Just a Text File
Over the years years, I've attended a number of users conferences for different enterprise software programs. You can find out a lot about the applications and more importantly, the company behind it, by what types of sessions they offer. The ones that are more marketing and sales-oriented are likely to be all about increasing revenue whereas the ones focused on users and their challenges are clearly all about support.
While I saw both sides of that spectrum, in all cases I sought out the technology round tables. These round tables afford users the opportunity to discuss problems and wishlists with the individuals responsible for implementing product revisions. More importantly you can find out what challenges other customers are experiencing and how they are working through them.
What I found most interesting about all of these sessions were the variety of issues that would be pretty simple to rectify but remained on everyone's wish list.
In many of these cases, people would ask about a text file they needed to export to an accounting system or one they would need to import for reporting purposes. They could see the data within the application and instinctively knew it should be easy to get at, but year after year it remained a want. A lot of software companies are focused on the big items and keep shuffling off the little stuff to a later date.
To be fair, many of these things apply just to a subset of customers and applying resources to such a small segment isn't practical. However, if a customer can save time or benefit to any degree as a result of this additional functionality there is value.
We've done enough integrations between disparate systems that we can help in a number of areas. Either we can develop the process ourselves on your system or develop a spec and identify the process for implementing. Sometimes clarifying needs and resources is enough to start a conversation on the right foot. If we do the work, we can often do so in a few days.
If you would like more information on how we can help with the automation of processes, please contact us at Traversi Media.