Blockchain and Education: Secure Records Management
Blockchain and education may seem like odd allies. Read on to learn how the former can be leveraged to facilitate secure and transparent records management.Read More
Enabling a Remote Workforce With Microsoft 365
The shift to a remote workforce is here to stay. Read this post to learn how to enable a remote workforce with Teams & Microsoft 365.Read More
The Risks of Legacy Platforms in Healthcare
Undoubtedly, the Digital Revolution has transformed healthcare. However, it has been accompanied by increased exposure to cyberattacks. And, the consequences can be deadly. The FDA recently warned against the hacking of IoT-connected insulin pumps and implanted heart devices. Hackers can conceivably take control of such devices to execute malicious actions against patients. In light of COVID-19, the world’s largest hacker groups have promised to refrain …Read More
3 Reasons to Take Another Look At Power BI In 2020
When Power BI premiered in 2014, the excitement was palpable. Finally, businesses had a cloud-based business intelligence solution they could leverage to gain insight into structured and unstructured data.
That initial enthusiasm was quickly dampened, however. Users found Microsoft’s business analytics tool a challenge to navigate. It was bug-ridden, had a complicated UI, and dashboards were difficult to configure. Plus, the desktop installation was anything but …Read More
7 Ways Mobile-Based Education Apps Are Changing How Students Learn
Digital learning is more relevant than ever. Laptops, cellphones, and tablets have become an intrinsic part of the student experience. In 2017, 94.3% of students (aged 3-18) had access to smartphones at home. Many also had access to laptops (83.3%) and tablets (77.9%). Concurrently, the U.S. government launched initiatives to increase broadband access to schools. The result? A 58% increase in school districts with high-speed …Read More
Reevaluating Legacy Software In Light of COVID-19
Between 2010 and 2019, the number of remote workers increased by 400%. When COVID-19 struck, many companies adopted flextime and telecommuting policies. Almost overnight, these alternative work arrangements became a means of facilitating business continuity. Remote work is here to stay, no question about it. In a recent survey of 317 business leaders, 74% of participants expect that the switch from on-site to remote work will be permanent. In all, VPN connectivity has benefited many organizations. But, how do we navigate a transformed global marketplace after the pandemic recedes? And, are there benefits to reevaluating legacy software in light of COVID-19?
What Happens After the COVID-19 Curve Flattens?
Once the pandemic subsides (and it’s going to happen), companies will have to adjust to the new virtual work landscape.
Instead of a gradual adaptation, the world embraced (in many cases) industry-wide remote connectivity in just a little over three months. Yet, even as the COVID-19 curve flattens, many businesses will continue reaping the benefits of this new framework. The question then begs to be asked: Is COVID-19 accelerating the timeline for digital transformation? The answer appears to be yes. All things considered, the crisis has precipitated changes once thought impossible.
Problem: The existing tech stacks the majority of companies rely on weren’t created with a virtual landscape in mind.
Solution: As the new reality settles in, many of these companies must reevaluate their current tech stacks to maintain brand relevance and business continuity.
Step#1: Identify Vulnerabilities in the Existing Software
To safeguard functionality and security, the following steps are critical.
- Arrange a meeting with your team to discuss the key problems with existing apps. Give team members time to talk about operational challenges and the relevance of current apps in a remote work environment.
- Consider the features that are critical to achieving your business goals. Does your current CRM (customer relationship management) app work on various platforms? Perhaps, your existing software does an excellent job running on desktop frameworks but falls short on a mobile interface. Or, maybe it runs on Linux while the majority of remote workers use Windows.
- Identify the number of users who will need to access the system. Can your current tech stack handle the increased number of connections?
- Evaluate the need for real-time simultaneous access. Perhaps, your existing tech system needs to be moved to the cloud to ensure fast, reliable, and secure access from different locations.
- Determine which software needs to be upgraded/replaced first to ensure a smooth progression of digital transformation.
Step#2: Outline the Scope of the Work
Once you evaluate the downsides of your existing tech framework, you can determine the scope of the change you need to implement.
- Objectives — What problem is your company facing with legacy software? Which issues do you want fixed?
- Milestones — When do you want to start the project? Or, rather, when do you want to start implementing new solutions? Aim to discuss benchmarks and milestone achievements with software developers, testers, and frontline employees.
- Tasks — What needs to happen to migrate from the present legacy framework to a digitized platform?
- Budget — How much do you expect to spend on the project?
- Outcome — What results do you expect to see once the project is over? Are there particular business objectives you’d like to achieve?
Depending on the software you’re using, you may settle for an upgrade or a complete revamp of your current system.
Step#3: Replace Legacy Technology
After completing Steps 1 and 2, implement procedures to replace legacy technology with new software solutions. It’s important to realize that the replacement process may take time as employees adjust to the new interface and its functional quirks.
Reevaluating Legacy Software and Adapting to the Realities of COVID-19
As the world adjusts to the new realities of the pandemic, companies must leverage new tools to stay ahead of the competition. By replacing legacy software with cloud-based and mobile-friendly solutions, your company can achieve agility during the crisis and beyond. At Entrance, we offer Sharepoint and Office 365 consulting to facilitate digital transformation in various industries. Our solutions can help your company break down document collaboration silos, gain more insight into structured and unstructured data, and execute more efficient workflows. The result is a finely tuned digital culture that promotes operational efficiency, agility, and scalability.
For more information about developing flexible and effective software solutions for the modern workspace, contact us today.
