At this stage we try to give you a ball-park estimate so both sides can see if it is worth pursuing further.

The next stage is usually a visit to your offices, although your are welcome to visit us if you prefer. This meeting has a number of purposes. From our perspective we want to find out more about your :

 Requirements
 Business drivers
 Data volumes
 Number and location of users
 Types of users and their experience levels
 Current IT infrastructure
 Integration with other business processes or IT systems
 Future plans

For example we will probably ask you about your current network; what speed is it, how heavily is it loaded, are there any parts that operate over a low bandwidth connection such as a WAN or wireless, are there plans for remote access such as from home workers, etc. (and if you don't know the answers to the more technical questions we can either talk to someone else in your organisation or investigate further ourselves). The purpose for this is to identify the types of technical solutions that will work effectively in your environment; certain options for example are not suitable for use over wireless links.  

The meeting will also let you find out more about us so you can be reassured that we are competent, capable and reliable and we can give you a demonstration of some of the other projects that we have worked on so you can see the quality of the application that we could produce for you.

We will normally then be in a position to issue a fixed price quotation. This will define what we will develop for you, what environment we are developing for, what the costs and timescales will be, etc. Once you have accepted the quote we will usually have a further discussion with you following which we will produce an initial database design. We will then walk through this with you to ensure that we have correctly understood the relationships between all of the different data entities (this part is a bit like laying the foundations for a house; we want to check that the house is in the correct location and orientation on the plot, that all the rooms have been included and are the correct size, etc.

The next delivery will be a preliminary version. This will not be fully functional but will include a basic framework allowing you to fire up your application and to start seeing what it will look like. This will be followed by regular (1-2 week intervals) updates, each filling out more and more of the application. During this time we will have regular meetings with you to walk through the evolving application, make sure that we have understood your requirements correctly, verify that it does what you expect and ask or answer any questions that have arisen. We can then go away, correct any mistakes or misinterpretations, revise the system and then add some more functionality in readiness for the next review meeting.

This iterative approach, which is a variant of the DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Method) methodology, has many advantages over the old 'waterfall' method. It lets you see the application as it is developing, allows you to influence the design, enables you to correct any misunderstandings at an early stage, lets you check that we are keeping to the agreed timescale and ensures that, at the end of the day, the application that we deliver to you is the same, or better, than the one that you were originally expecting!

We then deliver the feature complete version after which you can undertake your acceptance testing - trying the system out to check that all is well and that it conforms with your requirements. If you have an existing application that is being replaced you would normally parallel run the two systems at this stage to ensure that they give consistent results.

After a final data import (if you have existing data to be upsized) we are then ready to 'go live' and start using the new application for real. With real-time systems, such as when taking telephone orders, we usually expect to be on-site during this stage (this may not be necessary for less critical systems where there is a more gradual changeover).

Inevitably some teething issues may occur in the first few weeks - which is why we include free support for the first three months!

After three months we move into a contractual support stage if required. This covers issues such as problems with operating systems, new service packs, data, import/export, backups and restores, etc. It is not mandatory for you to take out support, some clients do and some don't. It depends upon the application, it's size and complexity, the resources available to you in house, the importance of the system to the business, etc.

...and don't forget our unique software guarantee; any bugs that are down to us will be fixed free of charge for the lifetime of your application!