A licensee of a client was familiar with the Operational Reporting solution I had implemented. They wanted something similar but the monthly cost of the POS vendor’s polling and replication services was too steep.

I built a polling agent that extracted the sales data from their POS servers daily, summarized the data in a cloud hosted database, and delivered the reports to the owner daily. This allowed him access to similar tools as corporate management at a fraction of the cost.

Skills: Database design and development, application development
Tools: SQL Server, SSRS, C#, MS Azure cloud services

Over the years I have implemented and/or managed the online shopping cart systems for several clients. Newer WordPress themes specifically designed to work with the WooCommerce platform have made this task much easier.

Skills: Web design and development; Basic image manipulation

Tools: WordPress, WooCommerce, Authorize.NET, X-Cart, Shopify

I have developed several projection tools with the rich operational data my clients have compiled.

1) Sales projection – Given recent sales trends relative to prior year, project sales for an upcoming week.

2) Labor projection – Given the sales projection from #1 and a series of labor band targets, project the labor hours and costs for an upcoming week. During the week, compare sales and labor to projection so managers can make adjustments if necessary.

3) Marketing campaign projection – Given recent loyalty member transactions, project the revenue generated from those members over the course of a scheduled promotion. Post-promotion analyze the success of the campaign compared to the projection.

Skills: Data analysis, database design and development, reporting
Tools: SQL Server, SQL Server Reporting Services

Multiple projects over the years have involved integrating my clients’ systems with vendors. Each project is different but follows a very similar pattern:

1) Define the data needed and the format of the exchange,
2) Build whatever tools are needed to facilitate the exchange,
3) Test the exchange, and
4) Setup ongoing monitoring tools to ensure the exchange is successful.

I’ve setup exchanges with multiple banks, an LMS vendor, and even a marketing agency. Each effort improves the capabilities of the client without requiring additional staff attention.

Skills: Project management, systems integration, database design and development
Tools: SQL Server, FTP, web services, Windows batch file scripting

I’ve implemented multiple WordPress sites over the years…including this one. The ecosystem of plugins and themes makes getting a functional and well-designed website up and running a breeze. Of course, this ease of use does not preclude using the CMS for sophisticated and demanding sites.

One heavily customized WordPress site I implemented required a custom user registration and dashboard. Users (customers) needed to be able to manage their accounts, track their transaction history, and manage account funds. For one project, we required data exchange between an internal SQL Server database and the hosted MySQL database. 

On two other projects I implemented WordPress as an intranet solution. Besides the basic WordPress setup and configuration, these projects required me to build some custom plugins to facilitate file sharing and reporting.

Skills: Web development; Database design and administration

Tools: WordPress, PHP, MySQL

One of the challenges of building solutions for smaller companies is that your client doesn’t generally have an internal IT staff to accept a “hand off”. This means that (1) the solution needs to work reliably without unhandled issues, and (2) any issues that do arise need to be addressed without waiting for someone internally to notice the problem.

The solutions I’ve built for my clients have hundreds of tasks that run automatically anywhere from once a minute to monthly. At first I had the tasks send me an “all good” email in addition to any notifications generated from error conditions. This quickly got out of hand and required me to spend time every day filtering through the “all good” emails to find any alerts.

The solution I found was to build a system based on a heartbeat concept. Tasks are setup to send my system a heartbeat notification each time they complete successfully. I have monitors defined with parameters such as how frequently I should get a heartbeat. Now I just receive notifications whenever a process has not sent a heartbeat when expected. This might be due to a server outage, internet disruption, or application error.

Skills: Web development; Database design and administration

Tools: ASP.NET MVC, MS SQL Server

My non-profit client required an intranet that would allow them to share documents, policies, and other information across the company. We implemented Windows Sharepoint Services in 2006 as a cost-effective intranet that served the basic needs. If and when advanced capabilities were required we would have upgraded to Sharepoint Portal. That day never arrived, and the client continues to use Sharepoint Foundation today. The sunsetting of that product means we will be looking to move to either Sharepoint Online (Office 365) or another intranet solution.

Skills: Sharepoint implemention and administration, Sharepoint workflow design
Tools: Windows Sharepoint Services / Foundation

A client was opening a new branch and doubling in staff size. Their payroll process was not scalable without adding another payroll employee. They needed a time and attendance system that would allow them to increase the efficiency of their payroll processes.

I led an evaluation of potential time and attendance solutions. The client selected the best fitting product, and I managed the implementation of the new solution. Payroll rules such as shift differentials, PTO accruals, and time off requests were all incorporated into the system. I also developed a tool to translate the timeclock data from the system into a format that could be uploaded into the client’s accounting system.

The second branch opened up with no additional payroll staff required, and the client continues to realize the benefits of an electronic time and attendance system to this day.

Skills: Project management, business analysis, systems integration
Tools: Timeforce time and attendance, SQL Server, MS Office VBA

My client is a private correctional facility that offers transitional programs for offenders. They also offer community based programs such as misdemeanor probation, community service, electronic monitoring, and drug and alcohol testing. The programs offered by this company require a significant amount of documentation and tracking, and the client is required to be able to prove compliance with federal, state and local contracts.

