VRP Joins Jobscience for Salesforce’ $1 Million Hackathon

VRPs Dmitry Savinkov joined the team at Jobscience over the weekend for Salesforce’ $1 million hackathon winning 9^th place and $10,000!

The challenge was to develop a mind blowing, functional, mobile app using Force.com, Heroku, ExactTarget, or any of the other developer tools and APIs that make up Salesforce Platform.  

Using the Salesforce1 platform the team developed an app to simplify the bar experience for consumers. 

“. . . dataBarz allows Consumers so look up bars in their neighborhood, read reviews, examine the drink menu, and purchase drinks which will trigger the drink-bot to pour you a drink of your choice! This extremely intuitive and easy to use application on the salesforce1 platform will simplify payments, reduce lines at bars and give users all of the information they need to know about a bar. And a robot pours you a drink! That’s pretty awesome. 

dataBarz also allows the Bar Manager to manage their inventory, define what drinks are available through the drink-bot, and monitor quantity levels, orders coming in, and reviews… all from the salesforce1 app! The drink-bot is an extremely affordable and easy solution for any of the few hundred bars you find in San Francisco, or any city for that matter! . . .”

The team created the app to solve issues like, cash only bars, long lines, or not knowing what to order at a bar you’ve never been to. They also wanted to show off the plethora of abilities you can do with cloud based automation.

To read more about what the team did with the Salesforce1 platform you can visit: 

http://challengepost.com/software/databarz

Salesforce Foundation & roundCause Release NGO Connect

Being connected in today’s market is vital to an organizations success. With tasks such as fundraising, event management, volunteer management, nonprofit relationship management, and program management it’s hard to find a program that does all of these successfully and efficiently.

After evaluating the applications serving the nonprofit marketplace Salesforce made an investment in roundCause in early 2014.  The rebranding under the Salesforce Foundation completes the endorsement of roundCorner as the premier software for NGO’s on the Salesforce platform:

“. . . NGO Connect is a new app that helps nonprofits connect all of these things to transform how they build and retain lifetime relationships with their constituents. And because it is built on the world’s leading Salesforce1 Platform, NGO Connect is built for the social, mobile, and cloud era. Leading nonprofits like Sierra Club, Girl Scouts of the USA, and City Year are already using NGO Connect to help them transform.”

With the NGO Connect app working for you organization you can take the time to focus on what truly matters, achieving your mission and accelerating your nonprofits’ ability to deliver more impact.

The Salesforce Foundation has extended the seeding of Enterprise licenses to this platform making the deployment of this solution even more affordable.  They have further introduced the BIOS license to allow the entire organization to take advantage of NGO Connect data model that allows both traditional commercial account and nonprofit household management within the same environment.

As a Salesforce Product Development Organization and Salesforce Foundation Partner VRP Consulting, Inc. is well positioned to deploy this solution for your organization.

Our experience in the Blackbaud and MicroEdge environment allows you to stay on those valuable platforms and exchange information between the NGO Connect environments.

For more information on the NGO Connect software and how to get it for your organization contact Niels Andersen at (415) 871-1855 or visit: http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/introducing-ngo-connect. 

MongoDB map-reduce recommendation implementation

Challenge: 

Modern applications often require extended storage spaces and real-time processing of large amounts of data. In the traditional storage, data is spread across multiple related tables in SQL database. This database is queried from server application layer where additional calculations take place. Salesforce, even though it can be customized in detail, provides similar architecture. As a result, the performance may lag behind, because the database collects data from multiple tables and sends it across the network. These time response delays may negatively affect real-time features.

Solution:

NoSQL solutions meet the requirements of modern software development and deal with the limitations mentioned above. MongoDB is the leading NoSQL database, which gained popularity among the Fortune 500 and Global 500 companies. NoSQL database is a document store and its key features include: dynamic schema, horizontal scaling, replication and MapReduce support.

Case:

In the following example of Mongo DB usage, VRP developers created a recommendation engine capable of searching for similar opportunities from the pool of predefined opportunities. We used a collection of 500k predefined opportunities. A sample implementation of recommender request is simple: compare input opportunity with all opportunities from the pool and count the number of matching products for each pair of opportunities. With the help of this algorithm, we can find related products to recommend together with the main product. The traditional implementation of the same functionality in a relational database may take hours to complete.

MongoDB recommender implementation:

VRP Partners With roundCorner

VRP is proud to be a systems integrator supporting roundCorner and their roundCause nonprofit application on the Salesforce.com platform.

