Development partnerships enable COINS to enhance its product portfolio Many of you will have heard us talking about Development Partnerships recently. Here is an opportunity to find out more about the process that is enhancing the product portfolio and ensuring it accurately matches your business needs.

As the leading provider of software to the construction and house building markets, COINS continually strives to improve its products and services. A key way of doing this is to form development partnerships with our clients. This involves one or more clients collaborating with COINS to develop either a new module or significantly improving an existing one, as a result of identifying a critical business need. COINS always develops software in partnership with its customers to ensure that there is a business fit and the development partnership process means it is now formalised.

The lifecycle starts with the analysis and specification phase, which includes storyboarding and user workshops. With the requirements fully identified, the process flows through development, testing, deployment and implementation.

The process is now being used in a number of areas and we are always keen to listen to your suggestions for further partnerships. Detail of one of our recent successes with Geoffrey Osborne and Facilities Management is documented in a case study in this newsletter.

Current Development Partnerships

COINS Commercials
COINS Commercials is a new module that is designed to deliver greater visibility of contract performance data throughout your organisation. It will reduce the reliance on locally held information such as data stored in spreadsheets, and it will facilitate the monthly reproduction of the CVR, thereby allowing greater emphasis to be placed on the End Day Forecast. We have been working in close partnership with two of our key clients to develop COINS Commercials and we believe that it is a unique offering to the construction sector in that it provides the best of both worlds to the financial and surveying requirements.

Bond and Guarantee System
All companies need to maintain bonds and guarantees to ensure client confidence. Keeping track of the overall and specific facilities available at any one time is an important but time consuming exercise. The new system tracks and monitors existing bonds and reports in detail on the gross and net funds available. Again this module has been developed in conjunction with one of our major clients and is seen as a business critical extension to the portfolio.

Marketing and Project Portfolio
As with all of our products, the Marketing module is being re-platformed in Open Architecture. We have taken this opportunity to assess and update the requirements for COINS Marketing and we have also extended the business functionality that it covers. Crucially the module will offer the ability to sub divide projects and monitor separate bids for the same project even via different contractors. In addition, it can track packages that you create as well as monitor the responses within the main project structure. The Open Architecture platform allows for greater integration with MS Office and Outlook and links to other COINS modules including Document Management have been tightly specified. The aim is for the marketing data to be the starting point in populating a project portal that will allow user access to all (licensed) aspects of the project data.

Handheld Integration
Several projects have been commissioned around the use of mobile technology and COINS. As mobile technology and PDA integration increases, so does the requirement to capture more data at source. A good example is Facilities Management where details of jobs can be issued and updated by field based operatives. Another initiative is based on updating on site GRN information, allowing the GRN process (in terms of cost and time) to be significantly reduced. Many areas exist for how handheld and mobile technology can be integrated with COINS and we are keen to work with our client base to develop further real world examples.

Human Resources – Health and Safety
COINS Human Resources is being enhanced to include Health and Safety to allow for greater monitoring on site and to assist in the safety monitoring requirements. We recognise the importance of the need to prevent harm to workers, property, the environment and the general public, and this will be reflected in the software. The Health and Safety extension will empower the user to promote occupational health and safety within organisations by developing safer, healthier, and more efficient ways of working.

We are always looking for further partnerships and welcome all ideas to improve on our product portfolio. If you would like further information on any of the above partnerships, or if you would like to discuss other potential partnerships, please contact Paul Stewart-Smith at Paulss@coins-global.com