Starting in 2008, I led an initiative to develop in-house software that would enable the client to manage all aspects of their operations related to the offenders. I was the project manager and business analyst for the project, and the client provided subject matter experts from across the organization to provide requirements. I hired and managed several contracted resources over 16 months to build the initial application, which went live in April 2009. Since 2009 I have managed ongoing enhancements to the system.

The project has been so successful that all pre-release centers in Montana now use the system. In 2018 we implemented a full-time development team in order to fast-track an ever growing list of desired improvements.

Skills: Project Management; Business Analysis; Quality Assurance; Database design, development, administration; Report development

Tools: ASP.NET Web Forms & MVC, MS SQL Server, MS SQL Server Reporting Services, C#, Azure (VMs, SQL Database, App Services), javascript, jQuery, Subversion, Bugzilla

A retail client with 10+ locations required their store managers to run some sales reports from the POS daily and fax them into home office. The data from those faxes was then keyed into a spreadsheet which was then distributed to management. The POS vendor was polling the stores daily and summarizing the data in a warehouse that was available for reporting. The problem was that the reporting tool was very inflexible and couldn’t summarize the data in a useful format.

During conversations with the POS vendor I discovered that they could replicate the sales data to an internal SQL Server database. Once we initiated that process it was just a matter of building the operational reports using SQL Server Reporting Services. A simple scheduler program distributed the reports daily to everyone that needed them.

Skills: Business analysis, database design and development, reporting
Tools: SQL Server, SQL Server Reporting Services

In 2008 I was working with a client to improve their employee scheduling process. What worked fine for a handful of locations was quickly becoming unmanageable as they continued to grow. We evaluated the scheduling package from the POS vendor and found it cumbersome, inaccurate, and lacking in basic functions. At the time, there were no widely known cloud based solutions for scheduling. I saw an opportunity and built Schedappy to meet my customer’s needs as well as provide a business opportunity for myself.

Schedappy focuses on making employee scheduling simple. It doesn’t have every feature in the book, but the program runs well and I have a customer base that has stuck with me for years. If I were interested in business development it is a tool that could be scaled up and marketed broadly around the country.

Skills: Project management, business analysis, web development
Tools: ASP.NET, C#, jQuery / javascript, SQL Server

A growing retail operator required a solution that would simplify the inventory ordering process for their corporate operated stores and external accounts. Instead of managers calling their orders into home office and having someone there key the information into the distributor’s system manually, they wanted to streamline the process so that managers could submit the orders directly to the distributor.

We built an online ordering website that sync’d with the distributors warehouse management system. Products and prices were extracted from the WMS to the website, and orders submitted online were loaded directly into the WMS. We were also able to use the new up-to-the-minute product and pricing information to improve the accuracy of cost of sales reporting.

The original WMS was QuickBooks; the distributor changed WMS in 2014 and we were able to update the integration with no impact to end users. Currently, we are in the process of using the order information as one of the inputs to a perpetual inventory calculation.

Skills: Business analysis, systems integration, web services, database management
Tools: SQL Server, ASP.NET / C#, QuickBooks / NECS Entree WMS

The number of custom reports I’ve written over the years must be in the thousands. Sometimes the report lives forever in a repository like SSRS, sometimes it is a once-off data analysis, and sometimes the report expands into a full-fledged application.

A title and escrow company I worked with needed a few custom reports that were not produced by their transactional system. The system used Crystal Reports natively, so I developed a set of additional reports that met their needs. This particular project required a daily process that summarized the data so that running the reports did not impact performance of the system when they were trying to close transactions.

A trucking company I worked with had a special method of calculating revenue breakdowns by trip. I developed a module that allowed them to define distances between terminals and then we used those custom measurements to override the standard calculation of the logistics software.

Skills: Business analysis, database design and development, reporting
Tools: SQL Server, DB2, MySQL, SSRS, Crystal Reports

A food service operator had the following 3 significant goals on their radar:

1. Enable daily calculation of cost-of-sales,
2. Enable regular calculation of raw product usage (as an input to perpetual inventory calculations), and
3. Enable the management of product nutritional information.

In order to accomplish all of those things, the company needed first to be able to manage the recipe associated with all the products they sold in their stores. I built an application that integrated with (1) their Inventory Management solution to get the raw products and costs and (2) their point of sale system to get their finished products sold in stores. With those two inputs I was able to give them the tools to build all the recipes and to automatically calculate the actual recipe costs based on raw product prices. We also enabled the users to input the nutritional information for the raw products and then the system automatically calculates the nutritional information for the final products.

Skills: Business analysis, systems integration, web application development, database design and development
Tools: SQL Server, ASP.NET MVC / C#

The recent improvement of Microsoft’s Power BI service has made it a reachable tool for smaller businesses. For $10/user/month (as of mid-2018), this tool can provide small businesses with analytical capabilities previously reserved for companies with much deeper pockets.

I have developed and deployed Power BI dashboards for 2 companies. Both clients were interested in testing the tool in limited engagements before deciding if it should be rolled out to a wider audience. And both have derived significant benefits from their evaluations.