VRP was selected as a roundCorner partner based on our integration expertise with the Blackbaud and MicroEdge Legacy platforms.  VRP and roundCause can help foundations, public and private as well as large non-profits looking to extend their legacy fund accounting platforms with the power of the Salesforce.com platform.

VRP deep expertise in Blackbaud’s Financial Edge and the MicroEdge FIMS and Foundation Power accounting environments allows the CFO to remain productive on their core solutions platform.  With the two way integration that VRP provides the development and program management organizations can leverage the functional power of the Salesforce.com platform. 

When Salesforce.com invested a significant amount in the roundCorner partnership to extend and enhance the nonprofit CRM platform it was the first non-commercial investment that Salesforce has made.

VRP is a preferred developer organization (PDO) in the Salesforce partner channel.  As a Silver Partner we bring 40 plus certified resources to these integration efforts.

To meet foundations and large non-profit’s needs VRP has productized the following bi-directional connectors:

(1) Blackbaud Financial Edge to roundCause
(2) MicroEdge FiMS to roundCause
(3) MicroEdge Foundation Power to roundCause

Contact Niels Andersen of VRP at 415-871-1855 for a discussion of your non-profit needs today!

Web Tools for 24 by 7 Information Management

VRP Consulting Simplifies Cisco Systems Information Management 

VRP created a unified suite of web tools for Cisco Systems to simplify the Information Management of the vast amount of information being generated and communicated. VRP’s web tools include the following bundled capabilities: Browser Compatibility Checker, Link Checker, and Spell Checker. The Browser Compatibility module was created to ensure that there is viewing compatibility in Internet Explorer to Firefox and beyond to ensure a seamless external user experience. The Link Checker module alerts the VRP administrator to problems as they occur and result in broken links enabling them to investigate and make changes quickly. The Spell checker module ensures that content is spelled correctly. Given the international nature of Cisco's internal and external facing content there is the capability to work in multiple languages.

Web Tools for Oncologists

VRP Designs User-Friendly Interface 

VRP helped Cogent Medicine implement complex relationships among a large set of new data objects, systems integration with the existing databases, and create a user-friendly interface that presents this complex web of information in a meaningful and useful way. The project contained many layers within and of the project itself. These layers included: information architecture, database design, data connection or linkage, and presentation. Our staff worked alongside Cogent's team to solve problems and architect, program and implement solutions.

 

Global Resources Enabling Web Development at Light Speed

VRP Works Quickly and Efficiently 

VRP developed and made the Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT) website live in less than a week just in time for CNN's special on the non-profit aired. After discovering the code written by the original web developers was unusable, the decision was made in conjunction with the New York design firm that the only way possible to meet the non profit's timeline was to start again from scratch. VRP worked night and day to complete the site, handing off work between offshore web developers and US web developers to get the work done quickly and effectively in the limited time remaining before the broadcast. The web site successfully absorbed over 1 million hits that evening during the course of the broadcast. While not the ideal conditions for web development work, it is a tribute to the design, the architecture and graphics, and the web development team that this site was brought up fully functional in 4 calendar days. www.ml4t.org

Cost-Effective Product Development through VRP Managed Services Methodology

 VRP Customizes Applications for Product Management Organizations 

VRP worked with product management organizations such as Rogue IT, Resdida, Telesocial, and Bottlenecks to bring custom applications software to market in several product development environments at a cost that is within their budgets.

Rogue IT came to VRP with a request for software product development using Salesforce.com platform technologies. VRP provided Rogue IT with the GreatVines platform, an application created entirely in Apex, the Salesforce proprietary platform language, and which operates entirely in the cloud. The GreatVines application also manages consumer-marketing programs, including wine club, online commerce, and tasting-room retail sales. In addition the credit card payment-processing environment was developed as a native Salesforce.com applications extension to further enable eCommerce on the Force.com Sites web platform.

VRP helped Resdida bring the Mobilize platform to market, a PHP environment featuring campaign and channel management, quick send features, list management, and data metrics. To meet Resdida's needs, VRP deployed a flex team of two VRP resources that was driven architecturally by a VRP onshore applications architect. www.resdida.com 

Telesocial's CTO worked with VRP to create the Bitmouth platform. Using the Managed Services Methodology, VRP assembled a 3-person Java development team to work with Telesocial's CTO to create the Bitmouth product, which gives network providers a bridge to the social web using carrier-class IP based services and traditional telephony services. www.telesocial.com 

VRP built a social network site for Bottlenecks. The final product, executed entirely by VRP's offshore resources, incorporates event management, blogging, email marketing and unique Facebook and Twitter capabilities to pump up the buzz around the wine experience. These capabilities range from the traditional eCommerce capabilities such as wine club memberships and bridal registries to the ability to toast a friend informing them of the latest good bottle of wine including how to purchase the wine through a full shopping cart checkout capability at Bottlenotes. www.bottlenotes.com 

VRP Updates Nonprofit's Website

Serving Donors and Grantee’s - “How Change Happens”

VRP helped update The Marin Community Foundation web architecture and application integration as well as create a custom Content Management System CMS. Over several weeks a long-term architectural plan was worked out with the finance and program stakeholders that looked to extend the investment in the MicroEdge Foundation Power accounting platform for 5 to 7 years while paving the way for new systems development to support the expanded donor advised funds campaign. 

