? With this CostTracker Planning Purchase Order functionality, you won’t get so easily surprised by unforeseen costs! You can pick a budget (for example employer branding or HR) from which you want to “block” resources for your specific goal within seconds.

What’s also great about this functionality, that you can create a Planned Purchase Order inside the app, but you don’t have to execute it. Thanks to that, as a manager or department director, you can plan your Purchase Order for the future and then delegate the execution to your employees. This solution eliminates the risk of several people ordering the same Items independently – thanks to CostTracker, they can work on the same Planned Purchase Order and make sure they will avoid any frictions along the process.

The CostTracker purchase order management system will notify you that the time when you’ll be needing the funds for your Planned Purchase Order is getting closer. It will also warn you that you may exceed your budget, because of the POs you’ve planned in the past, but will be executed very soon. In plain words: this functionality helps you to plan and overlook your business purchase orders long before they will reach out to your suppliers.

ADVANCED USERS & ROLE MANAGEMENT

One of the biggest challenges when building a FinTech app is to ensure your money flow stays entirely under your control. After all, you don’t want one of your employees to accidentally order 1000 mouse pads that you don’t really need. So to make the whole purchase order process maximally safe and intuitive, we’ve introduced several roles inside the CostTracker purchase order software. The approval flow looks like on the graphic below, and ensures that only company-designated decision-makers can approve or reject purchase orders created by other employees.

There is also an Administrator role, which of course has got total control over everything that’s happening inside the purchasing software. This person can assign roles to specific users anytime it’s needed.

MULTI COMPANY MODULE

Inside the CostTracker purchase order management system, it is possible to have users with multiple roles assigned. For example, Jack is “just” a Purchaser in the XYZ company. But in the ZYX one, he is an Approver. As an Administrator, you can assign Jack a specific role in the chosen company and have a clear view of which kind of roles are assigned to him at the moment.

When you do this, Jack will be able to create POs as a Purchaser by typing XYZ.costtracker.com in one organization (yes, CostTracker will create a separate subdomain for your business) and then move to ZYX.costtracker.com and accept purchase orders created by other users as an Approver in another company. As an Administrator, you’ll be able to see all of that and make sure that some roles don’t interfere with each other.

THE AI ACCOUNTING MODULE

As the CostTracker aims to be so much more than “just” a purchasing system, we’ve introduced two different types of integrations with the most popular accounting systems on the financial market. So if you are using apps like QuickBooks (interesting fact – you can find CostTracker on the official list of apps that are integrated with this software), Tripletex, Sage Accounting, Xero, PowerOffice or 24SevenOffice – you can easily process the data you already store inside them when using CostTracker!

Mateusz, Senior RoR Developer

“The biggest challenge here for me was to understand the financial and business flow inside the apps that we wanted to integrate with. All of Accounting Systems mentioned above present their data differently – the goal was to display them all in a unified way inside the CostTracker.

For example, 24Seven Office uses Soap API, when all of other Accounting Systems work on Rest API. Their interfaces also differ greatly. Yet we’ve managed to accomplish this goal, to integrate them well, thanks to the solid basics we’ve built at the very beginning of the app development process. Thanks to that approach, we’re fully prepared for introducing new integrations in the future and develop the CostTracker further!”

We’ve called this functionality the Accounting Module, and it enables you to:

1. Enlist invoices data from your chosen accounting system inside the CostTracker and match it together with the specific purchase orders. The system matches invoices with POs based on variables like the same supplier name, the transaction value, the order number, or else. It enables you to save tons of time you would waste, by doing this manually! It happens automatically each day, so you don’t even have to think about it.

2. Process invoices inside the CostTracker and then send them to your chosen Accounting System. To achieve this goal, we use the OCR system – more about it below! Yet what’s special about CostTracker, is that if somehow, the OCR matching system fails, we’ve developed a set of internal logical rules (built by our Senior Ruby on Rails Developer Tomek) to make sure that the invoices data was processed correctly nevertheless. The app tries to achieve that goal by automatically filling the required invoice pools based on historical data (gathered from previous documents processed from the same provider or other types of infos).

Tomek, Team Leader & Senior RoR Developer

“Have you ever had a situation where the OCR system didn’t read your invoice data correctly? Even if this happens only occasionally, in the case of FinTech software – each of those situations can cost you lots of troubles! That’s why inside the CostTracker purchasing software, we’ve developed an original Artificial Intelligence script that double-checks the invoice data read by Lucidtech.

It works by identifying places in your invoice that OCR system could not proceed correctly and trying to fill up those gaps based on infos inside your CostTracker database – those can be variables like Supplier, Purchase Order, TAX code etc. In case it’s not able to do it – the software asks the user to do it manually, yet it saves that action in its memory, to fill it up automatically in the future when the same case occurs. In short words: this script makes your work of implementing the invoices much easier and free of errors!”

OCR INVOICES PROCESSING

Accounting systems typically require manual entry of invoice information, which can be time-consuming and error-prone. However, CostTracker purchasing software offers a solution by incorporating Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Thanks to this, invoices can be sent directly to the system in PDF format, and the OCR algorithm recognizes and enters the appropriate data fields, streamlining the processes of accounting and implementing invoices into the system.

Using artificial intelligence algorithms, the invoice file is scanned and automatically filled with the necessary information. To ensure accuracy, the software provides a confidence percentage, indicating how confident the algorithm is in the input data. This double-checking feature increases the speed and reliability of invoice scanning and processing, surpassing manual processing by humans. Once scanned and processed, the invoice can be matched to a specific order (with the option of automatic confirmation) and modified accordingly (e.g. adding a tax code) before sending it to the designated accounting program.

The CostTracker purchasing system offers the convenience of creating a dedicated email address for sending invoices. Any invoices sent to this address will be automatically processed by the application. In addition, the OCR technology includes a comprehensive feedback function, allowing the system (Lucidtech) to learn from any mistakes made. Every time an invoice is processed and approved by the customer, updated data and current statuses are sent for comparison so that the system has the data test for later development of AI.

PURCHASE ORDER DELIVERY MODULE

When ordering lots of items from different suppliers, you need to retain full control over your deliveries. Thanks to the CostTracker purchasing software delivery module, you can control your orders in real-time. Inside the app panel, you can select the items that you’ve already received and those that you are still waiting for to come.

For example, you can create one order called “Austin SXSW Trade Shows” and create separate deliveries inside, like banners, leaflets, gadgets, etc. from various suppliers. When the banners come – you tick the box that this specific delivery has finished. But you are still waiting for gadgets – so you don’t close the order in general, as long as you will have the “full package”. Thanks to this module, purchase order management becomes much more under your control, as it helps you to maintain your business operations smoother and more immune to human error. It also helps you to react faster in case of stock shortages or run your inventory management better (similarly to Unleashed Software solutions).

NLP ITEM MODULE

When choosing the right procurement software for your business, you want to make sure, that it will be working best in YOUR case. All business needs are different, and the goal is, to build a purchasing software flexible enough, to adapt to those needs. In the previous CostTracker MVP version, the adding Item functionality stayed pretty basic. You could once again order Items, that you’ve ordered before (the system found it inside the previous purchase orders) or add them manually. But in the new version, the Item Module enables you to send the items you want to order inside the software as an Excel file. The CostTracker artificial intelligence algorithms scan your file and ask you, which column of your file means what. And then – they automatically assign those Items to a specific Purchase Order, and then add it to your database, to make your procurement processes much faster and easier!

Tomek, Team Leader & Senior RoR Developer

“Our inspiration for developing this functionality was the solution used by Mailchimp, a very popular e-mail marketing software. We’ve made it using React.js, and it works like this: you can open your Excel file, mark the data you want to import inside the CostTracker, paste it inside the app and we’re matching that data automatically with the right columns. And what’s great here, that the columns names don’t have to be named exactly the same: thanks to Artificial Intelligence scripts, the software can figure out by itself, that the column labelled “cost” in your Excel file, should be assigned to the one labelled “price” in our CostTracker system. In the future, we want to make it even smarter, as financial applications are a great example of software that can benefit a lot from implementing AI solutions!”

VARIOUS LOGIN OPTIONS

One of the most important things when building FinTech software is to ensure the maximum level of security. CostTracker purchasing software enables you to get inside the app using login options a follow:

TWO FACTOR AUTHENTICATION

According to statistics from a CompTIA study, “Human error accounts for 52 percent of the root causes of security breaches.” Sometimes we don’t pay enough attention to make our passwords maximally safe – and this is where two-factor authentication comes in handy. You can log in to the CostTracker purchase order management system by downloading the Google App Authenticator app, scanning the QR code at the first login attempt, and then – by simply typing up the password and the code, the Google App will send straight to your phone! Thanks to this solution, the login process becomes easier yet maximally secure.

SINGLE SIGN-ON (SSO) LOGIN

Are you using the option to “log in through your Google account” sometimes? Most of us do – this type of solution is called Single Sign-On. You can configure the CostTracker app of your choice, supporting SSO software (for example – Azure) and then, log in within an easy and secure way with your previously created account. This solution is especially important for bigger organizations, where creating a separate account for each user would be a highly complicated and time-consuming process. The benefits of this solution go as follows:

Tomek, Team Leader & Senior RoR Developer

THE POSSIBILITY TO USE THE COSTTRACKER APP API

Lots of the solutions described above wouldn’t be possible if we haven’t created the CostTracker API. Thanks to this, various types of software can integrate with this purchase order software, download stored inside purchase orders, and proceed with the Cost Tracker data inside their systems. Having their own API developed and open to use for other software is like the quality stamp that only truly advanced and professional applications can pride themselves on.

SYSTEM MANAGEMENT FLEXIBILITY

Due to developing the application from scratch, our client wanted to keep the system fully flexible and manageable by the company administrators. They can have their own database of suppliers and their contacts as well as provide more information about their company to create POs in PDF format and be able to send it through the email directly from the system with an appropriate note. Moreover, they have full access to manage the company employees, system users, and assign them to specific roles, based on the company structure. In the PO approval process, the most important factor is to have the determined budget limit for each user with an accessible role. You can also decide to hide specific Accounts, adjust the order view, create your projects list, and much more!

DASHBOARD

The dashboard presents the most important statistics and system information in a clear and organized manner. It serves as a user interface that enables easy monitoring and analysis of system data in real-time or based on historical information.

3. UX / UI

MOBILE VIEWS AND TABLES

Displaying big data on a small screen is a challenge. On small screens, users can only see a small portion of a large data table. Using specific signposts orient users when they scroll through the data, and tools that narrow down content according to user-specified criteria allow them to view the data in a meaningful way. To achieve that, we used specific tools and features, such as locked headers or columns, expandable rows, sorting, and filtering.

QUICK ACCESS FOR THE APPROVER

Quick access to data on mobile devices was necessary for users with the approver role. In this case, we needed to let them view and edit purchase orders on their phones or tablets easily and fast. The approval view is available on a smaller screen only at this particular moment because CostTracker is a successively larger FinTech system that has more and more tables or data.

We decided to serve data that is split into small portions and bring out the main actions. One of the special features, in this case, was to swipe columns in the mobile table view. It helps users to follow the data on their devices without missing any important information. In the same view, we locked the column with main actions and made it anchored to the view, so users can use them at any time. For the purchase order view, we came up with a different approach and prepared a completely separated view for mobile devices. In this case, we decided to display tables’ rows as classic form fields, which helps the user to see the whole information about purchasing an item at once and edit it quickly if needed. To avoid a lot of scrolling, we also added expandable rows that make it easier for mobile users to focus on the selected section of data and jump between different views of other sections without scrolling.

DESIGN SYSTEM

VISUALIZATION OF FINANCIAL DATA

During the first stage of our Railwaymen’s teamwork on the project (MVP) was focused mostly on fast and accessible communication. This included features such as quick view, mobile tabular data display, notifications and automatic data flow between users. In the next stage, our goal was to create a comprehensive system for the flow of data and financial documents between CostTracker and external accounting programs.

In this case, we focused on precise data presentation and process automation. An essential challenge at this point was to enable implementing a large amount of data at once and approving the tasks that have been automated through the software fast. To make it possible, we decided to introduce micro charts to provide a concise representation of statistical information without overwhelming the user with too much detail, as well as tooltips to offer additional information if needed.

We implemented the colored values to draw attention to aberrations or overruns, as well as distinction between errors in the form and data to read them automatically with a certain accuracy.

The created interface provides easy access to key actions, ensuring efficient management of large views of data through flexible filtering, search box and sorting by columns. An important aspect of the development was the distinction between automatic and manual activities. By implementing the identification feature, users can easily distinguish automated processes from tasks that require manual intervention.

FURTHER APP DEVELOPMENT NEW CHALLENGES RESPONDING: STREAMLINING THE GENERAL APP WORKFLOW

Another step in the product development process was to analyze the specific types of users and tasks that are assigned to them in the system. While analyzing each module, we combine UX knowledge and the industry (financial) knowledge provided by the client in the form of materials and general feedback. We focus on the analysis of financial rules, the current process that we want to include in our software and the priorities of the user who will use this module. We choose the data which is already in the system and is important for the users and combine them with the new functions which are necessary for them.

While the first stage of our Railwaymen teamwork on the project (MVP) was focused mostly on fast and accessible communication (fast preview, mobile display of tabular data, notifications, automatic data flow between users), the next stage was to provide complete financial data and document flow between Cost Tracker and external accounting programs. In this case we focused on precise data presentation and process automation. From the interface point of view, our goal was to optimize the work of the accountant and people supervising the processes in the company. A very important challenge at this point was to enable implementing a large amount of data at once and approving the tasks that have been automated through the software fast. To make it possible as a Cost Tracker you couldn’t have any issue with navigating through the software itself.

To achieve that goal, we improved the visual presentation of data, e.g. in the budget’s module, where we present current budget allocation and burning. We also show simplified charts in tables to present the user with the best possible knowledge about the task in a minimal form.

Sylwia, UX/UI Designer

“Efficient communication and design process conducted from the beginning of the application’s development allowed us to smoothly move on to designing more complex modules and taking into account feedback from customers. Thanks to the fact that we work together from the start of the project it is easier for us to analyze new processes, incorporate them into the existing structure of the program and find places where inconsistencies may appear already at the stage of idea analysis. From the design point of view, it’s extremely valuable to learn how the process we’re going to automate is currently implemented for potential customers. This allows us to take a closer look at the needs and, as a result, create an optimal and user-friendly interface.”

4. FRONTEND

FLUID DESIGN (RWD)

In view of today’s usage of mobile devices and its high development pace, we decided to apply the most flexible solution while building the CostTracker platform. The widely used Responsive Web Design approach requires additional effort and sometimes might not be enough when it comes to viewing processed data on devices with different screen sizes such as desktop, tablet, and smartphones. In our projects, we stick to using techniques based on Fluid Design, so applications created by our team support the actual screen’s width and height, despite changing that once using the software. In a nutshell, the UI of the web application is always fully adjusted to the workspace of the current device.

Formir

Customized CSS3/HTML5 framework which is using a pure CSS approach to be completely integrated with the application. This framework is based on the comprehensive Grid module system, which allows to easily adjust Responsive Web Design technique to complex layouts.

Karol, Front-end Developer

“Keeping new components in Storybook helped us a lot during redesign works and will have much impact on frontend improvements in the future. Interactive and accurate documentation of components could help in understanding how they work, which speeds up our work.”

5. QA

CostTracker purchasing software is a great example of an application that is most efficient to test using automation, but manual tests during the development of the application also take place. With automated testing, you as a customer pay the same amount of money while getting higher Quality Assurance protection and more confidence that your app will work in multiple scenarios!

However, it should be remembered that we recommend automated tests mainly in the case of highly developed software that processes large amounts of data. As for the MVP application – it’s not the most efficient solution because manual testing usually works for simple applications. Anyway, we are proud to say that we can do both: start with the MVP app, test it manually, and then move to automated testing as it grows. Not every software company can do that!

Maciej, Quality Assurance Engineer

“The biggest challenge in testing CostTracker is its continuous development and the creation of interconnections between elements of the application. Each of these connections should be checked for any changes to the surrounding systems. In this case, good communication with developers is very helpful in understanding many of such connections and provides the opportunity to adjust test cases and the testing approach to ensure that everything is in the best state possible. An additional level of complexity is introduced by the numerous integrations with external systems, which are tested with every functional change or update to our system.”

6. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

As Railwaymen, we take pride in achieving Xero certification, which means that we meet the requirements and standards for software integration and customization. This enables us to offer our clients services that seamlessly connect with this accounting system. We can also assist in fully leveraging the potential of Xero and automating accounting processes, ultimately contributing to increased operational efficiency.

We have also obtained QuickBooks authorization, which grants us the privilege to work with this popular accounting and financial management system. With QuickBooks authorization, our clients can rest assured that we possess the necessary qualifications and experience to deliver solutions that optimize their financial processes and aid in effective financial management.

These achievements demonstrate our professionalism and commitment to providing high-quality services related to integration and software development for online accounting systems.

