According to James Caan of Dragons Den fame, 2012 will be the year of the Cloud with Cloud Computing and Cloud based technology driving economic and financial recovery. According to Cann and other business Growth experts, Cloud Computing will connect vision with capability, allowing entrepreneurs to launch business ideas quickly and profitably from day one.

The Cloud is not just for start ups, enterprises are discovering the flexibility and agility that a Cloud based business solution can offer. A typical saving can be made in investment in infrastructure. Why spend 100s of thousands on networking, server equipement and building infrastructure to house it all when the Cloud offers this as part of the software rental? SaaS or Software as a service is the common term for cloud based software rented as you use it. This added with all the costs of technical staff to man and maintain legacy systems means significant savings can be appreciated with no loss of s ervice (or in most cases better services).

With workforces changing the way they work, having locked systems anchored to a building does not fit the mobile worker model. Yes of course there is a miriade of connectivity technologies to link to these systems, but they will never offer the fluidity and flexibility of Cloud Based business services.

With major trusted IT providers like IBM, Google and Amazon offering Cloud based services, you know this is not just a flash in the pan, but a service you can trust today and moving forward.

At Pulse Business Software, we don’t suggest you just dump everything you have and switch overnight. This simply is not the way to implement any system. Most of our clients “test the water” first with a pilot project to solve an issue in one part of their business – usually the service or helpdesk – then as the ROI starts to be shown (usually very quickly!) and confidence in the overall system grows, migrating over legacy systems to Cloud Based applications for the rest of the business like sales, financial, stock control and project management.

With more and more mobile technologies becoming available to workers like smart phones, ipad type devices, tablets etc and with internet hotspots just about everywhere, why not capitalise on the Cloud as a means of driving your business. Contact Pulse Business Software now to discuss how cloud based business applications can change the way you work forever.

Contract Management is a standard part of the Service and Helpdesk Module, which really is the core of the pulse suite of software. Whilst the Service Module can be used as a powerful stand alone helpdesk management and service management software, when combined with the Inventory module, the Finance Module and the Sales Module, the true power of Pulse Business Software comes to life. Offering a single interface with all the information you will need at your fingertips. Furthermore, you get a unified Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) System to show you exactly what is happening in your business in real time.

Pulse 11.10 Release introduces stock tracking of unserialised items.

Many Pulse customers use Pulse serialised stock tracking for asset management and installed system support.

Now consumables and other non-serialised stock can be tracked in Pulse, as it moves from warehouse to technician van stock to being used in the service process.
This unifies the Pulse as the single ERP System for stock tracking, costing and billing in one system, and relieves the burden of running separate legacy or manual systems.

You can check out the Full Release notes here

Moving from a legacy system to a new cloud based system poses many challenges, but the most important one is moving the data over from the old to the new system.

This can be viewed as an opportunity to clean up and rationalise your data, simplifying it and cleaning it, as well as consolidating various disparate systems into one, making the data more useable.

It can also be viewed as a complete disaster which will bring the very business to its knees if not done correctly and with a high degree of intelligence. Let me say that any data migration is full of risks and problems and invariably some data will be lost or corrupted unless all steps are taken to minimise the risks involved from the start.

It is also fair to say that most projects dealing with data migration experience cost and timeframe overruns, causing a delay in deployment, usually due to over optimistic and unrealistic deadlines or constraints’ being agreed before proper analysis has been carried out of the current state of the data.

At Pulse Business Software, we are engaged in doing very large, complex data migrations and it is through bitter experience we have mastered how to migrate data correctly and minimise risks to our clients in the process.

Here are a few of our top tips to help you migrate your data:

Understand what the business is trying to achieve – is it consolidation of data, deploying new systems, merging data etc. What are the measures of success and how will you inform people of the progress made and by when.

Define the project scope – Who is doing what, by when and how. Define what tasks need to be performed, the tools you are going to use and the outcomes. Outlining the migration methodology you will use in the migration process is vital, with most it will be ETL (Exact, transform and load) but it could be hand coding and replication etc.

Define the skills required – whilst you know your data well, do you have the team and skills to do this internally? Data manipulation is skilled and time consuming work so employing external specialists may be the best option. Don’t forget you still have your day job to perform as well.

Understand your current data structure – What state is your current data in? How many systems are you consolidating and which is the most correct one (you would be amazed at the data inaccuracy). If you do not spend sufficient time in data profiling, your data migration will not be successful. Data quality is the most important part of the whole project so it must carry the biggest proportion of your effort.

Outline and define your process – make sure everybody know what and how you are going to do the migration. Are you going for a big bang approach or will it be a gradual migration of key systems first. Will you be running the old system in parallel to ensure data integrity and user confidence? When will there be downtime?

Management of data – Making sure you data is managed properly moving forward is also vital. A data migration is an ideal opportunity to get all legacy data correct and to ensure future data is improved.

Define policies for your data – Again, a new broom sweeps clean so make sure you define your policies and procedures for any data. How will you add , amend and delete records, who can or cannot do this, define data retention policies and storage for redundant data etc. These policies must be visible and enforceable.

