Codal

I’m one of the partners at a company that provides a chiropractic electronic health record (HER) software for practices. Our software is used by chiropractic offices to manage patient profiles, notes, and charts and to manage healthcare billing.

We wanted to develop a new billing software and enhance our billing module. We received a lot of feedback about the platform and had some challenges coming up with ideas to make it more user-friendly and streamlined. We wanted to improve the UX/UI.

We hired Codal to enhance the billing module for patient accounts, including collecting copay, processing credit cards, selling products to an office, or billing insurance claims. Our platform already had sections for these tasks, but we needed fresh ideas to pull all the moving parts together. The parts on our platform were disconnected, and we wanted a more streamlined flow. We brought Codal in to give us some ideas on better processing transactions and having smarter flows in some areas.

We found them online by searching for companies that did UI/UX design. We narrowed it down and contacted a few companies. Codal had good reviews and ratings. We had an initial meeting and gained comfort for what their expertise was. We talked about what the project would entail. Based on Codal’s online presence and reviews, their meeting with us, what they bring to the table, and the code they provided, they became the frontrunner.

We took them on as an independent contractor with a set team and a monthly rate for the allocated hours. We’re keeping them on for a year and a half, and the total cost will probably hit six figures.

We started working with Codal in May 2018. The project is set to be complete by early summer, and we’ve decided to keep them on to work on phase two, which is going to be in the latter part of 2019. Then, we’re going to use them on the other part of our system. We’re planning to work with them for a year and a half on various parts of the system.

In the beginning, we were only going to bring them on for a small part of the project for eight weeks maximum. We were planning on using them for maybe one-tenth of what we’re using them for now. We were only going to have them design a couple of pages and then do the rest ourselves. Once we brought them on and they started to present all the valuable information they knew, we realized that we wanted to make them a staple part of the project and use them for the entire interface. They’re well versed and bring a lot of value to the clients they work with.

They have a designated project manager, and they’re always incredibly responsive. We usually get a response within the same day in a couple of hours. We have weekly meeting schedules, so there’s never any guessing about where we’re at. We’re in constant communication.

I appreciated the fresh ideas they brought to the table. The most impressive thing was how easy it was to give them directions. They immediately understand what I’m talking about. I can explain something, and I don’t have to overexplain it. They also bring me 2–3 options. They’re always two steps ahead. They’re immediately able to pick it up and bring it to life. They provide sketches, and, once we’re okay with those, they’ll take it into the wireframes. I liked how intuitive they are and how quickly they’re able to understand something and turn it around.

They’re good. They’re easy to deal with, and I don’t have any complaints. They’re an easy follow, adjusting well to my work style.

Let them understand the product and learn what they’re working with, inside out. We made them videos, walked them through pages, and gave them our user manuals. After the first month, they became comfortable with how the system worked, and it started to move much faster on the additional pages because they’d already started to understand how the program worked.

I’m the advisory CTO of a health solutions business. We provide a platform for athletic organizations to track current injuries and collect relevant medical data.

We needed developers to create our software, mobile app, and website.

First, we sat down with Codal and walked through the idea and concept of what we wanted to do. Possessing a lot experience, they advised options to consider and examined points of the initial concept that we missed. They produced our software and tracked project progress through an Agile development approach. Additionally, they developed our website and the mobile app for iOS and Android. The product has launched, but we’re continuing to work with Codal on subsequent updates and releases.

I came on board after our CEO had started this engagement with Codal, so I don’t know.

I’m not sure when our relationship started, but we’re currently still collaborating with them.

They produced a product that’s resulted in our first customers and revenue stream. Coming from a software development background, it’s an excellent initial product. There’s always going to be bugs with a first release, but I was surprised at how minimal those issues were. They responded quickly to fix what problem did exist and got us to a very stable product.

They have a great technical platform that gives us full visibility of what their teams are working on. They also have an effective project management tool-suite that all communication funnels through. Having one digital point of contact to get information, post questions, and have discussions keeps everything organized. I also pick up the phone and call them quite often. They’re very responsive that way as well.

I’ve worked with a lot of large contract developers and they’re often not available. Processes take a long time due to the bureaucracy that comes along with a large company. We don’t have that experience working with Codal. You can call their CEO or anyone else on their team at a moment’s notice. They’ve even helped us work with customers to better understand and resolve products issues.

I don’t have any specific recommendations.

If you reach out and give them a chance, it’ll be a beneficial relationship.

I work in the marketing department of a home and housewares company that sells products through Brick and Mortar, eCom, and private label partners.