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

The first version of the platform was successfully released at the beginning of September 2018 and is constantly gathering positive feedback from the very first users. As we're writing these words in June 2023, over 1 400 company accounts have been created inside the software, almost 10 000 budgets have been currently managed through CostTracker and over 212 accounts are actively using integrations mentioned above. That's a really great score in such a narrow business sector as purchase order management is! In the near future, we plan to improve the invoice module, redesign the whole app, and add another integration, this time with Sage50. As the demand for custom FinTech apps is constantly growing, and more and more tasks you can automate through the right software - we're sure that the development possibilities are constantly growing!

Testimonial:

“The team’s ability to align with our goals is outstanding. We needed a full-stack development partner and Railwaymen has delivered up to our expectations. They understand the product and what we want to achieve for our clients.”

Tore Andreas Hansen & Torstein Floden,

CostTracker Founders

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

The Perfect Room

Digital marketplace with luxury decor experience

web app

ABOUT PROJECT

About company:

The Perfect Room is a digital marketplace where the interior designed service has been turned into an online product. Founded by Kathryn M. Ireland – renowned designer based in LA, US.

The main purpose of the project is to bring luxury decor and beautiful rooms to everyone’s life in a few steps and make it customized based on specific criteria included in the quiz section. On the website, there are shoppable luxury decor packages with full-service installation available, that are delivered to the customer’s door. It’s a tailored solution to fit various styles and tastes.

OUR WORK

Frontend

Backend

QA

1. PROCESS

During the development, the dedicated team had an opportunity to build a tailor-made application along with the complete luxury decor packages purchase process implementation. Developing such a customized marketplace required a lot of effort while finding and adjusting the best solutions but in the end, our developers delivered the software which met the customer and end-user needs.

Currently, everyone might be inspired by beautiful spaces, find the most exceptional collections and items designed by A-List Interior Designers. As a result of implementing the full purchase process, it is also possible to shop the whole collections or specific items online with the white glove delivery.

Our team was responsible for the whole software delivery process and quality assurance through the project duration. Before launching the site, we tested different cases to make sure that the provided platform is stable as well as secure.

Weronika Nowak, Project Manager

“The Perfect Room will always remain as an interesting as well as challenging project where our team had a chance to develop an exclusive marketplace for well known interior designers. Based on the customer needs and the requirements analysis, we provided the seamless user experience and make sure that the purchase process is running effectively and is highly secure.”

2. WEB APP

STYLE QUIZ

The most interesting part of the application, which makes The Perfect Room unique across the competition, is that our team implemented the style Quiz section on the main page.

As a result of having that feature, the user is able to find out the best collections based on his own choices and preferences. The goal of implementing the visual style quiz module was to make the process of ordering the luxury interior design packages easy. And it worked out excellently!

Mateusz, RoR Developer

“The biggest challenge on the backend side was to create the complex visual style quiz which would be also user-friendly for its creators in the admin panel. As a result of our work, The Perfect Room administrators are able to manage the quiz flow and available collections in a specific room category. Our algorithm combines answers with individual rooms, giving the user the opportunity to find the perfect space that fits his style.”

DIGITAL MARKETPLACE

Except of having the advanced style quiz on the site, the platform offers much more features and is providing a comprehensive online shop experience. The dedicated team also worked on the complete checkout process and integrating the site with Stripe payment provider. Users that made a purchase on The Perfect Room, have a possibility to view the order history.

FAVORITES

As we know, having the Favorites feature is crucial for the best user experience on each e-commerce platform. The Perfect Room is not an exception in this case, thus the dedicated team that worked on that project on our side has also developed such functionality. Users might save the whole collection or specific item that they like or remove that at any time.

DESIGN CONSULTATIONS

Moodboards are accessible for those who are not sure about what type of collection style might fit their spaces best and are looking for a tailor-made design. On the marketplace, there are not only physical items available to purchase but also a design consultancy packages.

CUSTOMIZED PLATFORM

Based on our client’s requirements, we implemented the basic version of the content management system which allows site administrators to customize the specific sections on the main page as well as fully manage the Featured Designers section thanks to the user-friendly text and images editor.

3. E-COMMERCE ANALYTICS

DATA TRACKING

Tracking the user behavior on the site is crucial for delivering the best luxury decor shopping experience and making sure that this experience is exceptional. It allows to easily analyze the general user flow and make adjustments based on statistics as well.

For making it work effectively on the platform, our team integrated Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics to make sure that specific user actions are being tracked and reported.

Michał, RoR Developer

“In cooperation with Data Scientist on the client’s side, I had an opportunity to integrate the Google Tag Manager on The Perfect Room to make sure that we’re tracking the most important actions as well as we store enough data that is essential for the further development steps.
That was a great occasion to combine my developer experience with Data Scientist knowledge about data tracking.”

AVALARA

One of the most interesting integrations is connecting the platform with AvaTax system. As a result of having that on the site, we are able to automatically calculate the tax value based on the United States zip codes. It’s also updated swiftly in the order summary section to make it transparent for the user before completing the checkout process. On the other hand, our client has an opportunity to store and generate all invoices in one place.

3. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS

Kathryn M. Ireland, The Perfect Room founder, has been recently featured in Elle Decor as a renowned interior designer. Most of the presented designs are available in shoppable packages on the site. Such packages include full room, essentials, and accents. There is also the possibility to book a design consultation with one of the top interior designers who are featured on The Perfect Room.

THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT THEM

Moreover, all A-list interior designers that cooperate with The Perfect Room have been mentioned in other famous online magazines such as

Testimonial:

“During the years that you have worked with The Perfect Room, you have proved your capabilities and your skills to be effective.”

Kathryn M. Ireland,

Owner

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

Createcoin

THE WORLD’S FIRST

BLOCKCHAIN

IDEA PLATFORM

WEB APP

ABOUT PROJECT

CreateCoin is a revolutionary platform that allows people to get paid in cryptocurrency for their best business ideas and feedback. Main features include leaderboard gamify the experience for the most active people, token distribution, and the discovery page.

OUR WORK

Project Management

Backend

Frontend

UX/UI

QA

1. PROCESS

Our cross-functional team, at the peak point, consisted of seven dedicated tech professionals. We’ve put a lot of energy to make the processes goes smoothly and established the communication flow that works well for both parties. CreateCoin is named the world’s first blockchain idea platform, so it was a great challenge for us to meet all current needs and understand their revolutionary vision. At the moment, we provided our clients with the first version of the platform, so we are still in the exploratory mode and waiting for more features to come.

Weronika, Project Manager

“Ivan and Jeffrey from CrowdCreate are amazing entrepreneurs with heads full of new ideas. They are participating in almost every international blockchain conference, which makes them know the industry inside out. They’re working with a lot of startups, so they also know where the innovation comes from. It’s a great pleasure and a challenge to work with them on the CreateCoin platform.”

2. WEB APP

The activity on the platform is based on the gamification. The CreateCoin community has a chance to be a part of the cutting-edge projects worldwide and – what’s most important – be rewarded for that. On the other side, authors of the projects have a possibility to gain valuable feedback from people that want their ideas to be noticed and considered by the famous brands.

WAYS OF GIVING THE FEEDBACK

IDEAS – To increase the chance of winning the contest, users can always submit their idea, give their feedback in the different project sections as well as use sharing options to encourage friends to vote on already submitted ideas.

PHOTO RATING – This section is dedicated to choosing the best option and adding users’ own if they have any. The ‘heart’ icon is the easy way to vote and gain more coins.

FEEDBACK SURVEY – The CreateCoin platform is a place where innovative ideas evolve. The third section that is optional for project authors is a feedback survey. We included 5 specific types of questions such as 1 to 10 voting, star rating, text answer, single and multiple choices.

SUMMARY OF THE USER ACTIVITY

On the CreateCoin platform, we track the number of upvotes and downvotes to make it visible for users which ideas have the highest value among the community. Each action is being rewarded and users can also view the summary of their involvement in the User Dashboard.

3. REWARDS SYSTEM

CRYPTOCURRENCY

To make it real, our development team integrated the BlockCypher API with the CreateCoin platform and thanks to that the process of transferring the Ethereum or Bitcoin rewards is a ‘no hassle’ process. We also took care of the highest security standards for making transfers in both cryptocurrencies.

Piotr, Backend, Team Leader

“Our goal was to provide the greatest possible security for our clients. That’s why we decided to store the private keys of both wallets in an encrypted form, protected by the password. For this purpose, we have created a special script that allows encrypting the password on the client side, the private key of the wallet does not go beyond his computer and all transactions are authorized by his own password.”

4. UX / UI

At the beginning of the project, we provided our client with web and mobile layouts of the platform. Due to the evolution of the initial idea, we had to tailor the designs to meet all requirements and make sure that the platform is user-friendly from every angle. We tried to deliver the highest quality possible, so the project required a lot of research in the meantime.

Patryk, UX Designer

“The most interesting as well as the hardest task in this project was to connect various functionalities on the project page. The CreateCoin has been divided into four main sections with the possibility to hide specific modules, which is important from the user point of view. As a result of making this happen, each user is able to view content worthy their note. The useful and intuitive platform on both web and mobile devices is an effect of detailed research and mapping out the layout”

5. QA

During the development process, our QA specialist had quite a hard nut to crack! Testing the first version of the platform was not only based on creating different accounts, adding ideas and giving feedback through different application modules. The most important case was to make sure that all rewards are being distributed in a proper and secure way as well as there is no possibility to easily add spam, invaluable content. A lot of test scenarios have been reviewed before the CreateCoin’s launch.

6. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS

CreateCoin is available now for first users that would like to be rewarded for their ideas and shared feedback. It’s an open platform for everyone that wants to be involved in the innovative projects’ development. It’s a Reddit meets Kickstarter.

Crowdcreate has been recognized as one of the best companies in prestigious blockchain rankings in USA, UAE & India. They are blockchain technology experts, participating in numerous international conferences. Publications and articles about them also appear in many well-known magazines (e.g. Forbes).

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

HomeAhead
Marketplace

Free, online network with your favorite properties

WEB APP

ABOUT PROJECT

HomeAhead is a free, online network of homeowners, home buyers, and real estate professionals who want earlier and more information about homes and buyers in the neighborhood. It’s not another social network for sharing dog photos – HomeAhead is for better home buying and home selling transactions.

About company:

HomeAhead focuses on helping brokerages recognize and adopt modern technologies that are agent centric, consumer friendly, and mobile first.

OUR WORK

Backend

1. PROCESS

“After a year of extensive collaboration I have gained a rare sense of confidence and respect for Railwaymen. Their fundamental dedication to engineering principles is a common thread in all their communication. This professional rigor struct me repeatedly as they reworked our rough ideas into profoundly clear and minimalistic products. You know you have found the right team when months into a massive application you review completed work feeling incredulous at the turnaround. I’m confident that years from now, as the cost savings and other benefits accrue, our appreciation of Railwaymen will continue to grow.”

Matt Jensen,

Frontend Developer

Talking in JSON

Our Team was responsible for supplying Matt with every data he needs to engineer the best user experience possible. From simple data presentation layers to complex business logic, dialog between Rails API and modern JS libraries always occur in JSON. Whenever our team finished the feature it was delivered through our Continous Integration pipe to Matt in the form of handy swagger docs living on top of staging API server.

2. MARKETPLACE API

API docs done right

Swagger docs library is known as well grounded documentation standard for APIs. From the very beginning it was our go-to solution for getting Matt up to speed with request and response formats.

Karol, Senior RoR Developer

“Matt was wonderful frontend partner to work with. We worked together for more than a year and thanks to Matt‘s wonderful communication skills never hit a wall with development. Matt was great both at telling us what he needs and suggesting solutions to problems. In order to always be on the same page we set up Continuous Integration process together with ChatOps so our slack bot would notify Matt few seconds after we push new feature to a staging server.”

Talking in English

Having handy API docs is nice, but nothing can replace a good ol‘ phone call. We used appear.in service to quickly jump on the call and together with Matt talk trough tasks and come up with idea satisfying client requirements. Leaving the meeting with clearly defined solutions speeds up development a lot on both sides.

Rich search filters

HomeAhead Marketplace API supports nearly 50 kinds of different search criteria to help you find your dream home. We got you covered from a number of bathrooms in the house to its historical price data. When you are finished with tweaking all of the various filters in your search you can save it for later and share with your friends! If your friends like it, they can copy it with one button and tweak their new search to their liking.

Minimalistic, efficient chat rooms

Buying your dream home is one of the most important decisions in your life. No wonder that you‘re drowning in your email inbox with different real estate agents, while each one of them is emailing you about the different property. It‘s pretty hard to keep your inbox clean and organized. That‘s why HomeAhead ships with minimalistic chat rooms which you can use to keep your real estate conversations organized. Have each one of your real estate agents in one place and never bother about flooded email inbox again.

3. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS

Our dedication and hard work together with Matt‘s professionalism created the perfect product for modern Real Estate market. Whether you would like you to find your dream home or you would like you to sell your current house, HomeAhead will equip you with complete solution ranging from sophisticated search filters to dedicated Real Estate agent.

Testimonial:

“It is a pleasure to work with the Railwaymen team. They did a great job creating our application and offered professionalism, expertise, and great customer service. I am impressed by how well they are able to understand our needs and add additional value to the process. Railwaymen works in truly agile mode, regularly delivering quality code. And communications were excellent throughout the entire project. We are looking forward to our next great collaboration and I would highly recommend Railwaymen to anyone seeking an honest and reliable partner.”

Dave Cunningham,

CEO, HomeAhead/Wishlist

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

NDA Project for E-learning platform

Development of an educational application that allows users to take certified business courses in an e-learning format

WEB APP

ABOUT THE PROJECT

About the company

Our client this time is a company that deals with conducting training courses and various business workshops on a daily basis and now looks to increase revenue and scalability with a proprietary e-learning platform.

OUR WORK

Project Management

Frontend

Backend

QA

PURPOSE OF COOPERATION

Developing a clear and easy-to-use educational platform for creating and participating in business education courses.

THE CHALLENGE

It was a challenge to develop a solution that would allow users to comfortably acquire the knowledge they are interested in without having to leave home. At the same time, to design features that would give the application a competitive edge.

1. PROCESS

The main premise of this project was to develop a platform that would serve as a repository for business courses and all kinds of online learning materials. The role of the application was to enable users to use the available resources and learn the posted content. People using the application could purchase materials of interest by purchasing specific courses or using a subscription model.

We engaged 5 people to work on the course: 1 x Product Manager 1 x Frontend Developer, 2 x Backend Developers and 1 QA Specialist. Due to the provisions in the contract with the client, the project is NDA in scope.

1x Product
Manager

1x Frontend
Developer

2x Backend
Developer

1x QA
Specialist

Bartosz, Product Manager

Collaborating on this project made me realize how much potential there is in capturing knowledge online. Thanks to the work of the whole team we created an application that encouraged users to redeem content in their area of interest. The described solution allows not only simple consumption of educational materials, but also gives a wide range of possibilities when it comes to designing them.

2. THE FEATURES

ONE-TIME PAYMENT AND SUBSCRIPTION MODEL

The application’s business model was based on the ability to purchase individual courses or join them as part of a subscription, both through an integration with the Dotpay platform which supports a variety of payment methods.

ADVANCED BILLING MODEL

For the subscription model, we used an advanced billing model. Revenue was to be split between the platform and the content creator based on the watch time of posted lessons. The distribution of profits was based on how many subscription-paying users viewed content on the platform. Railwaymen’s role was to develop a solution that analyzed which pieces of educational material were viewed most often. Based on this information, appropriate remuneration was assigned to the creators. Thanks to time tracking, we had information about users’ engagement in course usage. We also introduced an option that indicated the percentage completion of each course.

COURSE EDITOR

Another feature included in the application was a simple course editor that allowed quick creation of educational materials based on available templates. Creators can upload custom descriptions, graphics, as well as visuals streamed through an integrated Vimeo player. This feature allowed creators to personalize content according to their preferences.

3. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

Apple Seeds

All-in-one play spaces
for families and kids

WEB APP

ABOUT PROJECT

The idea of Apple Seeds was born from a need of this kind of activities that allows kids run and play with others in a friendly scenery. Apple Seeds operates all-in-one play spaces for families with children newborn to five, located in New York City (3 locations in the city) as well as many classes of virtually any kind – from music classes to art, cooking, gym and language.

OUR WORK

Frontend

Backend

1. PROCESS

Our team constantly develops the company’s software and provides full support and maintenance services including system administration.

Łukasz Młynek, CEO

“We have been working with the Apple Seeds over 10 years, starting with a very basic, online classes booking system, on the advanced, fully manageable custom CRM ending. Together with Apple Seeds team we have built an online system for franchising program called ‘Songs for seeds’. It’s an interactive, music class that educates and encourages children through a live, three-piece band. There are ~30 locations at the moment.”

2. THE FEATURES

LOCATIONS MANAGEMENT

As the company expanded from a single location to multiple places’ network, so did our software.