The plan included a new donor portal serving the donor advised funds, a new grantee portal serving the community constituents, a grants evaluation center, and a grants management portal to provide end-to-end visibility grant making life cycle. These initiatives extended and enhanced the Marin Community Foundation’s core legacy applications platform and enable the organization to keep pace with the change that would be happening in support of the community.

VRP and Jobscience

Web 3.0 Development using Force.com Sites Technology

VRP reinvented the Jobscience website to integrate the latest Salesforce CRM technologies. Being so well versed in the implementation of Salesforce CRM applications, instead of using PHP, an older programming language, VRP was able to build the entire site with Apex, Force.com's proprietary programming language. 

The end result is that Jobscience's site was built entirely in native code, allowing Jobscience to deliver the best customer experience possible across its SaaS platform and leaving the site ready to add in new functionality quickly and easily as the need arises. As a software developer, Jobscience is continually working with Salesforce to create new products that will meet the needs of its customer base. The website VRP created for them integrates Force dynamic technology into the fabric of Jobscience's site and allows for better support of existing products and easier implementation of new products. VRP continues to work with Jobscience in deployment of the newly released CMS Force tool, a content management system program within the Force sites environment. 

.NET Engineering and Integration Success Story

Grant Management - A Life Cycle Solution

The San Francisco Foundation (Foundation) faced a challenge regarding its non profit accounting, online fundraising and grant management systems. The legacy applications were outdated and needed to be replaced with a more dynamic and responsive system. The Foundation had a vision of giving the stakeholders in the Foundation more transparent access to information and control over their accounts with the Foundation.

The Foundation hired systems consultant to conduct a needs analysis. After extensive review of available products Blackbaud's Enterprise Financial Edge (FE) and Raisers Edge (RE) products were selected to address the Foundation's financial and online fundraising needs. However, there was still a critical application gap as the Blackbaud software did not address grant management. The consultant presented two options to the Foundation: systems integration with an existing software package with the chosen Blackbaud products or consider a custom software solution. The Foundation evaluated a number of preexisting software packages, but in the end a decision was made to build a custom grant management application with the VRP team.

When any non profit organization undertakes a custom application development process there is a natural tendency to customize the application to the unique processes that differentiates the non profit organization from the industry. However, VRP believes that the design phase is an opportunity to streamline idiosyncratic processes and save money and time through implementation of a more common set of business processes that are generic to the industry.

The Grant Management System design team included a number of people with backgrounds in consulting, public accounting and investment management as well as a diverse group of future users of the new application. The team brought a broad based knowledge of the non profit industry to VRP's expert approach to custom application design. With the discipline of these backgrounds at the table and a commitment to open discussion, the Foundation took the opportunity to review and redesign workflows and processes that had taken on the individual personas of the departments and employees. In many cases, it was recognized that different grant making processes may be utilized depending on the nature of the grant and this was designed into the system as a set of business rules.

From a technical standpoint, VRP architected the system to be easily configurable to reduce ongoing maintenance related to the changes in these grant-making policies. All application parameters are stored in configuration files in the database and Foundation staff is able to make necessary changes when applicable. The systems integration with FE and RE was accomplished using Blackbaud's Application Programming Interface (API). To ensure license conformance and a clean upgrade path Blackbaud's technical resources were used to review the design. The design utilizes the strengths of the RE and FE applications, such as donor management and financial management and therefore duplication of data and data entry were avoided between the systems.

In addition to the systems integration of Blackbaud's products the Foundation was able to also address its major grant compliance need, which is to review the current tax status of applicants and potential grantee's. VRP worked with Guidestar to integrate tax data available through a nightly update. Research that previously required tax documentation and manual research has been nearly eliminated with this innovative idea.

The architecture of the Grant Management System was bookended with a set of web portals. The web portals address the Foundation's need to provide customer service and transparency to important stakeholders, mainly donors and grantees.

