6
15 months
Without access to opportunities, even the most hard-working people will struggle to find success. Unfortunately, access to opportunity is not equal for everyone, but a nonprofit organization that Calavista partnered with made it their mission to bring educational opportunities to needy individuals who otherwise would not be able to afford college. They helped provide support to low-income and underserved students, but with thousands of students to keep track of, they needed a powerful software solution to make sure they didn’t let anyone slip through the cracks. They also needed a way for the students to interact with them – both to facilitate their journey through school and to reach out to graduates and keep track of their success over time, all over the country.
This foundation turned to Calavista because our proven record of success allowed them to be confident that their mission would remain on track. They needed maintenance work done to their main program but also needed additional work on a new survey system used to keep in touch with students and graduates.
We performed a technical review of their current SAAS program and, based on our suggestions, took over maintenance. Through the technical review, we identified several key areas for improvement of the system and offered recommendations for a new user-customizable survey system. We then built and delivered this system while working closely with their development team. The new system enabled schools and organizations to quickly create student surveys themselves, without involving the non-profit. This enabled them to get their questions answered without the wait so that they could act quickly to better serve their students.
This nonprofit organization provided scholarship opportunities but also monitored students’ success through the course of the program and could reach out and provide support such as counseling or tutoring as necessary. In order to figure out the best kind of help to provide across thousands of students, detailed record-keeping was necessary. However, their original survey system could only offer a limited number of surveys to gauge risk with limited analysis capabilities.
We put together a development team to work alongside theirs, performing Technical Advisory Services, Software Development, and Software Testing while utilizing our effective DevSecOps methodology to quickly deliver a new survey system that could better meet their needs.
As mentioned before, this foundation already had a development team, but they needed more bandwidth. Calavista often provides a Development Group in a Box®, but that does not mean that the group has to be completely isolated or stay within their own little “box.” We brought our own Architect and Solutions Director who put together an initial team with a scrum master, requirements manager, two developers, and a tester that scaled as necessary with the project. Our Solutions Director worked closely with their project manager to understand the requirements of the project and liaise between teams.
Calavista does custom software development, so we were particularly well suited for this project which valued customization and configurability within the platform. In order to capture the most accurate data and keep track of students across different states and institutions, the program had to be highly customizable by the user. Our developers came up with a clever way to configure the survey system, the variables, and the database within the platform so that it could handle processing unique inputs and still quickly analyze data and responses.
The goal for some projects is to create software that will help a company run better and ultimately improve returns. Many of our customers succeed when the software succeeds, but in this case, once we created this software and our clients started to use it, it was the under-represented students who really started succeeding. With better database management and highly customizable surveys, this nonprofit could collect the best and most relevant data from all students to ensure that all were getting the proper support that they needed. This not only helped them provide more opportunities to more people but ensured that they were able to make the most of those opportunities.
Though most of our projects are interesting, our team members found it particularly gratifying to work on a project that was not just exciting but contributed to a cause bigger than business, and bigger than themselves. Great software can help streamline processes in many industries, including the non-profit sector. If your organization could benefit from any of our services, reach out to us at info@calavista.com.
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