Case Studies

Universal Insurance Group

Custom Automated Management System

Universal Insurance Group is a Des Moines based insurance agency that started as a family business in 1990 offering one product: liquor liability insurance. In 2001 the business expanded into a general agency that offered more products in a broadened territory. Today, UIG employs around 35 people and acts as an agency for about 3,000 insurance companies throughout 18 states. UIG offices are in Des Moines, Iowa; St. Louis Missouri; Scottsdale, Arizona; Durham, North Carolina; Rancho Margarita, Los Angeles, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. Overall, UIG has grown from $2 million in annual sales to about $30 million since 2001.

UIG's Need

While expanding, leaders at UIG quickly realized they needed to consolidate technology. Specifically, they wanted a basic management system to serve and oversee their customers and automate paperwork that was being processed manually. UIG went to LaunchIT so that they could have a custom solution.

Objectives

With a custom-built system, UIG hoped to:

Improve customer service

Decrease customer "touches," but increase revenue.

Enhance the end-user experience and make it easier for customers to do business with UIG.

Increase operational efficiencies and move toward a paperless environment.

LaunchIT's Solution

LaunchIT built a consolidated management system, which involved unifying server platforms and merging existing databases into one global database.

LaunchIT has kept UIG ahead of the curve by continuing to:

Solve new challenges as they arise.

Respond to UIG’s requests for IT tools and resources that promote more effective and efficient work.

Suggest new strategies and technologies to continually streamline and automate all phases of UIG’s office operations for administrative reporting, agency dashboards and claims processing.

Results

Now, UIG faces less duplication of effort and fewer errors, and the organization is more efficient at every level of operations. Quantifiable results that have been achieved include:

A consistent, nearly 100 percent annual increase in sales for the past 15 years, growing the company from $2 million to $30 million.

A sales and service territory that grew from two states to 40 states, with six more offices established.

A customer base that grew from 500 agencies to more than 3,000.

A products portfolio that increased from one product to hundreds.

Technology Stack

.Net
SQL Server
jQuery

Oh Crap LLC

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Oh Crap Mobile App

The Oh Crap App is a mobile Android and IOS application designed to educate the public about their legal rights regarding driving under the influence (DUI).
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Features in the first version of the app included:

An emergency 'Oh Crap' button, designed to be used when a person is being stopped or questioned by a law enforcement officer. This button leads to a 'Notify On-Call Attorney' and 'Notify a Bail Bondsman' button. When clicked, the user is immediately put in touch with their desired contact and relevant information is sent to the contact.

Needs

The creators of the Oh Crap App were not satisfied with the app's scalability. To ensure that it would continue to operate successfully and attract users, Oh Crap LLC needed to re-architect the app in a way that would make adding new features easy and improve performance and adherence to Android and IOS standards.

At the time LaunchIT began working with Oh Crap LLC., there were 5 attorneys enrolled in the system and 80,000 downloads.

Oh Crap LLC also wanted a website, to complement the mobile app and serve as a content management system for both itself and the app.

Oh Crap LLC turned to LaunchIT because they needed an enterprise level solution.

LaunchIT's Solution

To meet Oh Crap LLC’s needs, LaunchIT redesigned the app and added more features, including:

A taxi button, which lists the taxi service availability based on the user’s current location.

The ability to easily share the app, via email, text or social media.

Promotional codes to track the representative responsible for the most number of shares to make them eligible for contests.

An 'Educate Me' button, which leads to state specific information, including:

Certified Oh Crap attorneys
Your Rights
Penalties
Driver's License Suspension Information

The ability for recordings to be purchased by the user.

Special offers based on location.

Push Notification Ability

The mobile app will deploy a push notification when:

A new update of the app is available in the respective platform’s store.

There is a change in laws or rights.

A new attorney, bail bondsman and/or taxi service is added to the system.

Website Development

LaunchIT built the Oh Crap App site to be a content management system. The mobile app interacts with the backend database of the website to fetch all content. Administrators canmake updates accordingly. Any changes in the content management system will immediately be pushed to the mobile app.

The website also includes an online store, where users can purchase Oh Crap promotional items. LaunchIT integrated an online payment processing system to allow shoppers to use credit cards and other similar payment types. Placeholders for advertisements allow attorneys, bail bondsmen, and taxi service providers a space to promote services. Advertisements and the advertisement expiry time can be managed by the administrator. The payments for advertisements can also be made through the online processing system.

Tech Stack

Microsoft .Net 4 with Visual Studio 2010
Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Android and IOS Platform for Mobile App and Flurry Analytics Tool

Iowa Select Farms

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UIG's Need

While expanding, leaders at UIG quickly realized they needed to consolidate technology. Specifically, they wanted a basic management system to serve and oversee their customers and automate paperwork that was being processed manually. As UIG has continued to grow over the past 15 years, they have worked with LaunchIT experts on a continuous basis to upgrade and add onto their original system.

Launch It's Solution

LaunchIT first built a consolidated management system into one central website, while defining the branch offices. This involved unifying the server platforms and merging existing databases into one global database.