All franchisee owners get their own, a highly customizable website with a selectable business model (one time payments vs monthly subscriptions) and integrated set of common features.

We implemented a multiple access levels’ system, which allows to managing content & resources in a single location’s scope as well as on the global level.

CMS

To achieve a highly customizable website, we integrated and extended tool named „Comfortable Mexican Sofa”. This allows to managing single pieces as well as an overall layout of pages. Those can be built from simple blocks of text (visual editor included), the system also supports creating and using picture & video galleries, audio playlists, banners and more…
Even without technical knowledge, any page’s edit can be done with ease.

SCHEDULER

The core functionality of the platform. It is dedicated to our client’s needs, internal panel, which enables managers to create schedules, allocate facilities, assign staff to classes and support the whole booking process, pricing policy etc.

REPORTING

We created a system which enables to review and analyze almost every aspect of the business. Dedicated reports can be used for accounting purpose, to measure KPI’s, track the classes’ usage, view the demographic data or just to print the history of payments.

Maciek, Senior RoR Developer

“From a technical perspective, the AppleSeeds is a very interesting project. At the bottom, it is a nice mix of well known (at least for engineers) tools and custom modules, which were built from scratch. I have gained much experience due to the application complexity, large variety of business cases that we handle and also special attention for keeping the data consistency, which is necessary for such long lasting projects.”

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP

Another important part of the application is the internal CRM module. It integrates client account’s related management with an internal POS (Point of Sale) functionality as well as Reporting system. It is also a „front office” software, which supports handling access to play spaces, keeping track of client’s payments’ history and more…

It is worth to mention, that we integrated our software with dedicated to pick and measure customer experience and satisfaction service – Listen360. Thanks to those 3rd party services, the AppleSeeds staff can get detailed insight and feedback from their customers of what is great and what could be improved in their daily operation.

E-COMMERCE

The front-end layer made for clients – parents and their kids. It allows to register and purchase online the company’s services. Those are not only the aforementioned classes, but also membership, which gives an unlimited access to playground spaces and birthdays’ packages.

We implemented two separate models of online payment (using credit cards). The first one is a typical one time fee. It is used for purchasing birthday events and semester mode’s classes (classes which are operated between certain dates). The second option of payment is a monthly subscription. It is designed to handle billing of memberships and those classes which are scheduled to be „continues”.

The system comes with a rich module of discounts. First and last minute options, multiple classes’ or kids’ registrations combined with continues or limited time promos, give high flexibility of creating pricing policy. The loyalty system is also available in the application. Some part of the money (the rates are customizable) spent by clients, can be gained and reused for the next purchases, which leads to the better customer experience.

3. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

The Apple Seeds application is a big online platform, developed by our team for several years.
During this period, it evolved from simple classes’ scheduling & booking system into an enterprise solution that organizes the entire business, all aspects, from presentation layer to payments & accounting.

REWARDS

Apple Seeds is awarded from the very beginning and distinguished every year for their achievements and involvement in child’s education.

THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT THEM

Apple Seeds company has been recognized in many prestigious rankings like Parents’ Choice, NYC Parent’s Choice award: Best Playspace, International Operations Program of the Year and many more. The system for franchising program called Songs for seeds has been also widely identified as one of the best kids’ music programs in the USA

Testimonial:

“Railwaymen not only executed professionally but also delivered in a very timely matter, as promised. Furthermore the founders of Railwaymen where always there when I needed them. They become your extended family and treat your project as if it was of their own.”

Allison & Alison,

Apple Seeds Co-founders

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

MySoberRoommate

mobile app

web app

ABOUT PROJECT

The only app that lets you search, match and message with sober roommates.

About company:

MySoberRoommate was created to help people. One of the founders is a therapist working in addiction recovery, watched many of his clients grow frustrated trying to find sober roommates. They couldn’t find a roommate matching portal for people committed to living a clean lifestyle that also protected their personal information. That is why MySoberRoommate was born.

OUR WORK

Frontend

Backend

UX/UI

QA

iOS App

1. PROCESS

MySoberRoommate is roommate matching app for people who are in addiction recovery or have chosen to live clean for other reasons. It has implemented an advanced search engine allowing to search for a sober roommate using different criteria. The members of the platform are both the people who are looking for a room and who have room to fill. The service gives them a possibility to send messages to each other and add to favorites interesting people. MySoberRoommate is one of a kind service for people committed to living a clean lifestyle that also protected their personal information.

Agata, Project Manager

“Our cooperation with Client was very smooth. Emily and Jesse, MySoberRoommmate owners, were very engaged in the whole process of app development. They responded to our questions very quickly and provided exhaustive information. They are passionate about what they are doing, well-organized professionals and they knew what they wanted. These made our cooperation a great experience. It was a pleasure to be a part of this enterprise.”

2. WEB APP

WEB APP

We completed Ruby on Rails website that includes searching and messaging functions.

Searching

There are advanced matching algorithms and quick search feature. You can choose “I need a room” or “I have a room to fill”, share information about yourself. Also, you can choose a state and region in the United States. Moreover there is an opportunity to filter by available features like age, smoker/nonsmoker, also you can add info if you have a pet and how much money you want to spend per month.

Connecting

You can easily contact with potential likeminded roommates. You can add your contacts to Favorites, so it’s much more easy to connect with them.

Messages

There is an option to message with potential roommates for as long as you want, as often as you want, for free. You can instantly see photos, read profiles and message with potential roommates who match your selected criteria.

3. MOBILE APP

Tomasz, Senior RoR Developer

“In addition to the web version, I created the API of the mobile version, which allows users to use MySoberRommate on mobile devices. Collaboration with the iOS team ran smoothly and seamlessly, resulting in a 100% functional application. They provided a consistent source of expertise and guidance to the whole team.”

ios app

We built a complementing iOS app.

3. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS

Thanks to MySoberRoommate platform people in recovery can more easily connect with sober roommates, and can potentially help save people’s lives. MySoberRommate has been featured in many articles, magazines and blogs associated with health and wellness.

Testimonial:

“Railwaymen far exceeded our expectations, and working with them was a fantastic experience. Not only did they create a website for us that is both aesthetically and functionally impressive, but they were also very patient, responsive, and adaptable. We feel so fortunate to have found such a skilled, knowledgeable team, and we would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a developer with technical know-how, a keen eye for design, and excellent project management and communication skills.”

Emily Churg,

CFO, MySoberRoommate

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

Remark

APP ENABLES TO MANAGE

THE VIDEOS

WEB APP

ABOUT PROJECT

About company:
Remark is an online collaboration tool that enables individuals to play, annotate, review, and approve videos. The main aim of the project is to enable users to exchange information about movies. This is a perfect solution for the film industry, where you can accelerate the production of films from different industries (eg. advertising, documents, interviews, reports, etc.).

OUR WORK

Frontend

Backend

QA

1. PROCESS

The origins of work on this project date back to the early years of RWM. Initially, the project was to serve as a survey aggregator, but in 2013 it was renamed as an application dedicated to video creators. The main idea was to simplify communication between the editor and the client.

The developed editor generates a video file and then shares it with the client, who was able to share his insights on specific timestamps. In addition, it also has the ability to edit specific movie frames to change the composition. Remark was equipped with the option to include voice notes at a selected moment in the edited video.

After a while, Remark became part of a larger platform designed for the video production market. The project was maintained by our team for about 8-9 years.

Tomasz, Senior RoR Developer

“Remark is an application developed by our team for about 6 years. During this period the technological stack changed and evolved into the latest technology, which most of them are: Ruby on Rails, Backbone, CoffeeScript, Sass and Haml. In the application, you can also find a module written in angular. We have put a lot of work into the maintenance of the video player, which is the core functionality. It is dynamically adapted to the source of the video material, while preserving the same UI, so that the user does not feel lost. Streamlining source files from a variety of less common file-sharing services is also a great challenge, as well as a great opportunity to explore such solutions on a large scale.”

2. WEB APP

WORKING WITH VIDEO CONTENT

Remark is supposed to simplify the exchange of information on specific elements in the film. For example, the editor throws the first version of the movie, the client checks the whole and notes the timeline as a comment. It can be added a standard comment, an audio comment, and even use a tool that will allow drawing on the film’s retained frame. This way it can be better illustrated what changes are expected.

SYNCHRONIZED MOVIE PLAYBACK

In addition, Remark allows for synchronous playback of movies so that each viewer can accurately see the same at the same time. And keep in touch with other people by adding comments.

INTEGRATIONS

Another remarkable improvement is the ability to upload a video to your preferred distribution channel. The most popular: dropbox, box, sharefile, etc.

SERVICES POWERED BY REMARK

Remark is also a solution used by Georgetown University for which it has been optimized for functionality and visual. Other services can be easily integrate with Remark by using API, which allows for the quick and effective use of implemented solutions within their own service (e.g StudioNow).

Quite interesting was the implementation of authorization using SLAM technology (The Service Level Agreement Manager (SLAM) is used to establish an agreement between customer and provider about capacity and quality targets. SLAM is using INDIGO IAM for authentication and INDIGO CMDB for configuration and authorization for providers.). As a result, any university user with an internal ID in the facility’s system could easily authorize on our project, where it was used for collaborative course viewing, where students could ask questions through comments.

3. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS

Remark is the only online tool of its kind, which makes it possible to speed up the production of movies. It is an alternative to the current way of working, posting comments for different versions and transferring the whole between the editor and the client. Used by large, well-known global companies, film studios as well as individual users.

500 STARTUPS & TC

In conclusion, Remark makes it possible to speed up the production of movies. It is an alternative to the current way of working, posting comments for different versions and transferring the whole between the editor and the client. The biggest challenges: real-time synchronization of users while watching and integration with a huge number of sites to host files. Remark was successfully launched at TechCrunch Disrupt and seen on many prestige tech portals, such as TVTechnology, TheNextWeb. Remark raised an undisclosed amount / Seed from 500 Startups and Capital Factory

Testimonial:

“Railwaymen are extremely professional, up-to-date on technology trends, and a true reliable partner that I would highly recommend to anyone looking for development firms. Their project managers speak perfect English and effectively communicate what needs to be developed to their developers who range from enthusiastic young aspiring developers to the experienced mentors that make sure the quality of the work is on par with the best money can buy.”

Taylor Hou,

Remark

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

Frindow

Social networking app for people who feel lonely and isolated

WEB APP

ABOUT PROJECT

About company: Frindow is a UK startup social networking platform that is dedicated to alleviating loneliness and isolation by encouraging new friendships based on common interests and circumstances. The goal is all about getting you connected and engaged with new people in the same situation as you.

Check out the Frindow story below:

OUR WORK

Project Management

Frontend

Backend

QA

1. PROCESS

The best way to create a successful application is to meet the users’ needs. Just by observing what people have a problem with or how some processes can be facilitated. That's actually how it was with Frindow. The pain point was an increasing level of loneliness in societies.

Marcus Hamilton, CEO of Frindow

“Many studies have shown that the stressful impact of loneliness affects our mental and physical health.
At least 9 million of us are lonely in the UK. That’s the equivalent of every person living in London or the entire population of Scotland and Wales put together. It’s common, but yet a lot of people are embarrassed about admitting it – until now.”

Marcus Hamilton, CEO of Frindow, found out about this study data and decided to create a social web platform which will be a central hub for all things that can help to make new friends and get connected. Marcus was inspired by his grandmother and how to help people her age break out of isolation and connect with others.

Before contacting a software service provider, he prepared a deep research about development solutions. Clutch - USA based, data driven field guide for B2B with top web and mobile development rankings was his first choice and he found us through our profile. He made a shortlist of potential companies based in Kraków. Then he traveled to Poland and spent a few days visiting each software company and speaking to managers. He wanted to verify how software development companies organize work and check their approach and methodologies. After visiting about 6 companies, he decided to go with us!

Having a technical background and being also product owner, Marcus took care of a clear vision for his web app and a plan that will allow it to achieve its goals that are a reference point for talks about the value of Frindow, so that he and our team know if they are going in the right direction.

What was the reason and the goal?

Bartosz, Project Manager

“Frindow is a really interesting take on social apps. Marcus has a really clear vision for his product. Combining this with in-depth cooperation between him as a product owner and the development team resulted in fast development cycles and end product which brings a lot of value to the users.”

Railwaymen team developed a website for the Frindow social networking platform. Working from scratch and with prearranged designs, we built the platform while fulfilling specification and functionality objectives.

Our development team consisted of 5 people: Project Manager, 2x Ruby on Rails Developers, QA Specialist and Front-end developer. We communicated daily with the client through Slack, Jira, and Zoom and as in the case of each client we had internal meetings - daily stand-ups during the Sprint for tracking the progress.

The Challenges
Probably the most challenging part was the time of releasing the platform - period of outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in the world. The COVID-19 forced isolation, prevented relationships and community building. Due to this difficult and exceptional situation, we had to be prepared for rapid changes and add functionality list updates before release (some features had to be blocked during the coronavirus lockdown and some had to be added or extended).

2. WEB APP AND FEATURES DESCRIPTION

VIDEO CHAT

Video calls are becoming increasingly popular among social media users. Thanks to a live video you can enjoy chatting with your new friends. Using instant messaging tools allow you to contact the people selected by you, and the only requirement is access to the Internet. In this case for a video-chat feature we used WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) which is a technology that enables real-time communication using a web browser.

Jacek, Ruby on Rails Developer

“Working on Frindow app from a documented idea to live application was an interesting and well experienced journey. One of the challenges on the project was the video-Chat feature. It was built using open source WebRTC technology. The hardest part was to communicate with customers Web browsers and establish peer-to-peer connection between them.”

CHAT

You can use Frindow for yourself, somebody else, or have a joint account for both of you. If you are using the site for somebody else, you’ll be seen as a Proxy User. You can then chat with other Proxy Users or standard users to help get your loved one connected offline or on video chat.

PROFILES

It’s super easy to create a profile on Frindow. Users can choose whether she/he would like to have an anonymous profile or not. They can fill in all necessary data like location, nickname and about me section. By adding photos they can create their gallery with favorite ones. Moreover, the user’s profile is always verified. Confirmed users have a badge on their profile so that you can make an informed decision on who to make contact with.

PROXY USERS - DIFFERENT TYPES OF ACCOUNTS

GROUPS

Group mapping for those interested in various types of similar interests, aggregators where they can meet and talk; automatically joining to certain groups, or taking into account the possibilities of a certain group. During COVID-19 there was a special group created for people who feel lonely and isolated because of the coronavirus lockdown. Actively reaching out to other people and asking how they are doing, giving someone support – it improves their mental health. There are several categories of groups dedicated for different types of users’ needs. Check some of examples: Singletons, Mums & Dads, Under 25s, Living Alone, Get Involved, Retired and more. So as you can see each user can find a place for themselves on this social networking platform. Frindow can also provide information about local or national groups or services that may be relevant to you.

Marek, Ruby on Rails Developer

“Creating a Frindow app was an engaging process. There were many complex issues that had to be dealt with. One of them was creating a user mapping functionality that would allow for proper filtration of the groups for individual users based on the data they provided while using the app. Finding and delivering an efficient solution proved to be a bigger problem than expected since there are other functionalities relying on user mapping. The app offers a possibility to create, among others, subgroups, discussion rooms and get-togethers.”

FORUMS

The discussion forum is used to exchange opinions on various topics. Thanks to groups and forums you can take part in the discussion or just follow the conversation. It is a convenient form of obtaining information, learning the opinions of others, sharing experiences and making contacts.

GET TOGETHERS

This is a combination of functionalities of an online social networking platform with the offline world. There is a possibility to create a Get Together in or near to your local area.

NOTIFICATIONS

The notifications are automatically sent messages appearing when a user receives a friend request or a message from another user. They also notify about an invitation to a video chat and may contain internal system information.

Paweł, QA Specialist

“Working in the Frindow project is very interesting and requires close cooperation with the client, daily decisions and problem-solving activities. Manual tests were mainly used in the project. Tests related to mapping logic (connecting users with appropriate groups) pose the biggest triggering challenge.”

3. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

It requires constant development in response to user needs. The website has received many positive feedback users and we are still developing and extending features. We are aware that enabling the anticipated and stable development with new functionalities and the development of the platform allow clients to maintain a competitive position in the industry. Currently, Frindow is only available to UK residents. They will be expanding into other countries in the near future.

Testimonial:

Overall, I really liked their management and after viewing their portfolio, they seemed very capable of doing what I wanted. Also, they were very supportive of the project itself, which was important to me. More than just being willing to do it, they understood what I was trying to achieve and were keen on helping me obtain my objectives.

I’m very fortunate to have the partnership that I’ve had with them. Their team appreciates that we’re a startup and privately-funded project. I’ve received tremendous amounts of work compared to the amount of money I’ve given them.

Marcus Hamilton,

Founder & CEO, Frindow Ltd.