Define testing and acceptance criteria – There are 3 important and vital steps to take here: Test, Test and Test again! Define the test criteria and acceptance criteria (ie when it is fine to go live etc). If you do not test at every stage, your migration will fail. Confidence in the data must be your prime objective as it is so vital to the business and success of the project.

Define the end of the project – have all objectives been met, it there a clear audit trail for compliance etc.

Project Closure – As things start to draw to a close, it is important that you step back and look at what has happened over the project, the good the bad and the ugly. It is important to gain feedback from the staff working on the project, the users and management. A lessons Learnt log is invaluable as doubtless this will not be your last data migration project!

With businesses having to deploy systems which increase productivity and reduce costs, staying with your old systems may not be an option for much longer and eventually you will have to change systems, so why not go with the experts in providing Cloud Based Business Solutions – Pulse Business Software.

Contact us now to see how we can help you through your data migration problem.

A recent example is part of our upgrade testing process.
We make use of specialised software testers who work through a rigorous checklist before each upgrade.
The checklist is built into our Pulse Service module, and configured by our implementation lead based on ongoing experience of our customers using the software.

The checklist lives linked to the upgrade Service Request, so we can always provide details of testing performed.

Sample Service Checklist

In any service industry, your helpdesk will make or break you. If you are providing a timed response type service (most IT Companies offer this as a contract service), it is vital you meet deadlines, preferably exceeding them, otherwise you may suffer more than a few financial penalties – you may lose that valuable contract.

Setting up a helpdesk can be a daunting task but it’s not as difficult if you go  about it the right way. Historically, companies seem to organically create helpdesk software as this is primarily the realm of the technical team. They always think they can do it better and spend hours in programming and bug fixing, costing infinitely more than just buying a purpose made application with a proven track record.

Basically, our advice is simple, choose a product that works well in your environment, will grow with you and does not need to be constantly tweaked – all you need to do is concentrate on making customers happy, providing them with the best support experience you can

Choosing Software for you and your customers needs

Most organisations will automatically look at buying a big server and some off the shelf package which the sales man says can be very flexible. This might make do for a while, until something is not quite right. Then the quote for customisation comes in and they have you! Also, every time there is a bug fix on general release, your customisation will need attention – basically it’s a licence to print money.

Rather look at cloud based systems from day one. These do not rely on any expensive hardware or personnel to constantly tend them (especially at weekends as it’s the old time they can be touched…oh what about the overtime costs!)

Cloud based support and helpdesk software will grow with you for a minimal cost per user, provide access at all times from any network device with a browser and will be managed.

Furthermore, clients will want access to log calls, check calls and run reports on performance – whilst possible to do, server based systems often rely on manual intervention to create these reports and log calls, which is degrading the client experience of dealing with you.

As costs are usually very sensitive in the early days, a cloud system will give a gradual run up, rather than a whole bunch of Capex Expenditure, which any FD will thank you for.

Resource scheduling and prioritisation

With timed contracts, getting the response and fix times bolted down will make a world of difference to how your service is judged. At Pulse Business Software, our Service Module has all the flexibility you will ever need for any type of scenario. Wether the priority is by client, site, server or component, all leverls of support urgency can be pre programmed to suit. Furthermore, a sophisticated but simple to use alerting matrix ensures the right people know when things are starting to go out of pre-determined tolerances, ensuring you are on top of major issues, whilst the rest of the system manages the lower priority calls for you – manage the exceptions rather than the ones going well.

Reporting and information

As I touched on briefly, customers are looking for reports when they want them – monthly is just not good enough anymore.

Settling up a series of metric reports, which are automatically emailed or displayed in real time, will allow the managers to manage and adds to staff moral as well – everybody wants to know when things are going well as well as if they are going wrong – this builds trust and commitment into your support team and gives greater customer satisfaction, which leads to excellent customer service.

In conclusion

With massive advancements in technology and internet security as well as a ubiquitous and always on network, companies must be moving towards cloud based on demand support software. Those that do will ride the wave and succeed those that cannot move with the wave will be under it. Service businesses are changing and the client demands are increasing, making cloud based software products more appealing than ever before.

Why not contact Pulse Business Software now to find out how cloud based systems can change the way you work and increase satisfaction in your client base.

One of the most common problems we see is that companies think that when they have been using the same systems for so long, it is impossible to change. This is definitely not the case.

Most companies have legacy service desk software systems, which have either been an off the shelf package which has been modified over the years by “Old Fred”  and has worked OK, but lacks expansion and flexibility to cope with new working practices, so a work around is created to cope, or they ignore and put up with the inadequacies of the system and usually have created sub systems which are totally unrelated and require huge amounts of effort to work.

It does not have to be this way.

OK,  so the thought of changing systems and moving all the legacy data and training and effort to do this seems too big to cope with – a bit like going to the dentist really – you know that a new service desk software package would help the business in the long-term, but you kind of live with the toothache…we have all been there!

We often go into this situation. “Old Fred” will defend his position and say that the system is flexible to cope…the Service Desk manager does not want the disruption to the service he is delivering…but at the end of the day, is the business delivering the value to the clients or are the costs to deliver a service too high in terms of staffing and personnel?