The Donor Portal, which targets the Foundation's Donor Advisor's, allows a donor to view information regarding his/her fund and also recommend grants from the fund that directly populate the Grant Management System database. Features available on the portal include:

• Investments and cash account balance
• Grant making funds available
• History of fund contributions
• A graphical representation of the donor's grant making trends
• Overall Foundation's investment management results.
• A five-year history of all grants made from the fund with the ability to give a repeat grant without data-entry
• Ability to recommend a grant to an organization in which the fund has never granted
• Search on the Foundations grant making to provide the opportunity for aligned giving.

The portal has received outstanding feedback from the donor community praising the 24/7 access to real-time account information. The portal has also provided internal efficiencies by decreasing manual processing and reducing staff data entry errors and creating an audit trail. The time gained by the system has also freed staff time to provide a more thorough review of grant making compliance issues and allows donors more one on one attention when questions arise.

The Grantee Portal is the donor portal's sister site and addresses applicant and grantee community that the Foundation serves. The Grantee portal is an online submission and monitoring environment that allows non profit organizations to submit grant applications, monitor application status, and review historical grant and application history at the Foundation. Features available on the grantee portal include:

• Access to all current grant opportunities
• Grant making funds available
• Targeted applications to fit grant opportunities and collect relevant data from the grantee
• Easy to complete applications featuring text boxes, drop down menus and check boxes and error checking to ensure that the grant submission follows guidelines
• Ability to upload required documents electronically
• View of applications in progress and view the status of each
• View of historical applications that were not funded
• Current open grants
• Past grants (closed)
• Online reporting and submission
• View correspondence

The new portals have created staff efficiencies resulting in nearly six weeks of time saving processes that previously included manual data entry of each application. The improved process has also resulted in a decrease of paper files as all documents and data are now captured electronically and an audit trail is maintained.

VRP welcomes the opportunity to show how custom integrated applications can make your foundation or non profit organization more efficient! Contact us for more information on automating your Grant Management life cycle.

Building with Flash, A VRP Client Story

VRP Delivers Client Visions

Client: Film-maker Sebastian Marroquin
Goal: Create a Complex Flash Website Without Compromising Design

Stories can be shared through many different mediums, one of the most powerful being film. The Sundance Film Festival is world renowned for showcasing new film works and talent. In 2010, the film Sins of My Father, garnered critical acclaim and public attention at Sundance. Produced by Sebastian Marroquin, this film recounted the life of his own father, Pablo Escobar, a notorious Columbian drug lord.

Prior to the film's debut, producers wanted a website that would promote, entice and engage the public. The goal was to create a website that would match the vision of the project; created with collages of photographs, pop-ups, animated storyboards, and video. The incorporation of innovative graphics and flash animation was the perfect design choice and to accomplish this, producers needed a web developer with extensive technical expertise in Flash web design.

That's why VRP was hired for the job. With years of experience working with Advertising Agencies, Branding and Design firms, VRP has the experience of building websites which range from basic to complicated. The ability to use not only Flash, but also other web languages, is what differentiates our work from competitors. VRP knows that assembling a website is not difficult, but making it look beautiful is an art.

In the case of the Sins of My Father website, VRP executed the design exactly the way it was intended and delivered a final site according to the filmmaker's timeline. We invite you to visit the website Sins of My Father at www.sinsofmyfather.tv. Here you can experience final execution of this rich, multimedia website.

A client's website is their face to the world. VRP understands the importance of making that face look good and more importantly, we know how to make it look really good. Let us know how we can help make your vision a reality today!

Cloud computing enables cost savings

Joe McKendrick of Forbes Magazine recently wrote an article in which he suggested that cloud computing may be a shot in the arm our economy needs. His premise is that "cloud computing enables cost savings - because companies can access technology and applications on-demand on an as-needed basis and pay for only what they use."

Mr. McKendrick's goes on to write:

• Cloud computing is paving the way for the "loosely coupled company" ...Most of these services will be passed through as cloud services, both from within the enterprise and from outside.
• There's nothing stopping companies that are adept at building and supporting their own private clouds from offering these services to partners and customers beyond the firewall. Amazon was an online retailer that began to offer its excess capacity to outside companies.
• As Chris Sacca, a software start-up investor and former Google executive, put it: "The biggest line item in [software start-up] companies now is rent and food.
• Cloud computing is essentially a form of micro-outsourcing. The old model of outsourcing - in which multi-million-dollar contracts to run data centers or build platforms are awarded - is giving way to much more fine-grained, incremental approaches.
• As we ponder unemployment and underemployment in our economy, the availability of cheap cloud computing may be laying the groundwork for a start-up boom, the likes we have never seen before.