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

Triple Tied Out

Verified Financial Audits For Property Managers

WEB APP

ABOUT PROJECT

About company:
The software allows users of popular property management systems to generate financial daily audits.
Audits are publicly available and could be used to confirm the property rental companies’ reliability.

Mission:
To clean up and keep the property management industry clean!
Triple Tied Out is leading the charge on accounting standards with property managers, property owners, tenants, and even state regulators.

Where did the idea for building TTO come from

The idea for creating TTO was born from the users themselves.
Our clients actually asked us for it! This is the best way to build a tech product when your lients are asking for it and willing to pay for it!

Taylour Hou

Chief Happiness Officer, Triple Tied Out

OUR WORK

Frontend

Backend

1. PROCESS

Work on Triple Tied Out began at the initiative of a client who approached us with the idea of developing a solution responsible for generating daily property audits for users of popular management systems. The idea itself originated from feedback from TTO’s customers, who often suggested suggestions for developing this type of tool. Thanks to a number of useful integrations and adequate accessibility, the solution we developed together gained many supporters from the real estate industry. The project team consisted of:

1 x Product
Manager

2 x Frontend Developers

1 x Backend Developer

Adam, Ruby on Rails Developer

“The main goal of the application (Tripletiedout) is to support users in their daily work by automating repetitive processes. The application consists of many subsystems including web scraping, handling incoming e-mails and cooperation with external apps. The most difficult thing is to maintain correct operation of all subsystems, on which users’ work depends to a large extent, and at the same time one cannot rely on the stability of external data sources.”

2. THE FEATURES

AUDIT GENERATOR

Bank reconciliations Make sure that your recs are in balance, up to date, and that there are no uncleared deposits or expired checks.

Tenant liabilities Double check that you have enough cash to cover security deposits and prepayments.

Property balances
Ensure that all of your properties are staying in the positive to prevent commingling.

Badge Verified Daily Audits

After audits you can share your badge on your website to potential investors and owners.This is valuable information for people who want to do business with you. It communicates your transparency and the value of working with your company.

Marcin, Senior Ruby on Rails Developer

“Application seems to be simple but under the hood there is a complicated logic, many integrations with external apis like Google drive, Sendgrid, Plivo, Asana, Stripe and more. The most difficult part of the project was to prepare failure-free PDF parsers that will allow the system to the data we need.”

INTEGRATIONS WITH PROPERTY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND BANKS

Another way of reaching customers for subscribers is using campaigns curated by JMA staff. Responsive board allows for segmenting contacts into groups, so only the appropriate content is being sent. Thanks to robust Drip integration subscribers can be sure that the content will reach correct people.

Segmentation of the clients helps to engage them effectively by matching relevant content. The automatic email system will contact the person after adding a name and email address.

PDF EXPORT

Through the User Panel (also called Customer Portal), subscribers can view available content documents and control the sending of individual emails. Managers with proper permissions can add new customers, and by using the drag & drop method, determine in which column a particular client should be located.

James Marketing Amplifier Managers can add new subscribers and upload new files directly to the library. The Admin Panel gives them full control of uploaded content materials. They are able to add, edit, and assign documents to subscribers.

When adding new contacts for their subscribers, JMA staff can use a bulk import tool which allows for importing large amounts of data into the system. Thanks to intuitive validation and editing options, it’s easy to find any mistakes in imported data and quickly fix them – even when working with thousands of records.

Szymon, Junior Ruby on Rails Developer

“Working on ApMHELP is a constant challenge requiring from us developers a lot of attention and extensive knowledge of services with which we are integrated, and the ability to quickly adapt to changes occurring in these services. Additionally, when creating various solutions automating the auditing process we need to demonstrate our Reverse-Engineering skills in order to effectively obtain data without direct access to the API. “It is surprising how much can be found in JavaScript”

USER INTERFACE

Thanks to the integration with management systems and banks, it is possible to control all payments. Other integrations facilitate authorisation processes, the automatic collection of e-mails in the application or even the organisation of work inside the company.

NOTIFICATIONS

3. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

The result of our work with Triple Tied Out representatives is the creation of a tool that allows for convenient verification of financial audits among property managers. With this app, you can stay up to date with your financial records every day. Thanks to integration with bank accounts you can check through AppFolio if everything is correct. The idea behind TTO is to make it possible to obtain company documentation automatically, without the need for a physical visit to the company premises.

Testimonial:

“I have been personally working with Railwaymen since 2012. I’ve brought them multiple projects and have had multiple companies using them. I love the company and I bring projects to them whenever I can.”

Taylor Hou,

Chief Happiness Officer, Triple Tied Out

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

ProTenders

ALL-IN-ONE
CONSTRUCTION PLATFORM

WEB APP

ABOUT PROJECT

About the company:

ProTenders is the platform of choice for Construction Companies to build their online reputation, find the right partners for each job, get new leads and streamline all their Tendering activities.

OUR WORK

Project Management

Frontend

Backend

Marketing Graphics

UX

QA

1. PROCESS

We built the team around ProTender’s needs, with about 10 people: CTO, Project Manager, several frontend and backend developers. ProTenders help companies from hundreds of countries connect, get more opportunities, find people to work with, and then streamline the whole bidding process.

Weronika, Project Manager

“We are part of the ProTenders team which is spread in various places around the world. Most of the members are working remotely from different locations such as Canada, the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East, and Vietnam.

The whole technical team provided by Railwaymen is working from Krakow, Poland. Our team consists of almost 10 dedicated tech specialists – starting with CTO, Team Leader, both Frontend and Backend developers, QA and ending with a Project Manager. We communicate daily with our client thanks to different channels, such as HipChat and JIRA to help us manage the whole project.”

Thanks to this project, we had a chance to learn a bit about Saudi culture – for example, while working on prayer time feature development. As the project scope and our involvement have grown significantly (eg. KIOSK project) since the first release, I believe, that we’ve been successful in all of these points.”

2. WEB APP

DATA PRESENTATION

To provide clear and fast data presentation we integrated tools like AgGrid, which allow us to create editable and structured data trees and customizable data aggregations. To increase speed we use Algolia search engine with features like facets and search, providing user easy access to all needed data.

DOCUMENT VIEWER

Custom built solution to browse PDF documentation. Except of basic functionalities like rotations or text searching, we created annotations system and compare mode. Comparing feature gives us the possibility to browse multiple version of documents side by side or draw two versions on one canvas with colored differences.

ISSUE MANAGEMENT

In additions to document review flow, we created issue reporting system, which allows us to simplify collecting documentation. Combined with annotations system in document browser, we can pin-point issue on buildings blueprint or correct specific point on the estimate. Our issue management system comes with built-in chat, to allow users to communicate internally or between companies involved in the project.

3. UX/UI FOR MOBILE APPLE APP

COLLECTING CONSTRUCTION DATA

Our challenge was to design an extremely useful mobile app, when it comes to working remotely at the construction site. It allows the user to find and collect data about buildings and their status in the very convenient way. The user can add the data and photos of specific building step by step in the clear and easy way.

We also created markers which show the user helpful and valuable information about the particular building.

4. AUTOMATED TESTS

Milena, QA Team Lead

“ProTenders platform is an interesting project which creates many challenges. The project is still developing which requires well quality testing. I make work more efficient, by implementing automated testing. The key is to build user-friendly product with advanced features.”

5.ADVERTISING GRAPHICS

We also provided support in terms of marketing and sales, designing graphics for both the internet and printing We have prepared a graphic design Case Study for the most important and largest companies cooperating with ProTenders, including: DAMAC, DUCON, Interlight, ADCE. We also created graphics promoting the campaign, which aimed to broaden knowledge about the benefits of the ProTenders platform. The campaign included various sectors: hotels, hospitals, and health care.

6. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

ProTenders is the only platform, when you are looking for ways to grow your construction business, expand to new markets, find new products or streamline your tendering process.

Testimonial:

“They’re not like many teams I’ve worked with, where you tell them to do A and they just do it. They take the time to think about what A means and how to integrate it with the application. They do more than just code, they’ve become part of the team. They always try and find the best solution for us.”

Karim Helal,

CEO, ProTednders

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

Evally

Improvement of employee evaluation and recruitment processes with an internal application.

ABOUT PROJECT

Using Evally makes employee development and recruitment easier and faster. The application provides many opportunities for better team administration.

OUR WORK

Frontend

Backend

QA

UX & UI

Discovery Phase

PURPOSE OF THE TOOL

Facilitate Railwaymen to conduct an employee evaluation process and develop a tool to support company recruitment.

THE CHALLENGE

Develop a technology solution that meets our evaluation and recruitment needs.

1. PROCESS

Evally was developed as a result of Railwaymen’s internal initiative to improve the employee evaluations and recruitment process. The application was designed to meet the administrative needs of monitoring employee development and their emerging needs. The tool also influences the recruitment process by gathering information about the company’s recruitment activities. People responsible for hiring new employees have at their disposal detailed profiles of candidates or a summary of particular stages of the process. Thanks to Evally, hiring can be conducted in a shorter time, without losing the quality of recruitment.

Szymon, Senior Ruby on Rails Developer

“Open-source projects are a great opportunity to gain knowledge and broaden your horizons! In the Evally case I have a chance to familiarize myself with Vue.js – this more and more popular JavaScript framework. In a short time we at Railwaymen have launched a simple web application which has two key areas of usage: 1) a tool for team leaders to evaluate and track the skills of team members, 2) a tool for our HR Team to collect data from candidate’s applications, evaluate them and manage the whole recruitment. It wasn’t a big effort but now is a huge advantage of feedback for our team.”

2. EVALUATION MODULE

DASHBOARD

After logging into the application, the dashboard appears. It contains drafts of employee evaluations and a reminder of upcoming reviews with employees. This section contains a full list of employees, which can be filtered based on position, team affiliation or person who will be responsible for the evaluation.

By selecting one of the employee profiles it is possible to check the results of previous interviews, date of employment, contract number, dates of upcoming review and the employee’s development path so far. This view is only available to the person giving the evaluation. Each employee can obtain an individual link that includes their evaluation from their most recent evaluation.

Ratings

During the review, each employee is rated on their skills on a three-point scale. This type of measurement helps e.g. in selecting the right people for new projects, where one of the criteria is experience in a specific field. These ratings are updated with each review meeting. Employees are also verified for soft skills using yes/no designations. The final form of evaluation is the text evaluation, where any thoughts on the evaluation are written down by the evaluator.

TEMPLATES

Evally makes it easy to create templates to support employee evaluations. This saves time throughout the process and automation of data. The created templates can be modified at any time as desired. The ability to co-create content with designated coworkers is also a convenience. All you have to do is tag the appropriate person to receive an email notification with an invitation to edit.

3. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

4. HR OPERATIONS

RECRUITMENT FUNNEL

This functionality allows individual candidates to be grouped based on the stage of recruitment they are at. Access to this tool is granted to persons responsible for recruitment (including Product Managers of particular teams to which recruitment is carried out). Each user who meets the requirements to have access to the funnel must first be assigned to it. By conveniently moving candidates on the timeline, you can plan the dates of subsequent stages, feedback emails and estimate the exact recruitment time for a specific position.

You can change your recruitment status on your candidate profile. The available statuses include:

TEMPLATES

Evally has a Templates tab where users can prepare templates for recruitment interviews or evaluations. When preparing such a document, the user selects the destination where the file should be placed (evaluation or recruitment). In addition to all rating options, each editor can prepare questions and answer options which only the admin will have access to.

In the case of recruitment templates, you can place (pre-created) templates on a given candidate account for a given recruitment stage. There can be several of them, and each of them has the possibility of development.

E-MAIL TEMPLATES

One of Evally’s features is to streamline email communication. It delivers application messages from candidates to the inbox and segregates them properly. The email integration also applies to the recruitment process. Email templates are prepared, which candidates receive as a response back. This way, recruiting professionals can focus solely on each applicant’s feedback. This option works for outgoing messages. As for incoming messages, they are not saved in Evally (only fyi). The tool also enables HR Specialists to create email drafts for each stage of the recruitment process. In this way, feedback is given quickly and reaches every candidate applying for a position. Content creation is supported by autosave, which ensures that even when leaving the application the results of previous work will not be deleted.

NOTIFICATIONS

Each user board has the option to add comments and tag users. Once tagged, the called person receives a special email notification. In this way, the entire recruitment process can run smoothly without fear of missing out on key issues. You can change your recruitment status on your candidate profile. The available statuses include:

STATISTICS

The tool generates extensive recruitment statistics. This makes it easy to analyze the number of applications for each position. Collected data can be compiled periodically without using tools such as Microsoft Excel. HR Specialists can generate monthly/yearly reports based on the collected statistics. In this way, it is possible to create average data related to the candidates’ expected salary, years of experience and even their skills.

Iwona, EB&HR Manager

“I appreciate the two modules of this tool and its impact on the quality of evaluations and recruitment processes in the company. As a Human Resources Specialist at Railwaymen, I can’t imagine my job without Evally. With this software, all recruitment efforts are simple and intuitive.“

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

Evally is a tool that will work well in many business environments. It’s a web application that integrates features responsible for the process of employee evaluation and recruitment of candidates. While Evally currently supports the Railwaymen team in their day-to-day work, it has the potential to make an appearance in other areas. HR and EB processes in Railwaymen run more smoothly with this solution.

Testimonial:

We have struggled with a good reviewing and evaluation system for years. Having the process built, we could not find a good tool on the market to fulfill our expectations. Therefore, we decided to build our own.

I am using Evally on a daily basis to provide employees evaluation as well as recruitment process. For both purposes it works just great!

Łukasz Młynek,

Co-Founder & CEO

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

Teamle

Web app solution to manage 1:1 employment satisfaction survey sessions between employees and HR

WEB APP

ABOUT PROJECT

Discovery Phase Workshops of a web app solution to manage 1:1 employment satisfaction survey sessions between employees and HR and its further development.

With the help of the Discovery Phase Workshops, it was possible to set out basic guidelines for the development of an employee relations application.

OUR WORK

Discovery Phase

Frontend

Backend

QA

UX & UI

PURPOSE OF THE DISCOVERY PHASE

Identify potential and select appropriate tools to create an application for organizing one-on-one meetings at Railwaymen.

THE CHALLENGE

Developing an application for managing the employee evaluation process with a focus on Railwaymen's needs.

1. PROCESS

The idea to create the Teamle app came from organizing periodic one-on-one meetings with employees to get feedback on their work at Railwaymen. This process is one of the duties carried out by the company’s HR & EB departments and requires considerable logistical skills to carry out properly. In an effort to systematize the gathering of information on employee satisfaction, the idea of developing a tool to support the implementation of these activities was put forward by one of Railwaymen’s employees. The team has tested several external tools, but none of them met all of the expectations and requirements of their process.

Using Teamle, interviewers would have the ability to take note of any problems occurring in the organization and appropriately delegate solving them. To streamline the process, we wanted to implement various types of notifications that would notify participants of an upcoming meeting date. A useful feature from the perspective of HR and EB departments is an analytics system responsible for generating statistics and reports. Railwaymen have a high employee retention rate, so it was also crucial to have quick and full access to the employees’ work history, KPI’s and their expectations communicated over the years.

However, before we started developing Teamle, we wanted to check the potential of the tool, compare it with other available solutions on the market and select appropriate features. For this purpose, we decided to conduct a Discovery Phase of the project.

Szymon, Senior Ruby on Rails Developer

“The Discovery Phase helped us better define the project. Each stage of the process provided us with useful insights from which we can work on the application’s functionalities. It’s also a valuable resource in the context of developing Teamle’s MVP. We determined the priority features we would like to include in the MVP version, and prepared a backlog to work on in further stages of the project.”

2. DISCOVERY PHASE

We conducted the Discovery Phase process based on the standard steps we follow for a project. It included collecting data, defining user personas and their customer journeys from all perspectives: CEO, COO, HR Manager, Product Manager and employee, reprocessing the needs based on the selected tools, and pulling the flow of the entire application. In addition, to streamline the work on each of the Discovery Phase stages, we organized weekly meetings which allowed the entire team to stay up-to-date with the implementation of the application.

Sylwia, UX/UI Designer Team Lead

A great value of Discovery Phase was to conduct interviews and surveys with those involved in the process so far. We were keen to learn about the different approaches, needs and expectations of the participants. The HR/EB team helped identify a research group to analyze the process of 1:1 meetings of people from different sized teams, departments, people involved and people coordinating the process, as well as c-level expectations of the results.

This allowed us to learn about the different approaches to these discussions, both process and personnel. We learned how the methods of conducting the meetings vary, what difficulties and expectations the people involved have, and what information and values they expect from the process. Based on the research, we were able to better understand our personas, identify the most valuable functions, but also to optimize our communication processes and propose tools to support the organization of meetings.