One question to ask is “Are we constantly fighting to keep delivering a service and are we jeopardising our client base by not providing what they need?” I would suggest the answer is going to be “yes”.

At Pulse Business Software, we make it easy to deal with these problems. We have a team of experts who face this situation on a daily basis. Manipulating data and working out how to migrate legacy systems onto a new web based service desk platform is tough, but our approach minimises the pain and makes sure disruption is kept to a minimum.

Our delivery practices have evolved and developed over the years, moving our clients from old legacy systems to hosted SaaS systems, thus delivering great capability and reduced costs, and giving visibility to both management and the client – a vital component in service desk applications today.

So rather than keep fighting to keep your head above water with a system that fails to deliver today, speak to Pulse Business Software or Contact Us Now to see what can be done for your business.

By the way, “Old Fred” is seen as a vital player in most scenarios and his knowledge of working practices and data structures really helps in delivering a new system – every company has one!

With more and more organisations looking to either pilot or deploy Cloud Based Applications or Software as a Service SaaS in their business, is security really an issue or is this being used as a red herring by some IT departments to hold up or stop potential deployments?

One of the most asked questions we come across is “Is the cloud less secure than my internal systems?”

The answer is simple; Pulse Business Software is designed to exceed user expectations, and so is significantly more secure than the systems the client already has currently deployed. We are constantly amazed at this question, especially when we ask one back like “So describe your current arrangements so we can compare for you”. This is often embarrassing as most companies have little or no security in place.

With Pulse Business Software, access is tightly controlled by module, routine, department and user – a sophisticated matrix allows infinite control over who can see or do what – the basic concept is everything is excluded, so you have to allow rather than deny access. The Pulse security matrix is simple to set up but very powerful, so administrators can easily make the required changes to access and accessibility as required.

All transmissions using Pulse Business Software are encrypted, so again the physical data is protected from intrusion and is held safely and securely at the provider. As a further security measure, periodic automatic user password forced changes can be implemented to make sure all users must change passwords regularly adding further levels of security.

One incidental side effect is of deploying Cloud Based applications within an organisation is that it forces users to abandon current practices like using USB data sticks to carry data around and by removing company data off desktops and laptop applications, moving it to a secure location via the Cloud Application. This is its self will create improved security by removing a potential source of data from many places to one place. As all cloud applications use browser based technology, no data is stored on any local machine – always a problem in the past, especially when the machine gets lost or stolen.

The bottom line is that working practices are demanding more flexibility and access than ever before, so regardless of whether you are deploying a Cloud Application or are allowing connectivity to legacy systems, security will always be a potential issue. The real thing to bear in mind is that a cloud provider’s business relies on the fact that they are providing a secure application so security is paramount to being able to deliver this.

One other thought is one of budgets. A service provider will spend a large proportion of its budget on security, highly trained personnel and technology to prevent their reputation as a provider from being breached, so they are very likely to be ahead of the game in comparison to most organisations.

So, if you are thinking of deploying or using cloud Based Applications like Pulse Business Systems, now is the perfect time to review your security systems. For a free consultation on how Pulse can change your business, contact us now.

Keeping an eye on your business is essential to know where you are going. Most businesses have some method of doing this, but most are out of date, require input of some description to keep them updated and often reflect fairly simple measurements, but at least it is a start.

At Pulse Business Software, we believe as your business information is there, it can be measured and displayed to show business activity, performance and most importantly compare this to goals and objectives in real time.

This is essentially called BAM or Business Activity Monitoring.

So what does this all mean? A definition of Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) is the aggregation, analysis, and presentation of real time information about activities inside organizations and involving customers and partners, especially with regards to acceptable tolerances or goals for the company.

Pulse Business Software’s BAM dashboard systems are driven by business events, fed directly from Pulse Business Software’s logs in real time, so you know exactly what is happening. Our BAM systems are real time where data displayed is not dependent upon a user refreshing a query or a query scheduler.

BAM systems are process oriented so the goals of Business Activity Monitoring are to provide real time information about the status and results of various operations, processes, and transactions so business decisions can be informed, quickly address problem areas, and re-position organisations to take full advantage of emerging opportunities.

An example of a typical use of Pulse Business Software’s BAM dashboard is to provide real time visibility into how business events such as orders, process queues, network failures, database overloads, etc affect the progress of business transactions, permitting real-time business decisions in response to system events, providing statistics on business process performance.

BAMs can be customised to meet the needs of the business, departments, teams and individuals and are particularly useful in Service environments and Sales environments where transactions are involving critical timed contract SLA’s, call centre activities or financial goals.

BAM’s have been proven to effect businesses in other ways such as:

• Cutting response times to deal with issues
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Highlight priority issues
• Increased productivity
• Increased employee performance levels
• Improved visibility of high perfomers
• Increase moral in workforce

Whatever your business, implementing Pulse Business Software can improve your performance and profitability, but implementing Business Activity Monitoring will keep your business on track. For more information on Business Activity Monitoring and how it can improve your visibility and performance, contact Pulse Business Software now.