Skills: Business analysis, database design and development, data analytics, dashboard design
Tools: Power BI, SQL Server, MS Azure SQL Database

My client required an externally hosted website that could be used by court officials. The officials needed to track the progress of the offenders that had been sentenced to my client’s programs. Offender information was available in an internal system but court officials could not be granted direct access to that system. Also, officials could not access information for offenders outside their jurisdiction.

A custom website was built with role based permissions that controlled access to offenders from each jurisdiction. The information is updated from the internal database at least daily. The system was built in a modular format to allow for easy addition of new datasets to the website. Initial programming was done by a contracted resource, and I have done ongoing development myself.

Skills: Project management; Business analysis; Web development; Database design and administration

Tools: ASP.NET MVC, MS SQL Server

There is great efficiency to be found in moving data from one system to another without requiring human intervention. As such, a common request from clients is to automate the entry of data from one system into the client’s accounting system.

1) Load data from a title and escrow company’s transactional system into QuickBooks,
2) Load data from time and attendance system into payroll, and
3) Load sales and labor data from POS into accounting and payroll systems.

Skills: Project management, “automation by any means necessary”
Tools: SQL, Windows scripting, QuickBooks, MS Office VBA

A regional food service business competing in local markets against a dominant global corporation required a loyalty program to keep pace in the industry. Without the deep pockets of the mega-corporation we faced some technical limitations on what we could do. But we designed a program that matched the significant features of the competitor while giving my client an unrivaled platform to speak to their customer base.

I was responsible for building the technical components of the program. This consisted of:

1) POS integration for reward and promotional redemption,
2) A website portal for loyalty member registration and account management,
3) Database processing of daily sales and membership information,
4) Platform for transactional and marketing campaign communications via both email and SMS,
5) An internal CRM tool for customer support,
6) Financial processing of member card reloads, and
7) Reporting and analysis tools.

Skills: Project management, business analysis, database design and development, systems integration, web development, data analysis
Tools: SQL Server, ASP.NET MVC, C#, WordPress, PHP, javascript, Twilio, Mandrill / MailChimp, Authorize.net, SSRS, SSAS, Excel

Many companies now face legal requirements to report health insurance and/or benefit participation information. These compliance activities can consume a lot of valuable staff time. Way back in my McDonald’s days I worked on non-discrimination testing for the company’s 401k and profit sharing plans.

Over the past 5 years I have been able to assist my clients with data compilation for both non-discrimination testing and ACA compliance reporting. What could have been a tedious manual effort for staff has become a simple matter of data extraction and summarization with some tools I have built for them.

Skills: Understanding of compliance requirements, data compilation and summarization
Tools: QuickBooks, MS Office VBA

A trucking and logistics client was a member of an industry group that shared some operational data among the members. This data took several days for an employee to compile from various reports, queries, and other sources around the company. They were looking for a way to compile that information more quickly and efficiently.

Harkening back to my Excel programming days at McDonald’s, I built a automated the spreadsheet to compile the data at the click of a button. There were several data points that still needed to be manually figured and entered. But the result was many saved hours of work on a monthly basis.

Skills: MS Office automation, database queries
Tools: Excel, MS Office VBA, SQL

A growing client was experiencing several issues related to inconsistent POS setup across their locations:

1) Inconsistent pricing,
2) Missing products,
3) Incorrectly configured promotions and discounts, and
4) Training challenges for employees that worked at multiple locations.

I discovered that the POS vendor had a tool that would enable centralized management of the POS systems. I received training on the tool, implemented the tool, and managed the ongoing POS setups for the client.

Over time, the tool was deprecated without a suitable replacement. I built a solution to mimic the function of the tool so that the client could continue to manage their POS systems centrally.

Skills: Project management, POS configuration
Tools: Aloha QuickService POS, FTP, Windows batch scripting

A manufacturing client sold product through multiple large retailers such as Walmart and Costco as well as food distributors such as Associated Foods. Those large customers required my client to accept purchase orders and send invoices via EDI. We implemented an exchange through True Commerce, and in the process facilitated the implementation of major new retail channels for the customer.

Skills: Project management
Tools: EDI, QuickBooks

ERP systems are complex, opaque, and expensive. Finding the right solution can be a challenge, and getting the system implemented successfully is not for the faint of heart. From McDonald’s in 2000 until now, I’ve worked on several projects of this nature over the years. I will admit though that I would only classify one of those efforts as successful.

In 2016 I led an ERP evaluation, selection and implementation project for one of my clients. We documented the solution requirements, solicited multiple vendors, evaluated each vendor’s offerings, and made the selection. Once selected I assisted with contract negotiation and acceptance. During implementation I acted as the internal project manager as well as the technical point-of-contact for integration support. Post-implementation I’ve provided additional application support, system integration support, and reporting assistance. It was not a perfect project, but it was nice for one of these big efforts to actually reach completion!

Skills: Project management, contract negotiation, business analysis, systems integration
Tools: Microsoft Dynamics GP, SQL Server, SSRS