THE FLOW OF THE DISCOVERY PHASE PROCESS

Creating Personas

Product Value Canvas

User journey

MoSCow

Creating Personas

Product Value Canvas

User journey

MoSCow

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

Teamle is a tool that will allow us to get smoother feedback on Railwaymen’s work from employees. With facilitated 1:1 meetings, the engaged initiators will be able to consult with individual employees on a convenient time to talk. What’s more, the next step is to prepare the application for commercial use in the SaaS model by other companies operating on the market and looking to improve their 1:1 meeting process. Nevertheless, the Discovery Phase process, based on a competitive analysis and individual feature assessment, has identified opportunities and risks that need to be considered before developing an MVP and, finally, launching a tool.

COLLECTING DATA

The first step that began our preparations for the Discovery Phase was to gather as much information as possible about the potential tool. To do this, we contacted the HR and EB teams to conduct surveys about the conclusions of the appraisal meetings held and the employees’ thoughts on the process so far. Gained information was used to help us build the initial outline of the Teamle project.

DEFINING PERSONAS

During the persona design stage, we defined for ourselves the needs of individual employees in order to get a view of the evaluation process from different perspectives. We then gathered all overlapping opinions into one place and grouped the interviewees according to the categories we had established. With this division, we were able to detail the frustrations of each team that Teamle would address.

JOURNEY PHASES

After separating the various personas, we moved on to the journey phases. We divided the evaluation into several stages and analyzed it based on factors such as tasks, context, gains, pains and emotions from the perspective of employees, team leads, the company owner and the RWM HR. This broad view allowed us to draw important conclusions that weren’t apparent before starting the Discovery Phase.

ATTRACTIVENESS AND DIFFICULTY OF IMPLEMENTING FEATURES

After collecting all the features into one place, we assigned them to different groups of personas, giving them different colors. We then made a chart, where we took into account the difficulty of implementing the features and the attractiveness from the user’s perspective. It is also worth mentioning that each feature was subjected to careful individual evaluation before being placed on the chart. Thanks to this, we got to know the features that we should implement into Teamle first as part of the MVP, as well as the features that may appear in later stages due to their degree of sophistication, importance and time consumption.

Marta, UX/UI Designer

“In my opinion, the Discovery Phase process was a very important point in the work on Teamle. By carefully analyzing the application’s audience and features, we were able to work together to develop the best solutions to be implemented in the near future. This process helped us to reliably assess the potential of the project and prepared us for the implementation phase.”

3. APP DEVELOPMENT

During the Discovery Phase we analyzed the capabilities, advantages, disadvantages, risks, opportunities of various technologies and proposed a technology stack that best meets the needs of potential software users. It is based on this information that we were able to select specific features that we believe could appeal to potential users of the application.

PREPARATION OF APPLICATION LAYOUTS

Because of the initial stage of application development, we have decided to develop application layouts for adding a user and organizer accounts and inviting employees to individual meetings. More functionality visualizations will be added as the project develops. In the further stages of the app’s development we plan to include options for adding employees, determining the initiator of the meetings, scheduling them and collecting feedback.

INTEGRATION WITH GOOGLE CALENDAR

In order to schedule meetings more easily given the availability of individual employees, we want to integrate the app with Google Calendar. This kind of integration will allow us to have all evaluative meetings under control and to send notifications about upcoming appointments.

INTEGRATION WITH TIME TABLE

An equally important integration that we want to undertake in the implementation of Teamle into the company’s life is the connection of the application with the Time Table employee system. Employees will then be able to report a meeting in the system without the slightest problem and organizers will receive information about vacation dates when selecting a convenient term.

Iwona, EB&HR Manager

“The workshop was an inspiring way to define the real problems we face during the 1:1 process. As a result of the discovery session, we gathered a clear picture of how the tool should look and which functionalities will be crucial for the users. We collected and analyzed a lot of data to determine the purpose, potential and possible limitations of the project. I am glad I could be a part of the workshop team!”

4. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

CONCLUSIONS

Discovery Phase helped us define the required features of the application we were developing. By comparing our tool with solutions available on the market, we were able to identify both its strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, the Discovery Phase process proved indispensable in establishing the appropriate functionalities. We added additional functionality to the application that we had not assumed in the original design.

Thanks to the work we did in the Discovery Phase, we were able to identify the needs of the personas for whom Teamle is being developed. Also, based on the collected data, we identified functionalities that would meet their expectations. With the help of the Discovery Phase, we were able to prioritize the various functions of our application. Finally,we received an answer to the question of what Teamle’s MVP should look like.

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

ProEst

CLOUD BASED
CONSTRUCTION SOFTWARE

web app

ABOUT PROJECT

About company:

Since 1976, ProEst has helped over 8,000 of the world’s most prominent construction companies streamline and improve their estimating processes. They continue to live up to their reputation for reliable and expert innovations with the ongoing development of ProEst estimating and on-screen takeoff software. Currently, the company is growing and has 1227 clients in its database (May 2023).

OUR WORK

Frontend

Backend

QA

UX & UI

1. PROCESS

ProEst Cloud gives clients’ very innovative solutions to fulfill their needs. It means that the application is continuously developing – we started with 3 programmers on this project, and now the team consists of 6. Daily meetings with the client enable the determination of business requirements, which has resulted in the implementation of many new functionalities in recent years. This agile process is supported by tools such as Pivotal Tracker, Testim.io and Gitlab CI.

TIMELINE

Jarek, Senior RoR Developer

“For me, ProEst is both challenging as well as the interesting project. The volume of data that is constantly processed is huge and all the modules of the system are tightly interwoven, which requires high discipline and software optimization skills from the developers. The project also includes some image processing algorithms developed by us in the C++ language and employs cutting-edge web development techniques (e.g. Native code execution within the web browser) in order to achieve high efficiency.”

2. Web App

ESTIMATE

Core of the system. This is an advanced spreadsheet adjusted to estimators’ needs. It calculates costs of the project in realtime. Users can use a big predefined database of construction elements and adjust their quantities, different types of costs or markups. Estimate module works on big data, so was challenging to preserve good performance.

BASIC CONTENT & FEATURES MANAGEMENT

Being one of the most sophisticated modules of ProEst, “Takeoff” provides users with the ability to upload PDF files that contain construction drawings. After uploading and processing, the drawings can be then annotated or highlighted. The user can measure lengths and areas by drawing shapes on top of the drawing, based on which the estimated cost of the project gets computed instantly. The module also consists of a tool, which enables users to automatically search for all the instances of an object based on a selected template.

BID LEVELING

This tool is designed to improve the process of organizing bids made by aspiring subcontractor companies into even packages and selecting the best companies for the job. It helps with the identification of discrepancies between the bids by offering interactive visualization of per-package costs and real-time computation of per-item adjusted costs. Results of complex computations are delivered to clients in real-time, as soon as they make any changes within the estimate or prospective bidder selection.

Tomasz, Team Leader, RoR developer

“ProEst Cloud is the largest project we have been working on. Our team consists of six experienced developers. It ensures high quality of the code. This is a very important aspect for us and our client. Every team member contributes to the project and it is the base of success.”

REPORT WRITER

This powerful tool enables managers to create their custom reports and professional proposals, which can be exported to different formats. Custom reports are generated very efficiently and preserving flexibility.

WORKFLOWS

Using these feature company owners can fully customize estimation and designing processes. Due to this flexible solution, ProEst Cloud can fit to clients’ expectations. Workflows are visualized as interactive SVG graphics, so users can easily modify them.

3. AUTOMATED TESTS

In order to provide the highest level of software for the project, we implemented test automation at the beginning of our cooperation. ProEst was tested by our QA team simultaneously in the 4 most popular browsers. This allowed for more accurate application detection, earlier detection of errors and significantly shortened application testing time.

Bartek, Quality Assurance Specialist

“The project had a huge database of manual tests. My task was to automate them and to precisely cover all test cases. There was no boredom in this project, which I liked the most. The tools I used every day were Java, Selenium, and TestNG. Knowledge of JavaScript helped me in special situations. Repeatedly, I used it for elements that were not visible in clean HTML.”

4. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

In conclusion, ProEst is cloud-based construction software that combines a large area of project management and helps define special mechanisms for preparing a cost estimate for tenders. You can store files and customize estimation and designing processes. ProEst customers are large, well-known companies in the construction industry, both private and public.

Testimonial:

“Our search for the right development team lasted for a month, interviewing over 30 companies. We are confident that our decision to go with Railwaymen was the perfect choice. Not only do you have direct access to the executive team but have a development staff with knowledge and creativity that is unmatched. We highly recommend adding them as your extended development team.”

Jeff Gerardi,

President/CEO, ProEst

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

Shawarmer

Bilingual software for the FoodTech

from the GCC region

MOBILE APP

WEB APP

ABOUT PROJECT

About the company

Shawarmer is a quick-service restaurant founded in 1999, which has grown to more than 90 restaurants across the whole Saudi Arabia region. The Shawarmer mission is to take a traditional street food and through innovation, creativity, and experimentation, constantly modernize and interpret shawarma with new flavors, sauces, and variations in wraps and sandwich styles. The company wanted to have mobile apps which will enable users to conveniently order food for pick-up from all of their Shawarmer restaurants.

OUR WORK

Project Management

Android

iOS

Backend

QA

UX & UI

1. PROCESS

Our client came to us thanks to the GITEX tech show in Dubai. As a company known from prior experience with building custom software for businesses from a GCC region (ProTenders) – we were a perfect match!

Shawarmer company had some existing software made by another provider but wasn’t entirely happy with it, as it wasn’t as reliable as they wanted it to be. That’s why at the very beginning, our goal was to rewrite the current hybrid app to two separate native ones (iOS and Android), slightly change its flow and uprate its general functionality.

For starters, our development team consisted of 6 people (one each: CTO, Project Manager, UX/UI Designer, Quality Assurance, Android and iOS) which faced a huge challenge, to adapt their efforts to the local infrastructure. Besides rewriting, the app also required the UX&UI improvements and preparing the comprehensive interface documentation.

While working on the project, we suggested some additional features and improvements, which met our client’s acceptance. So after some time, we’ve expanded our team to 11 software development experts – CTO, Project Manager, UX&UI Designer, 2 x Quality Assurance, 2 x Android, 2 x iOS and 2 x Ruby on Rails developers.

2. THE CHALLENGES

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

Even though between our (Cracow) and Shawarmer (Riyadh) headquarters there is almost 5000 km of distance, the time difference is very small – only one hour. Nevertheless, when it comes to cultural differences they are much more visible. For example, in Poland, we usually have weekends (Saturday – Sunday) off, while in Saudi Arabia it is slightly different, with free Fridays and Sundays as their regular working days.

Bartosz, Project Manager

“Initially, there were some cultural differences we needed to overcome – for example, different non-working days during the week or bigger holidays. We had to make sure that they won’t affect our mobile app operation in any way. Some of the application features required cooperation with different departments from our client’s company (eg. IT and marketing), so smooth communication was extremely important.

Thanks to this project, we had a chance to learn a bit about Saudi culture – for example, while working on prayer time feature development. As the project scope and our involvement have grown significantly (eg. KIOSK project) since the first release, I believe, that we’ve been successful in all of these points.”

QUICK ACCESS FOR THE APPROVER

Another challenge that we faced was the proper right to left (RTL) writing support. Shawarmer mobile app had to be available both in English and Arabic language. That’s why while doing the Quality Assurance we had to make sure that all of the texts are inserted right.

Milena, Quality Assurance

“It was my first contact with the Arabic language. At the very beginning, it seemed to be very complicated but at the same time, from the testing perspective – it was a very ambitious challenge! Every app view needed separate design, including opposite mobile device navigation buttons. Even though the Shawarmer team gave us translated documents, the fact of working with different alphabet was truly demanding. I can say with full confidence, that working on the Shawarmer App project is a great experience for me!”

NCR POS SYSTEM INTEGRATION

Shawarmer app goal is to make ordering pick – up food from the restaurant as convenient as possible so integrating it with the local POS system was very important. That was the biggest challenge for us from a technological point of view. Fortunately, we have experience with gastronomy business (POSbistro) so not without the obstacles along the way, we managed to make Shawarmer app integrated with NCR POS system properly.

Kamil, CTO

“The application was challenging from the start as it is not a regular web application or simple API. Firstly we had to understand POS integration from the application existing version which used .NET components. Doing reverse engineering we found out how it works on the backend layer. Based on that and with the agreement from the client, we have built new integration from scratch which used REST API from POS. Thanks to that, we were able to provide new functionalities and scale the integration to accept more traffic. We’re still facing new challenges that we need to resolve or overcome due to POS limitations when scaling into more restaurants. That’s why this project is very interesting and there are still a lot of topics that we need to approach there in a specific way.”

UX & UI IMPROVEMENTS

The application required the UX&UI improvements and preparation of the comprehensive interface documentation. Basing on a Brand Book that we’ve received from our client, we have overdrawn the whole app making it’s more clear and visually engaging.

Sylwia, UX&UI Designer

“In the first stage of building Shawarmer App, our main goals were to provide a project that will be easily expanded in the future and improve the app general user experience. From the very beginning, we focused on analyzing app workflow and we’ve marked points that might be difficult in use for the customer. At the same time, we worked with documentation provided by the client (especially Brand Book) as Shawarmer the company has quite strict rules regarding its visual identity. We recreated the whole existing project in designing tools and implemented all the necessary changes. The whole team was involved in the designing process and that was crucial, to develop consistent and efficient solutions that meet both users and system requirements.”

3. Mobile apps

Our client wanted to have two separate native mobile apps, both for iOS and Android users. This approach enables us to ensure better User Experience which in the end – makes users more eager to use the app. Both of the apps have the same functionalities as follows.

PUSH NOTIFICATIONS

Tracking order status changes: the customer receives the notification when his/her order is ready for pickup from the restaurant. The Shawarmer can send promotional information to customers from their database.

Agnieszka, Senior Android Developer

“Providing the user with updates is one of the main goals of mobile applications. To handle that we focused on the way the user interacts with the information in our ecosystem. We have implemented a smart system for user notifications that use data collected through analytics in the application. Thanks to that, the user always knows all about his orders and ongoing offers.”

CONTACT LINE: CLIENT - SHOP

Shawarmer App enables users to share their feedback through rating the received dishes on a scale of 1 to 3 or writing a comment. Thanks to this data, restaurant owners have a chance to improve various aspects of their business. App users can also write their opinion on a specific restaurant (as there are more than 90 Shawarmer branches) which gives the owner valuable info about which locals are doing better or worse than others.

APP USAGE DATA ANALYTICS

The app is tracking all of the data connected with the way users are experiencing the software. How long do they stay in it, on which screens they are deciding to leave it or how long does it take them, to make an order successfully? All of these events are integrated into Mixpanel analytics. Thanks to all of that, the app owner can constantly improve its product, to make it as convenient and user-friendly as possible.

PAYMENTS INTEGRATION

For iOS users, we integrated Shawarmer App with Apple Pay, as this solution is becoming more popular year by year and in 2018, reached almost 400 M users worldwide. Users are also able to use all of the other popular payment methods like credit cards, including Mada.

Piotr, Senior iOS Developer

4. admin panel

Both Shawarmer mobile app and KIOSK (our separate product, that we’ve built for our client to make ordering food stationary as convenient as possible – more about Shawarmer KIOSK app soon) are also supported by a dedicated Admin Panel, which allows easy access to any system settings. It also includes tools for tracking customer feedback and overall sales statistics.

CUSTOMER PROFILE MANAGEMENT

Thanks to the Panel, the restaurant owner is able to see data about each of its clients (the ordering history). How much food are they ordering, in which flavors and in what time of day? Thanks to that knowledge he can, for example, focus on products that give him the most profits or award customers, who are making the highest amount of the orders. Shawarmer app users can evaluate each order and leave their opinions. Tools built into the Admin panel allow Shawarmer crew to assign customer relations representatives for each client feedback so customer satisfaction stays high. Built-in tools allow for quick data review.

User management for the Admin Panel allows for the easy addition of new staff to the system with proper permissions. Because of this, it’s easy to add a marketing analyst who’d like to review overall sales or a branch manager, who may be interested in checking what kind of feedback is his restaurant getting.

ISSUES REPORTING & THOROUGH ANALYTICS

In case something went wrong, Shawarmer app users can report issues, which will be available to see in the Panel by the restaurant owner in the Reviews section. He can address them directly from the Panel to make sure that his services are of the highest quality. To avoid complaints that are not reasonable, the Admin Panel is also storing in the database and presenting various data like service speed (preparing/picking time) or the time of the payments.

Users are also able to send their general opinion about the specific restaurant or dish – like “it was good, but I would add some less onion”. Reviews and feedbacks are visible in separate areas of the Admin Panel. Thanks to all of that the restaurant owner has a chance to analyze various aspects of his business and make sure everything is working smoothly.

Mateusz, RoR Developer

“Both Shawarmer KIOSK and mobile app are gathering a lot of valuable data – the key is to make displaying and analyzing them as convenient as possible. This is where Admin Panel steps in. Thanks to the possibility of filtering the gathered big data and presenting it as charts, everything becomes much more understandable and leads to making up highly – educated business decisions.”

