Our first major client

Hi there, Tom here! This week, I'll be going over the full process we underwent in order to fulfil our second client's needs. This represented the first major challenge for the company, as all the processes and methods established during the past few years would be put to the test. So let's see how we handled it, what went well, and what could have been improved.

Finding the client

In our field, this step is often very complicated, and can take ages if you're inexperienced when it comes to marketing and commercial work (as we are).

Thankfully, this client came to us! The Quebec winter sports federation (called SAQ – Ski Acro Québec) was in need of custom tools to save time dealing with race result compilation. They therefore reached out to me asking if their needs could be met, as I am one of the few skiers working in IT. After a few weeks of back and forth, we shook hands, and got down to business.

The requested tool

When I first took a call with Guillaume, the sports development manager for SAQ, he clearly explained the major pain points he faced on a daily basis.

The problem

After each race, he gets handed a file containing the results of the race. He is in charge of copying all this data into an Excel spreadsheet, in order to calculate the leaderboards for the current season (these leaderboards are then used to select the athletes that will join the national team). However, depending on the sport, the level it is performed at, and the country where it takes place, the shape of the data in the file varies massively. Here is an example of what you might find in a given file:

He showed me how long it takes him to build these spreadsheets, as well as the mistakes he sometimes makes, that might skew the results.

The solution

As usual, Excel was the enemy, and we had to defeat it. The objective was clear:

• 1) Select a file (whatever the data structure might be – CSV, XML, you name it!)
• 2) Press enter
• 3) Update the current leaderboard

Any idea more complex than that would not make the cut.

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The first step was to design the UI (user interface) of the tool. We ended up with this:

We then added a UX (user experience) part to this graph, in order to plan out the different actions a user could take.

The result

We're really happy to see that we managed to satisfy our client's needs and finish within the deadline! Here is what the final product looks like:

• A page to manage different circuits (different sports or different disciplines):

• A page to view leaderboards and manage races (all calculated dynamically):

• A page to view all the athletes in one place:

• A page to monitor an athlete's season:

Conclusion

Keeping in mind this was our first major endeavour and that Nicolas and I are both working part-time, I'd say the fact we managed to meet this deadline in under 6 weeks is worth celebrating!

This also proves that our custom-built tools (Crane It and Nango) are performing as well as we were hoping they would!

I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as we loved building this tool!