Manufacturing Web Portals: Their Uses and Capabilities
More than ever, manufacturers face increasing challenges in a dynamic marketplace. To differentiate from competitors, many have taken steps to transform the user experience for customers and suppliers. In particular, enterprise-wide manufacturing web portals have been critical in connecting people and platforms.
Still, it’s vitally important to note the difference between intranet web pages and web portals.
Websites Versus Web Portals
According to Techopedia, “A website is a collection …Read More
Modernizing Collaboration & Communication for Successful Construction Projects
Your project is complex. You manage an entire network of contributors handling data every day, all working towards your goal of finishing within scope, without going over budget, and on time. Making efforts to ensure that your teams collaborate efficiently is critical to project success, otherwise you run the risk of failure.
In the context of your project, failure doesn’t just apply to the case of your structure collapsing under heavy load (granted this may be the most catastrophic example), it applies to other cases such as design overlap, scheduling conflicts, inaccurate cost analysis, and personnel injuries. For example, if design updates are not properly relayed …Read More
Microsoft Forms: Your New Best Friend for Quizzes & Surveys
Microsoft Forms, the lightweight online survey creation tool that is part of the Office 365 suite of applications, enables users to build custom surveys, forms, quizzes, etc. that can be distributed to collect feedback. Read More
7 Critical Benefits of Application Lifecycle Management
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is actually a hypernym that comprises several distinct disciplines traditionally regarded as unrelated to one another. It includes development, testing, ITIL service delivery, project management, requirements management, quality assurance (QA), and customer support. ALM tools are employed to render set standards for development teams to follow as they collaborate on workflows. The tools also facilitate an environment for automating software development …Read More
What Manufacturers Need to Know About Big Data Engineering
Big data has transformed the way modern businesses approach their daily operations — and this holds true for many manufacturing firms, as well. While the Lean methodology (Kaizen, TPM, etc.) and Six Sigma principles have played their part in optimizing efficiency across several manufacturing sectors, many industries (such as energy and construction) still endure extreme variability in production processes.
The reality is, manufacturing environments yield an …Read More
How Web Portals Can Help in Big Pharma’s Fight Against COVID-19
Seemingly overnight, unprecedented socio-economic changes have gripped the world. The COVID-19 pandemic is changing life at a pace unseen since the Great Depression. And, all across the global stage, world leaders have put a moratorium on “non-essential” commerce to slow the spread of the virus. With this pandemic, however, healthcare organizations have an advantage not accorded to previous generations: an unparalleled level of access to …Read More
Chatbots as an Alternative to Traditional Apps
Not every application needs a GUI. Imagine an app which the user doesn’t have to install, where the user interface has already been done for you, and where you just have to focus on the logic. That’s a chatbot application. If the user basically needs answers to questions, a chatbot may be the best solution.
How Chatbots Work
A lot of people regularly use conversational platforms. They …Read More
Microsoft Flow: Automate Your Business
Collectively, most organizations encounter the same challenge—to do more with available resources. Technology plays a significant role in effecting solutions regardless of questions arising in terms of costs or complexity of operations. Based on the efficiency and effectiveness of tech, firms can thereby take advantage of the potential benefits.
The emergence of SaaS (Software as a Service) presents an opportunity to use tech without the need …Read More
Git and GitFlow
Git is used in software development projects of every kind. It has almost completely replaced earlier source code management tools such as CVs and Subversion. At the same time, it uses concepts that are difficult to understand.
Learning to use its many commands takes time, even for skilled developers. This piece doesn’t try to be a tutorial on using Git. Several good introductions for users are …Read More
Azure Data Factory Unpacked
Data is one of the critical elements of any enterprise because it informs day-to-day operations. Running an organization or working on specific projects is not possible without the necessary information. Systems also depend on the information you feed into them for them to function. This suggests that data is an essential part of the operations of any company.
Data is a critical part of any entity. …Read More
Microsoft’s New ‘Spaces’ Feature and What it Means for Your Business
The Verge recently published an article about a video leak of Microsoft’s new ‘Spaces’ project, which is designed help you organize your O365 emails, meetings, and docs into project spaces. This follows the trend we see in general, which is that people are moving away from centralization of both Content and Collaboration.
Rather than monolithic intranet projects which are top-down content production, we see distributed teams …Read More
React Native vs. Xamarin in 2020
We’ve recently been developing a mobile app using Xamarin, a departure from our usual stack of React Native for mobile apps. Both frameworks allow for cross-platform development. This means that we can write the code once, and have it work on both iOS and Android. Normally, these two operating systems use two completely different programming languages and completely different APIs to access them. So cross-platform …Read More
AWS Lambda and Azure Functions: Use Cases and Pricing
AWS Lambda & Azure Functions
Amazon’s AWS Lambda and Microsoft’s Azure Functions are very similar in many ways. They’re both FaaS (functions as a service) or “serverless” services. They have similar pricing models and support many of the same languages. Still, there are significant differences between them, which could influence which one is better for your needs.
The most basic difference is the underlying operating systems. Lambda, …Read More
What Is Storybook & Why You Should Give It a Second Thought
Are you looking for a component explorer that has everything you need for your React and React Native project? Look no further. You can count on Storybook to bring your user interface ideas to life.
You don’t have to crack your head to complete the simple installation in your localhost. Follow the simple installation steps and configure the files to meet your requirements.
Coursera and Slack are testaments to …Read More