BASIC CONTENT & FEATURES MANAGEMENT

Using the Admin Panel, Shawarmer restaurants staff with the right permissions can change the content inside the app in real-time. They can change banners visible in the app, “about the company” section and more, without stopping the app. The Shawarmer mobile app is having a “prayer time” functionality, which notifies the user that he/she will need to wait a bit longer to receive his/her food. The period of that time is also manageable from the Admin Panel. In case of any issues the app owner, with the right permissions, can always turn on a maintenance mode.

DATA VISUALIZATION

Admin Panel not only gathers all of the data from the Shawarmer Mobile App and KIOSK but also displays them in a clear yet comprehensive visual way. You can, for example, see there charts showing what was the reviews (good or bad, how much of each?) this week/month/year and compare it with the previous period. It can also display you which are the Top 3 restaurants so far or which cities are bringing the biggest profits. That way analyzing even the biggest amount of data becomes much more convenient.

5. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

The result of our work is the construction of two fully functional mobile applications (iOS and Android) alongside a browser-accessible Administration Panel. The app is popular with both operating systems. On Android-supported devices, the number of downloads according to the Google Store is currently over 500,000. On the other hand, for the iOS operating system, Shawarmer has been rated more than 55,000 times on the App Store platform.

Currently, we are still cooperating with the Shawarmer, working on additional features that will be implemented soon. Among them, we can distinguish an option to order your food with the delivery.

Testimonial:

“Railwaymen team helped us in rebuilding our Mobile applications with strong base. Their professionality made the process very smooth and fast. We did this in very short time even we had a lot of obstacles. Building the base in very professional way and as per the standard with the alignment of the up-to date technology helped us to start another project with them (KIOSK “self-service”) in very short notice and finished it as planned.”

Abdulaziz AlMusaireae,

Brand Extension Director

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

Alamar Foods

Integration of Restaurant Chain Systems for a Middle Eastern Food Service Operator

MOBILE APP

WEB APP

ABOUT PROJECT

Through the development of a backend API, we were able to implement an e-Wallet supporting the leading restaurant chain in the GCC Region.

About the company

Alamar Foods is a Saudi Arabia-based Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) operator. The company is a franchisee of brands such as Domino’s Pizza and Dunkin’ Donuts for Arab countries Over its three decades of activity in the market Alamar has developed a huge amount of trust among customers. Such support allows the company to introduce technological and business innovations to continuously improve the comfort and quality of customer service.

Alamar’s mission

The company aspires to be an international leader in the quick service restaurant (QSR) industry. Alamar seeks to achieve this goal through steady growth and the introduction of market best practices. By investing in the highest quality technological solutions, the Saudi giant seeks to increase the quality of its services while keeping in mind the user experience of its customers.

OUR WORK

Project Management

Frontend

Backend

QA

UX & UI

CUSTOMER OBJECTIVE

Enhance existing client-side tools with additional functionality that will translate into
convenience and positively impact user experience.

THE CHALLENGE

Implementing the e-Wallet system via a backend API into customer applications supporting
several hundred restaurant points.

1. PROCESS

The cooperation with Alamar began in the second half of 2021. The original idea was to develop an e-Wallet that could be integrated with the client's products. This solution is often compared to a prepaid card due to its similar operating principles. With the ability to recharge the account, the user can use part of his funds to easily pay for orders.

The cooperation with Alamar began in the second half of 2021. The original idea was to develop an e-Wallet that could be integrated with the client's products. This solution is often compared to a prepaid card due to its similar operating principles. With the ability to recharge the account, the user can use part of his funds to easily pay for orders.

Communication & Workflow

As in the case of previous projects such as Shawarmer, we had to work together to develop a model of cooperation that takes advantage of the cultural commonalities and contrasts between Poland and Saudi Arabia. We refined all the rules of cooperation related to the differences occurring in our working systems (different working days in both countries), and adjusted the appropriate model of communication in order to keep up to date with the client on the progress of the work.

Bartosz, Project Manager

“E-Wallet system for Alamar Foods was an interesting project to build since by design it connects to many different systems, not one specific app/website. Because of this we had to design a flexible tool which handles many different business cases. This has allowed the E-Wallet system to merge seamlessly with current Alamar tools and architecture.”

2. The features

API DEVELOPMENT

After reviewing the solutions offered by Alamar, we came to the conclusion together that the best solution would be for Railwaymen to craft a purspose-built backend API. All this in order to be able to integrate the available client-side solutions with the new functionalities in the easiest way possible.

EXAMPLE OF USAGE:

In Saudi Arabia, it is common to identify a user by phone number. Therefore, when a user completes an order, cashback is credited to their account. Since Alamar supports a growing number of restaurant chains, the solution must allow the user to be able to receive funds from any of them.

E-WALLET

In the aforementioned API, we decided to include the customer’s expected e-Wallet. In this way, existing tools at Alamar Foods and future products can easily be integrated with the newly developed functionality.

It took the RWM team of developers around 3 months to put together a basic version of the feature. In addition to the API, we created a basic admin panel

In a later stage of cooperation, we began expanding the e-Wallet with additional capabilities. Our work included, among others, a feature that allows restaurant owners to generate promotional coupons. With such a marketing option, the user can use the coupon he receives and apply the discount applicable to his order. Another improvement we are working on is the streamlining of the Customer Service functionality. In case of any inconvenience, the user will be able to seamlessly contact the service and describe the problem occurring. The Customer Service department, upon receiving the request, can then quickly process it and decide, for example, whether the customer should be compensated for the e-Wallet funds.

Piotr, Ruby on Rails Developer

“E-wallet was a very interesting project but also very challenging. When implementing the functionalities, we had to remember to make them highly scalable to handle multiple requests simultaneously. I also had the opportunity to get familiar with popular payment solutions used in the Saudi Arabic market, thanks to which the process of payment to top up the wallet became simple and intuitive for the user. It was a very developing experience.”

MULTI-REGION SUPPORT FOR THE TOOL

Due to the client’s presence in multiple regions, our role was to develop a support solution, with one system responsible for the company’s international branches handling different currencies. With the help of an appropriate configuration we made it possible to oversee all transactions from a single tool without having to switch to different systems for each country.

Paweł, Ruby on Rails Developer

“Alamar was the first project I worked on as a Junior RoR developer. For me, the biggest challenge was the implementation of bulk top-ups and their optimization for thousands of simultaneous top-ups. Working on this project was a great and very useful experience from which I could learn a lot.”

REPORT HANDLING

The administrative part being developed in the second phase also included work on reporting, data gathering and analysis. The reporting form was developed based on the client’s needs. The reporting process also includes statistics related to the discount program provided through coupons. In the administrative panel, decision-makers have access to detailed information related to the number of coupons redeemed and their value used.

USER PORTAL

The first version of e-Wallet only included the ability to fund a customer’s account with cash through an API we developed. However, in a later stage of the work, the client decided to implement a user portal for replenishing the funds. It is also worth mentioning that depositing money can be done in different currencies. With GCC customers in mind, we have made integration with the Moyasar system, which allows handling payments valid in that region. The solution created by Railwaymen supports STC PAY and MADA cards, which are as popular as the aforementioned Moyasar.

Ania, UI Designer

“I had an opportunity to work on Alamar Foods project and would say that it’s been a great journey on creating an app. This is an excellent solution for managing clients and offers. We made it easier for users and admins to access the personal portal with benefits and offers, so they will never miss a chance to use this and stay loyal to their favorite service. ”

3. TECHNOLOGIES & TOOLS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

The result of our cooperation with Alamar Foods was a streamlining of the functionality of the company's existing business tools for Domino’s Pizza and Dunkin’ Donuts by integrating them with a custom backend API. We developed a solution that integrates the local payment service, can handle a large number of user cases, and at the same time is fully scalable. Further development stages of the project include the possibility of applying other customer service enhancements from within any application released under the Alamar Foods brand.

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

Saltegra

Application to facilitate the process of auditing and certification of industrial companies

web app

Together with the client, we developed a fully functional application while operating across three different time zones.

ABOUT PROJECT

About the company

Saltegra is a consulting firm with headquarters in California and an engineering team in the Philippines that specializes in safety and process risk management. The company’s activities are focused on helping enterprises achieve their business goals while reducing risk as much as possible.

Saltegra's mission

Due to extensive multidisciplinary expertise and industry technical experience, Saltegra provides its clients with effective collaboration using the necessary methodologies and tools.

OUR WORK

Project Management

UX & UI

Frontend

Backend

QA

PURPOSE OF COOPERATION

Improving the audit and certification process for industrial companies that deal with chemical and hazardous material storage.

1. PROCESS

The client approached us in early 2020 to develop an application that would streamline their audit and certification processes for industrial clients. This was accomplishedusing a number of tools. Among the tools they had been using prior to working with us were Google Drive, Microsoft Excel and Asana. This form of project management significantly increased the time of the entire process. Therefore, due to the large number of service categories provided by Saltegra, the idea arose to manage all these operational aspects from a single application.

Working with the client was a logistical challenge, as we were operating in three different countries (Poland, USA, Philippines) located in three different time zones. Therefore, we had to work out a solution that would allow us to get together at times convenient for everyone. Before we started the MVP application development, we jointly conducted a Discovery Phase session to better understand the reality of the project and think carefully about the functionalities of the solution being developed.

The project team consisted of:

1x Project
Manager

1x Team Leader

1x Frontend
Developer

1x Backend
Developer

1x UX/UI
Designer

1x QA
Specialist

DISCOVERY PHASE

Our first step with the client was a Discovery Phase meeting. During the session, we discussed the project vision and the various functionalities that were to be included in the application. The joint workshop helped us to familiarize ourselves with the reality of the industry in which Saltegra operates. Conducting safety audits and granting certifications among chemical-related companies is not a simple activity. Especially in the case of all kinds of industrial processes related to the storage of chemicals and potentially hazardous materials, which are subject to specific legislation. We paid attention to the client's competition and looked for its competitive edge against the background of companies with a similar business profile available on the market. The Discovery Phase was also a kind of prelude to the application MVP development we undertook next.

MVP Development

We started working on the Minimum Viable Product application in June 2020 and the whole process took several further months. While working on the MVP, we drew on the resources we created during the Discovery Phase. By using the personas we defined, we began working on the process dissected earlier. We established the scope of the project and prepared the first app designs, which covered three personas: admin, engineer and client.

Szymon, Senior Ruby on Rails Developer

“I very much appreciate the cooperation on the Saltegra project. This is a project that was a big learning field for me due to the specifics of the client’s industry. In addition, communication with the client took place without any complaints, so I felt adequate support throughout the project. At the same time, from a developer point of view, working within Vue.js gave me a lot of pleasure during the development of the application.”

Roles of personas in the project

The admin capabilities are designed to manage the engineering team from within the application. He assigns them specific clients and projects. The engineer is able to see all the necessary information to which he was previously assigned by a delegated person. The last person operating within the application is the customer. This person's role focuses on project management. Each client has an overview of all projects and can comment on the actions taken by the team. The delineation of each of these roles was a very important factor for the entire project. It allowed us to define the relationship between different users of the application and divide the functions assigned to them. This resulted in the development of an authorization solution which made sure that users could only access resources that were related to their duties.

2. The features

Project development and management

With this feature, Saltegra representatives were able to create projects and enter the necessary data into them. In addition, special reminders can be added to each project based on the assumptions covering each of the company’s services. The functionality also enabled file upload. This is a very important option that allows for the exchange of technical specifications between team members and the client.

Project Hierarchy

An important feature of the application was the development of a project hierarchy. This feature makes it possible to create, manage and assign teams to clients. Thanks to this division, it was possible to create a system in which each team member knows what they are responsible for and to which group they belong. In this way, we streamlined the delegation of tasks, but also the responsibility for specific duties. Each user has a precise definition of what falls under his or her responsibility.

Reminders about deadlines

Due to the large number of projects and services undertaken by Saltegra, we have introduced special reminders for deadlines. These are posted on the application’s dashboard, but are also sent by email. The notifications make it possible to complete the project in the planned time and at the same time improve the management process. Reminders were displayed based on the approaching deadline to deliver a particular part of the project.

Import of technical information

The most difficult task when working on functionalities was importing technical information. Due to the nature of the industry in which Salterga operates, it was difficult to understand all the technical issues related to, for example, technical attributes associated with chemicals. It took a lot of time to familiarize ourselves with these details in order to properly design the system in line with the required legal guidelines. In addition, we often had to import data that was in different systems and formats which caused problems. Therefore, we decided to standardize everything properly so that the data would not change during the import and the upload would take place without any disruption.

Components of the service

The data structure was divided into three areas: project, services and chemicals inventory. The most important in this hierarchy was the project, which formed the basis of the entire process. In the case of services, each of them could be further nested. As part of a risk analysis, for example, the client can include project details like location, deadline, status, as well as add files.

3. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

4. UX/UI

For the Saltegra application, we developed designs tailored to each type of user. Whether it was an administrator, an engineer or a customer, each persona stood out visually, thanks to the different colors assigned to them. In addition, UX/UI work also addressed the other functionalities of the application. A great example to illustrate the design issues is the color-coding of upcoming deadlines, which reminded users of the upcoming time to prepare the various stages of the project.

Konrad, Senior Front-End Developer

“For me, the biggest challenge was to create logic under bootstrap so that different color versions of the application could be visualized. The project itself was very inspiring, and I’m sure the experience I gained from it will pay off more than once in my future work.”

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

The result of the cooperation with Saltegra was the commissioning of an application enabling more efficient management of the company's processes and reducing the number of external tools used. By bringing together the functionalities described above, the client has a tool that integrates with each other all the most important stakeholder groups assigned to its business. It included both engineers and service recipients.

An unquestionable challenge for us was the client's industry, which we learned from scratch throughout the project, adapting our solutions to its realities. It is also worth mentioning the cooperation across different time zones, which was an important factor we had to take into account when planning support sessions, meetings and workshops. During the development process we regularly provided demos of the application to show the client the progress of the work and to correct any inaccuracies that appeared at the time.

Testimonial:

Railwaymen has proven to be a trusted partner in new product introductions and early prototypes. Their skilled engineers always aim for the perfect balance between outcome now and future scale. In addition, they don’t stay with a narrow view of our first solution. Their team helpfully provides recommendations for future opportunity and growth in the solutions they develop as well. Finally, their team is extremely communicative and punctual and gives a high level of transparency; it makes it quite easy to work with them.

Rion Angeles,

Technical Advisor, Saltegra

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

FreshPay

Developing comprehensive software for automating payroll processing for accountants, employers and employees in the UK

web app

FreshPay is a payroll management system that allows to settle payslips more efficiently than
before, in full compliance with UK legislation.

ABOUT PROJECT

About the company

FreshPay is a UK company founded with the goal of streamlining Cloud Payroll Software. Founded by three experienced accountants, the company was created to make payroll operations easier by automating the process. FreshPay offers its clients a solution that streamlines standard payroll activities while providing the necessary support.

FreshPay’s mission

The mission of FreshPay is to empower accountants with the tools they need to run their business better and scale easily. FreshPay aims to provide innovative payroll management software that is easy to use and helps companies run payroll in a simpler, more efficient manner. FreshPay helps companies reduce the time required to run payroll through automating processes and eliminating manual steps. It makes life easier for less experienced accountants by capturing and correctly processing edge cases that might otherwise have been missed.

OUR WORK

Project Management

UX & UI

Frontend

Backend

QA

Discovery Phase

PURPOSE OF COOPERATION

Automation of the existing employee payroll processes for companies operating under UK law

THE CHALLENGE

Developing comprehensive software for automating payroll processing for accountants, employers and employees in the UK

1. PROCESS

The beginning of the cooperation between Railwaymen and FreshPay dates back to 2021, when the client approached us to develop payroll software that would enable them to quickly and conveniently calculate employees' wages based on UK laws. Because the current payroll process is very detailed, and competing software was developed several years ago, there was a need at FreshPay to create a solution that would meet the business needs. The project was created with the idea of reorganizing the existing procedure and at the same time making the existing work of accountants, employers and employees themselves as easy as possible. The FreshPay project, due to its size and complexity, was created by a relatively large team. Depending on the intensity of tasks, the team composition included 1 Product Manager, 1-2 Front-end Developers, 3-6 Back-end Developers, 1-2 QA Specialists, 1-2 UX/UI Designers.

TIMELINE

The cooperation on the Freshpay project began in March/April 2021. After learning about the client's expectations and conducting an initial workshop, we began work on developing the payroll management solution. However, before we undertook any activities we set their direction based on the Discovery Phase. Exactly one year after the start of joint activities, we were able to release version 1.0 of the application to the world.