LaunchIT experts have kept UIG current and even ahead of the curve. Our team has continued to:

Solve emerging Problems

Respond to UIG’s customer requests for tools and resources to help them work more effectively and efficiently.

Suggest new strategies and technologies to continually streamline and automate all phases of UIG’s office opperations for administrative reporting, agency dashboards and claims processing.

Results

Now, UIG faces less duplication of effort and fewer errors, which has led to more efficiency at every level of operations. This has allowed UIG to achieve outstanding results, including:

A consistent, nearly 100 percent annual increase in sales for the past 15 years, growing the company from $2 million to $30 million.

A sales and service territory that grew from two states to 40 states, with six more offices established.

A customer base that grew from 500 agencies to more than 3,000.

A products portfolio that increased from one product to hundreds.

Creative Risk Solutions

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Report Master System

Creative Risk Solutions (CRS) is a third-party administrator providing claim management of worker’s compensation and liability claims. As a third-party administrator, working on behalf of various A-rated insurance companies, CRS is held to very high compliance standards. The Report Master System is its client interfacing system where clients can report worker’s compensation and liability claims and incidents. The claims and incidents are then reported by authorized agents who provide all the required details. Once the claims or incidents are reported, they are processed in their risk management application.

Situation

Each year thousands of automobile, general liability, property loss and worker’s compensation reports are filed across the nation. Because CRS receives hundreds of claims per month, they created an online application to make filings more manageable for both the individual and the processing company.

However, this application had no security. Anyone could access it by a URL and report a claim or incident. Because of this, each claim submission had to be reviewed and approved by CRS staff before it was entered into the Report Master system. Information was entered manually and required at least 10 to 15 staff members. There were few validations in the system, so claim reports were prone to various mistakes with inaccurate or incomplete information.

Objectives

CRS sought LaunchIT because they wanted:

Their system to be more secure.

More efficient reporting.

To reduce the number of report errors.

LaunchIT's Solution

A database containing all client information, claims and incidents for future retrieval and archival.

Auto-population, to automatically fill in certain pieces of information during the process of reporting a claim.

Industry standard security that requires users to log in to report a claim or incident.

Forms that have required fields, ensuring that reports are complete.

The ability for CRS users to easily generate reports, then have them downloaded, printed or emailed.

A search function, with several filters and criteria(date, type of claim, etc.)

Built in customer hierarchy that allows for appropriate access roles, ensuring the customer representative has access to the correct department to log submissions.

The ability for documents to be attached to the submission, rather than mailing them separately.

A laptop, tablet and mobile friendly display.

LaunchIT used a business analyst, a developer, a technical architect and a quality assurance resource, and spent six months completing the project.

Results

The new system reduced errors

Reduced time required for each claim by 50%

2 workers instead of 10 to complete a task

Technology Stack

.Net
MVC 4.5 Architecture
SQL Server

Bet with Jimmy

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Private sports team analysis tool

Bet with Jimmy is a private sports team analysis tool, developed by James Cline, to provide insight for predictable team performance for future outcomes of selected sporting events.

Needs and Objectives

To find outcomes based on Cline's formula, game statistics were manually copied from consistent, reliable websites and pasted into a game analysis Excel spreadsheet that contained the calculations and formulas. To save time and ensure a successful public launch, Cline knew he needed to automate his process.

LaunchIT's Solution

LaunchIT built an application that extracts data from the source providers and then arranges it into the game analysis template.

LaunchIT built a web-based software with a core computation engine containing all the logic and formulas and a backend database to store all data sets and results. Cline’s formula depends on the statistics of a team's previous eight games, so the software automatically ignores the first eight. From the ninth game onward, the software program will fetch, store, and translate data. Outcomes are computed the day before the game at 2:00 p.m. All actions will repeat until the end of the sports season. The software has a user interface to display the computed spread and the betting recommendation. The core computation engine is not accessible through the user interface, so changes cannot be made by mistake.

LaunchIT built this software with the future in mind; changes to the computation logic can be incorporated quickly and easily.

Over 15 statistics are retrieved to predict the outcome of 1 game.

In the Future

The final template is a work in progress, but now that Cline canmass populate and back test multiple seasons of sporting events, he can finalize and valuate the formulations of analysis and adjust impact values. The ultimate goal of Bet with Jimmy is to provide a sports predictability service that can be accessed from a website for a fee.

Technology Stack

MVC 5 Architecture using Microsoft .Net4.5 with Visual Studio 2013
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 for backend database
Microsoft Excel 2010 (To be installed in the Server where application is Hosted)

Association of Boards of Certification

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Professional Operator (PO) program

ABC's Needs

In 2014, ABC began building a voluntary certification program, known as the Professional Operator (PO) program. The purpose of the program is to allow individuals to achieve a professional designation that identifies them as a certified water or wastewater operator on an international level. Most operators are certified by a governmental body, so obtaining a PO designation is an additional achievement. ABC wanted the program and the certification process to be modern, accessible, and responsive. To successfully launch the program, ABC knew they would need IT resources to build a custom software application.