Our website was built on a platform that didn't support direct-to-consumer business. We wanted to build a more consumer-friendly website that people could easily use to shop, so we found a new platform – Shopify Plus. We needed a company to do UX work for our website and help us maximize our Shopify Plus consumer experience.

We had a twofold objective: the first one was to get the site live and the second one – to connect the backend to our system (our system is Apprise). We're still working on the second goal.

We worked through our project manager who had a team of resources at his disposal to complete the project.

We asked Shopify Plus for recommendations and they sent us 5–7 of their preferred partners. After making some phone calls, we narrowed them down to Codal and a couple of other companies. We talked to a larger agency and a much smaller one, but Codal was a perfect blend, offering the expertise and the resources without the hierarchy of a large business.

We started working with them in September 2017 and the relationship is ongoing.

Our site is live and we are effectively selling through it as a new sales channel for our company. We are additionally leveraging it to build brand presence in the marketplace, which will help our .com sales channel as well as aid us in selling through our B2B e-comm customers.

They were extremely easy to work with and made progress quickly. This was new waters for us as a company but they effectively communicated all the options that were in front of us, guiding us along the way.

We liked their personal touch and the way they structured their account team. Our dedicated account manager was always there for us if we needed anything.

They did a top-notch job launching the frontend of the website. We were extremely happy with everything.

Keep up with them. They were able to move quickly, and the whole project was able to move quickly because we were keeping up with them.

Our business is a platform to help users manage almost every aspect of personal outreach and gift giving associated with important events in their family and friends' lives. We track those events and help them identify the appropriate type of outreach for them. We then walk them through the process of finding the right products services that meet those outreach desires, and the actual purchase and delivery of those items. I am the Founder and CEO.

I was looking for a provider who could help me create an MVP product of the platform. I'm a chemical engineer, so I have knowledge of certain technical aspects, but I'm not specifically versed in many of the programming languages. I was looking for a vendor who would be able to provide project management services where I could work directly with a project manager who would actually manage the technical individuals. I also wanted somebody who had the capability to develop the web application for the near term, but in the long term would be able to provide other services, such as mobile services and the like. The development partner needed to have varied skill sets.

I had a very specific vision for I wanted the product to look like, and I needed someone to build an MVP based on a certain set of requirements. These included the web application, certain tracking features to track specific events and recipients, what those different events were, and how people wanted to celebrate them. The product would also have a reminder system for those different events, as well as a type of identification portal.

I found them through Clutch. After doing enough work with alternate vendors, I think that reviews are a good place to start. Clutch does a good job of getting solid feedback and reporting actual statistics. From there, I reached out to each of the companies that I was assessing and had conversations with a number of them. I asked the companies for references and spoke with them as well. For Codal, I was able to get in touch with a few different individuals and they were very interested and willing to showcase their work, as well as give referrals that I could talk to directly. I felt confident that they would be a good partner. From a cost perspective, I was also looking for a company who could provide a project manager to oversee the actual technical work, and UI/UX team that was U.S. based, and close enough that I could meet them in person. Additionally, it was important that the backend development and other aspects were offshore, but the project manager was local and could help me manage a lot of the backend development.

We started working together in February 2017 and the collaboration is ongoing.

We have invested between $25,000 and $30,000

We have not launched the site yet, or undergone the actual beta testing. We will gain more feedback going forward. However, just from some of my technical advisors' initial reactions, they really like the layout, the flow, and the functionality currently in place. I think users will be receptive to many of the features. I'm expecting that certain feedback will open up opportunities to make improvements, but overall, I'm optimistic about the first version.

Overall, pretty well. They do have many other ongoing projects that are larger. Also, working remotely is always a challenge. While we always arrive at the correct point, there are certain times where we have to communicate things multiple times or revisit topics. My project often takes up only a small portion of some of the resources' time, including the project manager and many of the other individuals. So, sometimes I have to work through that. However, within this context, I would say I've been pretty happy with how everything has been managed.

They have been my partner more than a developer. From early on, they have been focused on providing solutions across the board. They have been willing to provide guidance and direction on things that aren't necessarily just in the development realm. I can look to them for cybersecurity insurance and other areas not necessarily related to the programming or specific scope of work. They provide knowledge they have gained from problems they have dealt with in the past, which I’m leveraging for my company. This is all to say that our scope of work is the MVP product but we're looking at Codal as a long-term partner.

The project management and some of the communication aspects. We often iterate on topics that are brought up at one point but are either lower priority or we don't arrive at the same view of it the first time. We'll have things come up and get to the right solution, but we're often not on the same page or I will provide feedback that won't necessarily be incorporated or disseminated. We then have to spend extra time to resolve these issues, rather than catch them the first time.