April 2021

workshops 0

with the client

July 2021

start of development

(Discovery Phase)

March 2021

obtaining HMRC

certification

April 2021

product release

April 2021

workshops 0

with the client

July 2021

start of development

(Discovery Phase)

March 2022

obtaining HMRC

certification

April 2022

product

release

Workshops 0

We conducted an initial workshop with Freshpay clients before the official cooperation began. During this phase, we focused mainly on mapping the idea and systematizing the various stages of project work. Using the Miro tool, we were able to lay out everything in detail and set the goals and objectives for the first activities of the project. As a result, we compiled a list of accounting-related documents that were necessary to work on this project and visualized the dream vision of the payroll management software according to our clients.

The crucial goal of the clients was to develop a tool that would be more composable than the payroll software available on the market at the time. An additional motivation was to prepare a solution that would not only affect office accountants, but also be of use to other types of users like employers and employees. These activities were aimed at digitizing the existing workflow entirely.

Initial plan

According to the initial plan, the client wanted to create a payroll solution tailored to different types of users, which would allow convenient access and exchange of all payroll data online. The purpose of moving elements of the process online was to streamline it and at the same time facilitate the existing work of accountants. An equally important aspect of the development was to work on the flow of data to the relevant offices so that any manual data could be easily delivered to the designated institutions. The initial plan also included integration with external APIs in order to maximally automate the flow of information.

Milena, QA Team Lead

“From my point of view, FreshPay was a challenging project in terms of legalities. In order to be able to work on any part of it, we had to be constantly up to date with the legislation, especially since the data posted in the software is directed to institutions such as the HMRC, and any mistake could be costly.”

DISCOVERY PHASE

User Profiles

In the Discovery Phase process, we established user-profiles and analyzed the needs of each of these personas. While doing audience analysis together with the client it turned out that the automation of work on payroll included not only HR/accountants and offices but also communication with company owners (who approve payroll and provide information to them) and employees (who can see the data and download the documents).

Product Value Canvas

After considering the users we moved on to analyzing the client’s ideas for improvements to the current process. To this end, we prepared a Product Value Canvas to review the problems of each user and evaluate our options for solving them.

As a part of competitor analysis, we conducted an in-depth screening of processes using competing tools, during which the client set payruns in software from other vendors. By learning more about the tools available on the market, we were able to detail positive functionalities, as well as shortcomings that software from FreshPay could solve.

Processes Mapping

The most labor-intensive part of the Discovery Phase was certainly the mapping of processes to better understand relationships between data, their arrangement on the timeline, points of contact with authorities, and the need to process or generate specific documents and employee data at a specific time. We paid a lot of attention to the communication aspect, so Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) proved to be a useful tool, which allowed us to analyze each path in detail and do a lot of data analysis from HMRC documentation, letters, etc. This kind of modeling showed us how complex the system under development is and how difficult the form of payroll billing itself can get.

Functionalities Prioritizing

The information gained during the Discovery Phase allowed us to divide the functionality by priority and systemize knowledge including even the rarest scenarios. Together with the clients we analyzed each work item and developed a project backlog. The Discovery Phase, due to its sophistication, took about 3 months.

MVP

Working on the MVP was no small challenge due to complexity of the project. Even the most basic version of it will need to provide a lot of functionality. For us, this meant that the set of bottom-line minimally essential features, which was large at the beginning of software development, grew as we gained more insights into the operations necessary to perform payroll calculations correctly.

The creation of the MVP was limited by a deadline of April 6, 2022, when the next tax year began in the UK. By then, our task was to develop a system that is capable of generating a payroll document and handling basic payroll. During the preparation of the MVP, in addition to providing the necessary functionality, our attention was consumed

Clare Haynes, Co-Founder, FreshPay

“During the discovery phase when we gave the brief of what we were looking for, RWM came back with a wireframe that immediately realised our vision. A step by step wireframe showing what each step should potentially be was shown in a way that really demonstrated their understanding of what we required the software to do. This and our initial conversations were of a much higher standard than other developers we spoke with.”

2. The Features

HMRC Certification

A very important step throughout the project was to integrate the posted data into the payroll software and be able to share it between the relevant institutions, and in particular to HM Revenue and Customs. In March 2022, FreshPay received the certification granted by the aforementioned authority. This document confirms that the software created is fully compliant with the current pension program. This is particularly important for entities providing pension processes.

Cooperation with HMRC is not limited to sending documentation. The institution also provides useful information related to the change of tax codes, or data on users’ financial obligations in the form of a loan. This integration makes the exchange of information between HMRC and the company seamless and structured.

Employer and Employee Services

This functionality allows both employers and employees themselves to view the system and access necessary payroll data. Users can log in to the system as well as invite more people to use the system. After each closed accounting cycle, those with access to the platform can view a large number of useful reports generated based on key guidelines. In the case of employees, these include payslips and pension letters, which indicate eligibility for pension contributions. Accountants and employers, in turn, receive documentation and statements that are sent to the tax office.

Publishing documents to Xero

Thanks to the integration with Xero we are currently working on (Xero is a piece of accounting software that streamlines client verification), publishing documents will not be a problem. Systematic reporting in Xero, which is an accounting system, we send payroll cost data. This goes to Payroll Journals, so we send the payroll data, and thus streamline their accounting. Reporting in Xero allows us to quickly catch any irregularities in the accounting process and make the necessary corrections. We want both payroll accounting and all payments to be available to FreshPay software users in the near future.

Integration with PensionSync

Due to conditions in the UK related to pension, there are multiple pension providers in that area. Each has individual rules for reporting (e.g., by sharing APIs, sending CSVs) what an employee contributes to his or her pension. That’s why, in the case of FreshPay, we partnered with pension systems integrator PensionSync. Its job is to deliver information about an entity’s pension contributions to the appropriate places in no-time.

CIS Module

CIS module (Construction Industry Scheme) is responsible for accounting for counter contract employees, companies that work with other companies on the basis of invoices. This functionality was created for permanent personnel, who are affected by additional, more specialized billing guidelines.

CREATING PAYROLLS

This feature is responsible for the ability to simply attach new employees to the system based on data collected in another system. Thanks to data automation, it only takes a small amount of work to import information about each employee, without having to complete everything manually, which can take even several days to make it work properly.

Holidays and Absence Calculator

This option allows users to calculate their leaves according to the applicable criteria. In addition, any leave issues take into account not only the type of leave, but also the possibility of state funding depending on the qualification processes in place in the UK.

Piotr, Senior Ruby on Rails Developer

“From my perspective, FreshPay is a project that requires a lot of accuracy. Together with the entire project team, we had to supplement our knowledge so that everything was implemented according to the law. An additional challenge was working on all (even the least likely) payroll calculation scenarios. As a result, we were able to create software with no limitations.”

3. TECHNOLOGIES & TOOLS

4. UX / UI

Professional Approach to the Interface

While analyzing the solutions offered by competitors together with the client, we came to the conclusion that we wanted to distinguish ourselves by the speed of moving through the application and to develop solutions tailored to both standard users and those with large amounts of data. We have paid a lot of attention to streamlining the communication process between the various users of the system so that it runs as smoothly as possible without any speed bumps or choke points.

Language for Design Process

Due to the nature of the project, we had to learn how to use a language for process design, as the interface does not necessarily show all the data, time and sequence dependencies of the process. Therefore, to better understand the process we used BPMN. We analyzed the available data on the official sites in the UK government, and then tried to order it all taking into account the necessary conditions.

Preparation of elements for the interface

At this stage, the key issue was to prepare the right flow in terms of UX. In addition, we collected useful information on how this interface should look like. After analyzing the collected materials, we moved on to creating the UI. To this end, we developed a suitable design system, which includes useful elements like archetype forms, table templates, navigation, etc. This allowed us to work in parallel in the UX/UI area.

Sylwia, UX/UI Designer Team Lead

“The challenge in the project was to understand the process we support and translate it into a complete interface. Through simplified process modeling, we were able to understand their time and data dependencies. The next step was to overlay the legal dependencies. Then we were able to group and present the data so that it was easily accessible at the right times.”

5. QA

Testing FreshPay turned out to be a big challenge, because in addition to the huge amount of data and the dependencies between these data (which cause a huge number of test cases to be covered), we also had to keep in mind the user, who should move through the application with ease and understanding. The whole team was involved in testing: functional and non-functional tests were performed by the testers, the UX department carried out usability tests, while the clients were involved in acceptance tests.

From the beginning, we also relied on solid documentation. Preparing a test strategy and test plan paid off as the project grew. It was also essential to prepare test cases and prioritize them. Documentation guaranteed us an orderly testing process.

All these activities allowed us to be sure that we offer users a stable and well-functioning application. The next step we are planning is to implement automated testing, which will improve and speed up regression testing and thus optimize the testing process.

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

The collaboration with FreshPay resulted in the development of payroll software that significantly simplifies existing payroll solutions. Automation and digitization mean that data can be accessed by each stakeholder, be it the accounting office, employers or employees. FreshPay is a tool that addresses all needs unmet by competing accounting solutions.

Testimonial:

We are very happy with the application and its overall look. We had a vision of what we wanted the payroll application to perform but not really a vision as to how it would or should look.

Railwaymen have really brought our vision to life in a way we were not able to visualise.

Clare Haynes,

Co-Founder, FreshPay

Check Jennie Gillam, FreshPay Co-founder full review

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

Snapbus

A functional vehicle rental application for the largest transport company in Germany – Deutsche Bahn

web app

For this client we developed an app that caters to three groups of stakeholders associated with the transportation industry

ABOUT PROJECT

About the company

Snapbus is an app that is in part owned by the national railway company Deutsche Bahn. It is a platform that allows you to rent buses for events or trips such as weddings, school tours or transportation to trade shows. Snapbus offers high-quality buses in various sizes driven by qualified drivers. The system allows booking a vehicle of a given type and maintains full pricing transparency throughout the booking process. The company then supplies a bus compliant with the highest safety standards with qualified staff on board for every trip.

Snapbus mission

Snapbus buses provide comfort, safety, and lower CO2 emissions than a car while meeting the highest safety standards. Our goal during development was to make group travel easier to plan and pay for without compromising on any of the advantages of traditional public transport.

OUR WORK

Project Management

Frontend

Backend

QA

PURPOSE OF COOPERATION

Developing a fully functional application that will allow users to rent long-distance buses seamlessly and its further maintenance.

1. PROCESS

The beginning of the cooperation between Railwaymen and Snapbus dates back to March/April 2021. At the time, the founder of the app was in the process of selling the solution to Deutsche Bahn. During this process, Railwaymen was recommended as the company responsible for technical support. We focused our efforts first on migrating the original solution to Deutsche Bahn's servers with all the company's corporate standards in mind. After that we held a project workshop to work out the details of the planned development, which allowed us to cover a lot of ground quickly once the implementation phase started. An undeniable challenge was to develop the application's functionality in German, which is not the first language for Railwaymen employees.

PROJECT WORKSHOPS

On November 16-18 2021 our Railwaymen delegation consisting of the entire development team traveled to the client's office to organize a project workshop. Four officials from the client's side participated in the meeting: 1 x technical advisor 1 x operational representative and 2 x functional staff.

The purpose of the joint workshop was to discuss the existing functionality of the application, consider new features and discuss redesigning the website. During the workshop, we learned about customers' problems and needs. Together we worked out the process of cooperation and discussed the scope of work. We created a project roadmap and made project estimates, based on which we were cooperating in the following year.

Michał, COO

“During the workshop session we were able to work with the client to solve the problems occurring in the operational layer, which translated into improved development work. This was an extremely important event from the perspective of the course of the entire project, which determined its further path.”

2. THE FEATURES

During the Snapbus project, we had the opportunity to develop the application with the perspective of three stakeholder groups in mind. For this reason, we prepared a separate view for each of them giving access to the appropriate set of functionalities.

on the user side

RIDE REQUEST

Ordering a ride on Snapbus can be done for an organized group of at least 10 people. Each ride can be booked through a dedicated website, which is also available for mobile devices. Users of the site start by specifying the route of the trip, the number of passengers and the exact date of the journey before starting. They can also decide on the various amenities that the group needs the supplied vehicle to have on board.

PRICE BOOKING

One feature that sets Snapbus apart from competing transportation apps is the ability to book a fare for a period of up to 48 hours before payment is required. In addition to the standard model of ordering a ride with immediate payment, the company provides a price forecast for the route indicated by the user. Users can have their ride booked at the indicated price for a period of two days without entering into a binding contract.

INDIVIDUAL PRICING

Snapbus makes planning group transit easier by providing individual pricing for non-standard routes and customizable vehicle features. The user makes a request for a ride by specifying the details regarding the route and type of vehicle, and is then contacted by Snapbus staff with an individual quote.

RIDE PERSONALIZATION

Users of the app when arranging a ride can also customize it individually. It is possible to request special features like Wi-Fi access or charging sources in the vehicle. When placing an order, customers indicate the aspects they care about most and which affect the comfort of their trip. They are then contacted by the Snapbus support team via email to specify the exact details of the trip.

on the company representatives' side

ADMIN PANEL

Among the app admin's privileges is the ability to view the customers’ requests and, at the same time, ensure that this person is properly taken care of throughout the process of ordering a ride. All this is done in order to go through all stages of the process with the user, such as issuing invoices, accepting payment and finding a carrier who will undertake the selected trip. Each status change related to order processing is followed by partly automated email communication with the user. The Snapbus customer receives confirmation that an order had been placed, an invoice had been generated and information about any steps taken by the company throughout the process.

INTERFACE TO OTHER SYSTEMS

One of the priorities identified by Deutsche Bahn at the start of our cooperation was the development of an regulary data transfer to the internal revenue system. Our task was to improve the acquisition of information related to all trips (e.g., when they took place, in which regions) in order to be able to generate a variety of balances and statistics on the trips served.

We also prepared funciton, which export data to the internal system for invoicing creditors. It collects in one place all information about the trips of individual carriers. The function also allows the generation of invoices. In the course of the project, the Export function was developed to provide the necessary information about each ride to the Snapbus application.

INTEGRATIONS

Integrations are an important part of Snapbus. By linking the application to Google Directions, determining the route of a ride based on the data provided by the user is quick and does not pose logistical problems. In addition, CMS and Contentful content integrations have been used. As a result, the enhancement pulls in content found in the CMS and displays it directly in the app.

INTELLIGENT PRICING

One of the key features is the ability to generate prices based on the trip details entered, such as distance and number of passengers. To make this automation work, a complex algorithm was implemented that takes into account all relevant parameters and even legal requirements, such as possible driving time.

TRACKING USER PATHS

One of the applied functionalities is a piece of AWS Lambda code which tracks all clicks on the site and collects data on order details. This gives Deutsche Bahn insight into user behaviors that enables them to discover possible improvements to the user flow. The collected data is at the admin's disposal in his application space.

on the bus operators' side

PORTAL FOR BUS PARTNERS

The bus partners, which are executing the booked trips have a dedicated portal page in which they can see offers for them. These offers can be accepted or rejected directly via the portal by the bus partner.

TRIP INFORMATION

Prior to the trip, the assigned bus partner receives all the necessary details of the ride so that he or she can contact the customer to make final arrangements for the booked journey.

Michał, Senior Ruby on Rails Developer

“I am happy to have had the opportunity to work on Snapbus. The application we developed, although it may seem inconspicuous, has many useful integrations that prove its value. From my perspective, it was an experience that allowed me to make many interesting technological observations and draw valuable conclusions.”

3. MOBILE APPLICATION

The mobile app mirrors the web version of the service. The user interface needed to be redesigned to match Deutsche Bahn branding, which was done by an external company. The old logos of the app's previous owner were replaced with new emblems referring to the German company.

The changes included not only the mobile app, but also the entire transportation infrastructure. Thanks to this treatment, the service became more recognizable, the app gained new users and trust in the brand also increased. Along with the redesign, the focus was on making the website display properly on all mobile devices.

4. TECHNOLOGIES & TOOLS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

The Snapbus project was a stimulating experience for the development team, involving a lot of complexity and a large and varied feature set. One of the challenges was to provide for three groups of stakeholders who use Snapbus on a daily basis. Through our joint efforts with the customer, we were able to develop a platform for renting public transportation to be used by the national railway company of Germany. In the near term, we will continue to maintain the app while also helping the client to put together an in-house maintenance team.

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

Hydr

How to improve invoicing

process for a company

operating in the UK market?

WEB APP

By implementing a decision engine, as well as transforming the traditional signup process, winning customers and verifying their invoices was reduced from several weeks to just 24 hours.

ABOUT PROJECT

About company:

Hydr’s technology enables 100% of invoice values to be funded within 24 hours. The company enables fast and stress-free payment under transparent conditions. Customers don’t encounter hidden costs – fees are fixed, the invoice process is transparent and simple to understand.

All thanks to invoicing software that verifies the customer, aggregates necessary data in one place and improves decision-making. In addition, the risks associated with funding open invoices are significantly reduced.

Mission of Hydr:

Hydr wants to eliminate payment terms for small businesses in the UK by providing them access to the cash tied up in unpaid invoices on their balance sheets, by getting them paid for those invoices within 24 hours of creation.

OUR WORK

Project Management

Frontend

Backend

QA

UX & UI

Product Design Workshops

PURPOSE OF COOPERATION

Development of a platform to facilitate signup, data aggregation and to streamline the invoice processing steps and payments.