LaunchIT's Solution

LaunchIT first spent time learning ABC’s workflow, understanding their pain points, and mapping out what the ideal software solution would look like. LaunchIT experts were innovative in their design of the PO system and knew that a portal was the optimal way to make ABC’s and applicants’ lives easier.

Benefits of ABC's Portal

Less Paperwork

User Friendly

Instant Communication

Internet Accessibility

The Association of Boards of Certification eliminated 75% of the time it takes to review an application

ABC’s portal is accessible over the internet to individuals applying for certification. Instead of filling out a paper or online application and sending it to ABC, individuals can create a profile and complete requirements at their own pace. The portal itself validates the application based on fundamental eligibility criteria, and it won’t accept payment until all requirements have been met. The portal identifies relevant records and calculates unit conversions, substitutions, education, and work experience credit. These functions, plus the elimination of data entry, have reduced the time ABC spends on each application by approximately 75 percent. Both applicants and ABC receive instant updates and notifications. Applicants know immediately when they achieve certification, allowing them to use the PO designation right away.

Project Partnership

Throughout the project-based work, LaunchIT gained ABC’s trust and became their managed services provider. LaunchIT has enhanced security, eliminated unnecessary costs, and established a recovery plan. ABC now has the peace of mind that at any time they have a single point of contact at LaunchIT to resolve issues or answer questions.

Technology Stack

.NET framework 4.5
ASP .NET 2.0
SQL Server 2008
jQuery 10.0
Entity Framework 6.0

Telligen

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Automation framework for RESTful web services

Established in 1972, Telligen offers health management solutions and wellness programs. Their goal is to solve healthcare challenges, improve health outcomes, and lower healthcare costs. Telligen is headquartered in Iowa with offices in Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma.

Objective

Develop an automation framework for RESTful web services to be integrated into the continuous integration and continuous delivery model in a Java based environment.

Design

Test scripts were developed in SOAPUI and groovy scripts to support JSON and XML response.

XMLs are merged to JUnit project and executed through maven configuration.

The Junit checks into BitbucketGITHub and merges into the main branch. The updates are pushed to Quick Builds for code management and execution.

Implementation

Data driven framework handling static data through spreadsheets and dynamic real time data through JDBC connection.

The designed suite was configured to support all the environments
(Dev, Test, UAT)

Test suite includes automatic data clean-up script after the test run is completed.

Efficiencies Achieved

Stable environment after every build

Early detection of failures

Test data management for automation test

Reduced 80 percent of manual testing effort.

Technology Stack

Quick Build
Eclipse IDE
Bit Bucket -GiTHub
Soap UI

Kuder Inc

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Kuder is a career guidance solutions provider, offering comprehensive tools and resources for career planners at all life stages while supporting collaboration between education, business, and community stakeholders to drive economic success. Over 165 million people worldwide have been assisted by Kuder's services.

The Situation

Singapore’s government wanted to change the country’s career environment, so they planned a national initiative. Two driving forces were behind this movement - the workforce and students.

Workforce

Singapore’s workforce had seen an increase in skills obsolescence due to economic restructuring, technological advancements, and changing demographics.

Students

The Ministry of Education (MoE) identified the need to introduce and reinforce career guidance as a key focal point of the initiative.

The MoE wanted to develop a portal, called My Skills Future, to be used by the workforce and students. This project was jointly executed by an IT provider in Singapore and Kuder Inc.

Kuder's product has robust features, but some customizations were needed to meet Singapore’s specific needs. Kuder turned to the expertise of LaunchIT.

LaunchIT leveraged its existing staff in India, which allowed for few time zone concerns and less extensive overseas travel.

Launch It's Solution

LaunchIT resources converted all the business logic of Kuder's product into a set of web APIs. Segregating the existing code required a clearly defined API contract document. The document contained the input and output parameter values and how to invoke the API by the http GET or POST method. All values were provided in JSON format.

The web APIs were then delivered to the Singaporean IT provider, who developed the front-end of the portal.

Four assessment modules were originally included in Kuder’s product, but Singapore sought an additional module. LaunchITcreated this module, Goals and Reflections, from scratch. Kuder has since integrated this module into their product.

A project of this size required several vendors coming together, all with unique code bases and business practices. LaunchITaddressed this challenge using a tool called Swagger to test APIs. HP LoadRunner and Dynatrace was used to conduct performance testing. LaunchIT installed the product in multiple testing environments, including two government data centers, before launch.

What made LaunchIT Different? Execution

LaunchIT’s installation was smooth and errorless. Minor errors associated with other vendors were revealed from LaunchIT’s testing process. LaunchIT quickly provided a solution that was well received by the client and the other vendors to ensure a successful product launch.

Going above and beyond

LaunchIT believed that evaluation should be an ongoing, thorough process. Though not part of the initial agreement, LaunchIT created a comprehensive function specification document by comparing the MoE's RFP and Kuder's product to identify the gaps and define the scope of work.

Today

Coding for the current phase is complete. The student modules were released in August 2017, and the workforce modules went live in October 2017.

In the future

Kuder anticipates expanding their services. Based on Singapore’s success, Kuder specifically foresees opportunities in other southeast Asian countries.