VRP Consulting recently met with Joshua Katzele, Project Manager with Critical Power Exchange in Spokane, Washington. In speaking with Joshua, he reinforced with us that Critical Power Exchange has participated in the rapid transformation of businesses moving their brick and mortar data centers to the cloud where they "can access technology and applications on-demand" is Critical Power Exchange. CPE specializes in providing turn-key solutions based around data center consolidations and relocations.

Critical Power Exchange has seen an explosion in the data industry with many companies making the move from standard "brick-and-mortar" data centers to localized "cloud" service based centers. Cloud based services allow companies to divert capitol to other important avenues of long term growth such as research and development. Cloud computing also allows companies to diversify and change with technological advances quickly, efficiently and with a small upfront capital investment.

If your company is planning to move your data center to the cloud, then get in touch with Joshua at: joshuak@criticalpower.com

VRP Consulting, like CPE is in the forefront of the Software as a Service (SaaS) revolution. Over the past 5 years, VRP Consulting has been an industry leader in the development and deployment of Cloud based SaaS solutions on the Salesforce and Microsoft platforms for such companies as Salesforce.com, Cisco Systems and Facebook.

Examples of VRP's cloud based development, integration and support capabilities include:

• As a software development capabilities partner to Rogue IT, VRP Consulting was one of only 30 firms selected recently to participate in a pre-release software developer pilot program by Salesforce for their new Force sites technology.
• Looking to create a custom application for a boutique Napa winery that could manage three-tier trade sales operations, Rogue IT came to VRP with a request for software product development using Salesforce.com platform technologies. VRP provided Rogue IT with the GreatVines platform, an application created entirely in Apex, the Salesforce proprietary platform language, and which operates entirely in the cloud.

If your goal as a business owner or IT Manger is to:

• Create greater agility within your company, with less reliance on legacy IT assets.
• Access technology and applications on-demand on an as-needed basis and pay for only what they use.
• Create a start-up business with a technical solution that is easy to implement and reduces initial costs and ongoing outlay.

Then look to the cloud.

Look to VRP Consulting to create, develop or integrate your successful business in the cloud. From System Integration to Custom Software Development, VRP's partnerships and flexible use of offshore development and local personnel can be a very productive and cost effective solution for your organization. For your data migration and cloud based applications give VRP Consulting a shout at 415-871-1855.

Dreamforce 2011 - Were You There?

VRP has been doing salesforce Apex development, integration and support for large App xChange providers for the past four years. VRP also implements multiple data migrations for large App xChange providers and have it down to a science. One of our primary business goals is attending dreamforce and taking advantage of the opportunities to build strong working relationships.

If your company is involved in systems integration, data migration or salesforce Apex development, then attending dreamforce next year will be critical to the success and growth of your organization.

This year dreamforce attracted well over 40,000 users, IT professionals, trainers and executives who took advantage of 425+ expert-led sessions with everything needed to maximize your investment in the cloud: best practices, how-to's, expert panels, case studies by industry, and more.

If your organization includes a Certified Administrator, dreamforce provided plenty of training sessions to develop those toolsets. Ever wonder what it takes to be a top salesforce admin? 7 Habits of Highly Successful Admins would have been the perfect session for your company. Or how about taking the power of LinkedIn one step further as a sales tool for your company? LinkedIn for Salesforce: Close Deals Faster with Insights for Your Pipeline would have been the session to learn how to integrate both of these sales tools.

Chatter was the huge technical announcement of the week. Chatter is a real-time collaboration platform for users. The service sends information proactively via a real-time news stream. Users can follow coworkers and data to receive broadcast updates about project and customer status. Users can also form groups and post messages on each other's profiles to collaborate on projects. Now Chatter lets you collaborate across departments, geographies, and hierarchies. Salesforce Chatter stands alone as an awesome enterprise-wide social collaboration tool.

VRP attended as many training sessions as we could fit into our schedules. We found what made these training sessions so powerful was that they were presented by industry leaders who had used the technology, software and apps on a regular basis. Their goal as presenters was to provide information and real life examples of how company’s can grow and prosper using these tools.

Finally, VRP learned that dreamforce is more than training sessions and networking. Keynote Sessions included Neil Young talking about integrating salesforce and his interest in digitized music. Also, Marc Benioff of salesforce and Eric Schmidt from Google shared a frank discussion about the future of technology in our lives. Both of these Keynote Sessions were fascinating opportunities to take a break from running around and listen to insightful and entertaining discussions about the future of technology.

And if all of this were not enough, the band Metallica played to a standing room only crowd on the final night.

Consider making an investment in the growth and success of your company. Plan to attend Dreamforce 2012.