THE CHALLENGE

Factoring services in the UK are considered expensive and unprofitable.

Nicola Weedall, Hydr co-founder

“Within the context of some rather old-fashioned suppliers out there, HYDR eliminates that requirement of paperwork to streamline the entire process end to end. Not just from the point of onboarding and receiving your money, but also for updating your accounting software. So the business owner who’s benefiting from the service has very little to do and therefore the saving of time as well as improvement of working capital is very significant for them.”

1. PROCESS

WORKSHOPS

The collaboration with Hydr was preceded by a joint workshop in October 2020. The aim of that meeting was to develop actions to improve the process on the customer side and save time as much as possible. Equally important was to prepare the MVP and develop an onboarding scheme that would enable accurate verification of customers. The culmination of the agreed objectives was to automate the process using a special decision engine. After the MVP was successfully launched in June 2021, a second Railwaymen and Hydr workshop was held in October 2021 to clarify further objectives for the mutual collaboration.

COMMUNICATION & WORKFLOW

Communication with the client at each stage to date has been effective. We communicated via Slack messenger and held a project call together once a week. Additionally, along with each milestone, we presented a demo of the system.

Olgierd, Product Owner

“Integration with 7 external and different APIs can be really challenging, from the Project Management perspective. Thanks to meeting all of the requirements, we were able to create a scalable product that automizes many usually time-consuming manual actions and makes Hydr a competitive solution in the finance market.”

2. THE FEATURES

ONBOARDING

Customer verification is required to start the invoicing process. For this, a thorough onboarding process is required, which allows Hydr to make the final decision regarding invoice payment.

The onboarding we worked on together consists of 15 steps. The customer entrusts us with their bank and account details (Xero at launch, now QuickBooks, FreeAgent, Kashflow and Sage 200 Cloud)*. On the other hand, Hydr is responsible for verifying the client’s creditworthiness, verifying the accounts payable, the identity of the decision makers and ensuring that documents can be signed electronically.

Once the relevant data has been collected, the system carries out verifications, resulting in the final decision. The invoicing stage ensures ongoing checking of data, funding of invoices and insight into whether receivables are paid by the vendor invoice debtor.

* Customer data is protected against any outside interference. Only a limited number of people have access to it in order to ensure the highest security standards.

Konrad, Front-end Developer

“Despite my extensive experience, Hydr taught me a lot. Extensive, interactive forms as components in the Vue framework were quite a challenge. However, despite the complex business logic, working in such a nice team and with such great graphics was a pure pleasure for me.”

DECISION ENGINE

The decision engine collects the necessary customer data. Based on this data, it makes funding decisions. However, the final word belongs to the analyst, who checks the solution proposed by the system. This is an innovative approach compared to Hydr's competitors. In their case, analysts are responsible for most of the verification invoice approval process. Our approach allows us to offer far greater automation, leading to lower cost to serve and higher margins on the service. Individual reports are made for each client.

The decision-making system makes it possible to determine whether the customer meets all the conditions for cooperation. What's more, the engine makes it possible to check debtors individually.

Szymon, Back-end Developer

“New projects are an excellent opportunity to use edge-cutting tools and technologies. It was no different this time, as Hydr is one of our newest projects where we started using Vue.js as the main frontend technology, and personally I am really impressed with what we have achieved. Another aspect is a bigger than usual number of services which we need to integrate and keep active connection every day. That’s why this project is so engaging and gives us the possibility to present our skills.”

INTEGRATIONS

The implemented project contains as many as 7 integrations. One of them is cooperation with the Xero accounting software, which streamlines customer verification and the entire invoice automation process. The large number of integrations makes it possible to ensure the highest standards of customer security, verification and assessment of creditworthiness and identity.

Piotr, Back-end Developer

“From the very beginning, Hydr was a very challenging and exciting project – starting from workshops and understanding the mechanics of invoice financing, through designing user workflow to implementation. The biggest challenge was to synchronize information from all the external services. By taking advantage of technology innovations like open banking, connecting with accounting software etc. we manage to create a smooth onboarding process for end user and admin panel that provides a meaningful summary of collected data for administrators.”

3. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

4. UX / UI

ONBOARDING

During the onboarding stage, we faced several challenges. One of them was the use of proven external integrations that allow for the secure transfer of sensitive data. In addition, we developed a solution whose role is to verify the company. Also important was the integration of the tool with the bank account and the accounting system. In the case of the accounting system, the company has the possibility of verifying the client, but also its customers, which has a great impact on the final funding decision. One element of the onboarding we created for Hydr is KYC (Know Your Customer), which allows us to verify a customer’s identity before signing a contract. This tool helps to rule out any potential fraud attempts. An important part of this process is the integration with HelloSign, which makes it possible to generate contracts to be signed by all directors. Contract generation limits existing manual data entry.

Sylwia, UX/UI Designer

“We started the project with intensive workshops that helped us understand the need to collect and analyze specific information, choose the best methods for capturing and presenting it, and define the goals and needs of the service users. The biggest challenge from a UX point of view in this project was to guide the user through the thorough registration and verification process, involving a number of integrations, handling feedback, and participation of additional users. Modeling this process was key to the first iteration of the project.”

SIMPLE AND INFORMATIVE DASHBOARD

After the onboarding process, the customer is given access to the dashboard. The main features are the ability to select customers for factoring and to view processed invoices. This is the customer’s command center, where they can observe the various processes carried out by Hydr. In addition to access to current information, the business owner has the possibility to edit data in the dashboard.

Ania, UI Designer

“The project involved adapting the branding provided by the client to wireframes. The user has a few simple views, the most important of which is Dashboard. Dashboard is an Overview of key performance indicators. For example, users can see quickly how much invoices could be funded through Hydr’s technology, see the list of additional debtors and recent paid invoices. An additional feature we have added is a sidebar which can be shown and hidden. If the user wants to focus on the analysis of invoice tables, he can hide the menu and have more space to display table. Due to the growing role of mobile devices among British people, I also focused on making the product easy to use on mobile devices too.”

ADMIN PANEL

The first version of the system included an initial admin panel, which is now being extended with new functionalities. To this end, together with Hydr representatives during the workshop, we have established an action plan that includes further development. When the invoice, after verification, enters the payment process, a transfer basket is created. These are created by the system together with the managers. In future, this process will be subject to automation.

5. QA

The Quality Assurance process was as time-consuming as the front-end activities. Due to the handling of sensitive data on the customer side, we took care to ensure that it was properly secured at every stage. Equally important for us were integrations with e.g. banking automated invoice processing and accounting systems, which also required appropriate testing. The next stage of work will be actions connected with streamlining work in the admin panel.

Joanna, Quality Assurance

“Hydr testing was and still is, because the application is developing, divided into 3 parts: client onboarding, which required a lot of cooperation with the frontend developer, so that the user could feel trust in the product and security, because the application is related to finances and working on a large amount of sensitive information. The second part is testing the integration with several external services that require focus and detail due to the proper verification of the client and his debtors. The third part is the admin panel – the heart of the project, supervising the correct flow of decisions.”

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

The result of our efforts has been to shorten the standard factoring process, which for other companies is 14 days and longer. Hydr’s technology enables this to be completed in just 24 hours. Hydr's offering is much more competitive thanks to our joint efforts. By automated invoice processing, the number of analysts previously involved has been reduced. As a result, costs on the customer side have decreased. It's a real time and money saver that small businesses will especially feel.

Testimonial:

Well we went through a competitive tender process with three software development houses, all of whom were recommended to us from within our network. We chose Railwaymen because we feel like the projects that these guys had worked on before are very much in line with what we are trying to deliver. We’ve built a great rapport with the team, so Łukasz (Railwaymen CEO) was the person that we spoke to initially, and yet we just felt the right fit for us as a business of what we were trying to achieve.

Nicola Weedall, ,

Co-Founder, Hydr

Check interview with Nicola and review

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Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

InQuizits Interactive

SaaS platform for customer engagement, advertising and data collection

A SIMPLE AND INTUITIVE PLATFORM FOR CREATING, EDITING, AND SHARING MARKETING QUIZZES

The tool guarantees a CTR up to 40% higher than for standard banner ads.

ABOUT PROJECT

What challenges does the app help to solve?

InQuizits Interactive is an advertising and data collection platform that uses quizzes, contests and polls to find and engage customers. The surveys and quizzes created by users are used for promotional activities via social media and email messages. With InQuizits, any company can develop new business opportunities and integrate its customers. Thanks to the interactive form of the banners, click-through rates are higher than in comparison with video ads.

OUR WORK

Project Management

Frontend

Backend

QA

UX & UI

PURPOSE OF COOPERATION

Creation of an interactive tool to support advertising campaigns and sales.

THE CHALLENGE

Making the audience interested in an interactive form of advertising that translates into more engagement from them.

1. PROCESS

The cooperation with InQuizits has been on a very good level since the first days. The company's goal was to develop an advertising platform that would deliver a highly engaging user experience for both brands and their customers. In order to achieve this, we formed a team of 7 people. Among them, Project Manager, frontend and backend developers, as well as QA and UX/UI specialists.

Bartosz, Product Owner

“Defining scope for this project was an interesting challenge. Together with Bill we had to define a scope for a lean MVP version, so his customers could use it as quickly as possible. At the same time, it had to stand out when compared to already existing competition. We’ve managed to do this by improving areas where other similar apps are lacking eg. by adding robust sharing and management options.”

2. THE FEATURES

CONTENT DASHBOARD

The initial version of the tool included a basic admin panel with simple functionalities. A registered user can create a new quiz in the dedicated dashboard. Creating a project is easy. It can be edited at any time. Also, in the Overview tab, users can view basic statistics such as Lead Generated, Content Summary and Content Ongoing. Content like quizzes can be grouped within companies, so it’s easy to keep track of multiple campaigns. The permission system of each company makes it easy to let co-workers edit or share content with their customers.

Piotr, Senior Ruby on Rails Developer

“Developing an MVP application, it is important to choose the right means to achieve the goal. Using unsophisticated tools and not much time we managed to create a fully functional and intuitive content editor. I am very satisfied with the result.”

QUIZ EDITOR

The quiz editor allows users to create their own custom quizzes by using the intuitive approach – What You See Is What You Get. They can use many available graphic templates or create their own quiz from scratch. Besides standard questions, users can insert additional screens like product placement. Quizzes can include text and graphics as well as links. In preview mode, users may check the quiz before publishing it.

Konrad, Senior Front-end Designer

“The project turned out to be quite a challenge, especially the content editor elements and its presentation on mobile devices. Moreover, team work in a group of front-end developers is always a nice experience.”

SHARING QUIZZES

The advantage of InQuizits projects is that they can be easily shared in multiple ways. Through social media as well as by email. Sharing content can be done by generating a link, using Programmatic Banner Ads, QR Codes, Social Media Links and iFrame embeds. The easy sharing of content has a great impact on the reach and effectiveness of the created campaign.

Arkadiusz, Front-end Developer

“For me, it was very satisfying and fun working on InQuizits. Besides standard Javascript there’s a great and intuitive content editor built on top of React.js. With the use of Bootstrap CSS framework with some overrides to adjust it to our needs. We achieved a very nice and smooth looking app with responsiveness out of the box. Can’t wait to see how it will evolve.”

RICH MEDIA AD FORMAT

InQuizits platform offers a rich media ad unit compatible with most ad servers. Using IQ’s Programmatic solution offers uplift to CPM, CPC and CPA/CPL revenue. Research has shown that the engagement in interactive banners surpasses even video results. At the same time, it builds a stronger relationship between the brand and the client than in the case of standard advertising.

Jan, Senior Front-end Developer

“Working on the Inquizits project was exciting and demanding. My main task was to prepare a template for quizzes to be published on advertising network in a Rich Media Format. The online advertising environment was challenging because of many constraints that normally aren’t a problem and also because of not so great documentation. It was a great opportunity to go back to the basics and to use them to the fullest.”

PAYMENT SYSTEM

InQuizits has a payment model integrated with the Stripe platform. This makes it easy and secure to plug in a credit card and set up. Access to the tool applies to those who opt for a monthly subscription, as well as for trial users who want to test the solution. Thanks to the subscription fee, the users have access to a professional marketing tool developed in the SaaS model.

3. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

4. UX / UI

One of our goals was to develop a platform that gives the user multiple ways to personalize content. We wanted the solution to be multi-functional, and easy to use at the same time. That is why we focused our attention on users of both traditional computers and mobile devices.

Ania, UX/UI Designer

“The most challenging part of the project was making sure that the content editor allowed for many different customisation options while being intuitive and easy to use. Another part of the design process was making sure that the editor works great not only on desktops, but also on much smaller mobile devices. This allows users to quickly edit content even without access to their computer”

5. QA

Testing of InQuizits mainly covered all functionalities of this marketing platform. We paid a lot of attention to solutions related to sharing content (quizzes) between users. The application gives several such ways, so each of them required a thorough analysis. Apart from content sharing, equally important for us were the functions of inviting friends to use the application, the subscription option and the payment methods.

Joanna, Quality Assurance

“I really enjoyed working on the Inquizits project. Due to its available options – the possibility of sharing the quiz in various ways. (Embed with iFrame, Rich media – digital advertising, via link) Testing inviting new teammates, subscriptions and payments-there were many paths here, with lots of interesting variations. A great cooperating team and a product-oriented customer.”

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

The result of our activities to date is the development of a project MVP, which includes the basic functionality of the tool. Standard banner ads had a click-through rate of up to 40% lower than those from InQuizits. In the near future, we will focus on implementing further solutions, which include new content types and more robust data and statistics dashboards.

Testimonial:

When building a new platform having a team that does not just blindly follow your directions, but offers product and design suggestions was a breath of fresh air. The team at RailwayMen did just that from UX/UI to project management and developers, their input was tremendous in getting us to where we are today.

Bill McDonnell,

Founder & CEO, InQuizits

Check interview with Bill and review

We are real!

Let's get it started!

Do you have project details?

estimate project

Joanna Brzezińska-Wajda

Head of Sales

CostTracker

web app

ABOUT PROJECT

About company:

OUR WORK

Project Management

Frontend

Backend

QA

UX & UI

Business Consulting

Future Strategy

1. PROCESS

WORKSHOPS

Katarzyna, Project Manager​​

COMMUNICATION

Maciej

QA Engineer

Sylwia

UX/UI Designer

Karol

Frontend Developer

Piotr

Tech Lead

Katarzyna

Project Manager

Katarzyna, Project Manager​​

2. WEB APP

Tomek, Team Leader & Senior RoR Developer​

Piotr, Team Lead​

Mateusz, Senior RoR Developer​

Tomek, Team Leader & Senior RoR Developer​

Tomek, Team Leader & Senior RoR Developer​

VARIOUS LOGIN OPTIONS

TWO FACTOR AUTHENTICATION

SINGLE SIGN-ON (SSO) LOGIN

Tomek, Team Leader & Senior RoR Developer​

THE POSSIBILITY TO USE THE COSTTRACKER APP API

SYSTEM MANAGEMENT FLEXIBILITY

DASHBOARD

3. UX / UI

MOBILE VIEWS AND TABLES

QUICK ACCESS FOR THE APPROVER

DESIGN SYSTEM

VISUALIZATION OF FINANCIAL DATA

FURTHER APP DEVELOPMENT NEW CHALLENGES RESPONDING: STREAMLINING THE GENERAL APP WORKFLOW

Sylwia, UX/UI Designer

4. FRONTEND

FLUID DESIGN (RWD)

Formir

Karol, Front-end Developer​

5. QA

Maciej, Quality Assurance Engineer​

6. TECHNOLOGIES & INTEGRATIONS

FINAL PRODUCT

RESULTS & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

Testimonial:

We are real!

Let's get it started!

Do you have project details?

The Perfect Room

web app

ABOUT PROJECT

OUR WORK

Frontend

Backend

QA

1. PROCESS

Weronika Nowak, Project Manager ​

2. WEB APP

STYLE QUIZ

Mateusz, RoR Developer

DIGITAL MARKETPLACE ​

FAVORITES

DESIGN CONSULTATIONS​

CUSTOMIZED PLATFORM

3. E-COMMERCE ANALYTICS

DATA TRACKING

Michał, RoR Developer

AVALARA

Katarzyna, Project Manager

Katarzyna, Project Manager

Tomek, Team Leader & Senior RoR Developer

Piotr, Team Lead

Mateusz, Senior RoR Developer

Tomek, Team Leader & Senior RoR Developer

Tomek, Team Leader & Senior RoR Developer

Tomek, Team Leader & Senior RoR Developer

Karol, Front-end Developer

Maciej, Quality Assurance Engineer

Weronika Nowak, Project Manager

DIGITAL MARKETPLACE

DESIGN CONSULTATIONS

CRYPTOCURRENCY

HomeAhead
Marketplace

Talking in JSON

Karol, Senior RoR Developer