Category: SaaS

DevelopmentInsightsSaaS

How to Compare Server Hosts for Enterprise Companies

on September 21, 2020

Understanding the differences in the types
of server hosts can help enterprise companies to know how to best proceed.
People have many hosting opportunities, and they should understand what each
one offers and how it will have an impact on their website. People should
choose their hosts carefully. Every company has different needs for capacity,
usage, and security, so you’ll need to analyze your needs and the feature of
different hosting solutions to ensure you are set up for current needs and
future growth.

What Features Should an Enterprise
Company Have?

First, it should have security because a hosting company offers nothing to an enterprise if it can’t protect its data and confidential information. This will keep your data protected. You should look for a hosting company that uses a multi-layered approach because in this way, even if cyber criminals can get through the first layer of security, they will have to break multiple layers to get inside.

A good hosting company should also offer good support 365 days a year, 7 days a week, and 24 hours a day. If they can’t provide solid support all the time and your website goes down, it can mean a huge loss in business especially if the web host isn’t providing you with the much-needed guidance. In this way, too, you never have to waste your time on IT issues.

Pros/Cons of Server Hosts

Let’s have a look at the pros and cons of dedicated server hosting to better understand them:

Pros

  • Higher security
  • Faster speeds and upload time
  • Extra storage options
  • Total control over the server
  • Run the software and utilities that you want

Cons

  • More expensive than shared hosting
  • Harder to do problem resolution and diagnostics
  • Prior knowledge required to administer the server

Why Do Enterprise Companies Need Server
Hosts?

Having a dependable server cluster is essential to continuing your business. You want to continue to operate successfully, and this is one of the best ways that you can continue without interruption. When you have a strong and depend on a server cluster, they can ensure that your website stays online so that you never have problems with getting a steady stream of business. As businesses continue to grow into a full-blown enterprise, the needs grow for bandwidth, customer service, CPU, and security, and they have to stay proactive. Don’t let yourself fall behind.

Security Benefits for Enterprise
Companies

The bigger you get, the larger of a target that you will have painted on your back. More and more cyber criminals will become aware of your presence, and if they see you as easy meat, they will take what they can from your hard work. A good server cluster will give you the additional security that is required of enterprise businesses and make it that much harder for hackers to do what they will with your company. Don’t give anyone the key to your business. Joe Joe Oesterling, Chief Technology Officer at Liquid Web describes one server cluster environment as, “private cloud hosting solution is a single-tenant environment. A single organization can take advantage of a cluster of servers in a private cloud environment and use the combined resources to fit their needs.”

With each hosting plan, you should also take
the time to understand the limitations of each one. In this way, you can figure
out what hosting plan will serve your needs best.

DevelopmentInsightsSaaS

5 Apps to Help with Children Homeschooling

on September 17, 2020

Even before stay-at-home policies and social distancing, the paradigm of modern education was changing. The rise in popularity of the flipped classroom was seen as an opportunity for children to be more involved in their education at home, giving parents the chance to be a part of that process.

Services like Google Classroom, Moodle, and Edmodo have been growing in popularity as schools keep moving towards the notion of the flexible classroom. That is, a class shouldn’t be bound to a physical place nor a specific time but rather be part of a continuous process that can happen anyplace and anytime.

Other schools have hired the services of software development companies, like BairesDev, to make proprietary apps for parents and kids alike. The perks of having an app custom-made to help a school schedule classes, share information, keep track of grades, and keep parents informed are too many to summarize in a single article.

It’s a well-known fact that flexible classrooms with the help of parents can be extremely nourishing to a children’s education. Not only are you spending time with your kid, but you are giving them the personal support that a teacher with dozens of students might not be able to give them.

Having said that, we know that partial or full-time homeschooling is very demanding, especially for parents who are just getting on the homeschooling train. Fortunately, there are hundreds of apps out there designed to help you and your kid get the best out of homeschooling. These are 5 apps that will help you and your kid study from home. 

Khan Academy

Perks

  • Free
  • Hundreds of courses
  • Shares projects with companies like Google and Pixar

Khan academy is almost a no-brainer in this list. It began in 2008 as a non-profit organization and has steadily become one of the leading projects in homeschooling, offering hundreds of classes for kids of all ages.

Every class is based on the K12 curriculum and uses a fairly straightforward process. The student first watches a YouTube video that teaches about a certain subject and then goes to the app or website for supplementary material such as practice exercises or skill tracking. 

Khan academy is not a substitute for actual schooling, but as an additional tool for your kid to complement their regular classes, it’s an invaluable asset.

Evernote

Perks

  • Basic accounts are free to use
  • Available in all platforms
  • Cloud-based saves

Yes, we are kind of cheating by putting Evernote on this list, but hear us out. It’s one of the best multi-platform cloud-based note-taking apps on the market. Your kid can take notes on a Windows PC and then check them out on their iPad, iPhone, or Android device at any time. 

What truly elevates Evernote from other note-taking apps is its versatility. With the web clipper, you can take snapshots of web pages and put them directly in your notes, you can upload images, scan documents, save and search PDFs, and it can even read handwriting if you want to save your handwritten notes.  

The only downside is that free accounts have limited storage, so you might have to end up deleting your old notes after a while.

Mathboard

Perks

  • Intuitive
  • Available in all platforms
  • For kindergarteners to middle schoolers

Mathboard is the app we wished we had back when we were children. This highly customizable teaching tool is perfect to teach math skills to children of all ages. At its most basic, Mathboard is a problem-solving book, but once you scratch below the surface, it’s one of the most amicable ways to learn math.

Mathboard stimulates creative thinking by providing multiple answer styles and a scratchboard area where the student can try to solve the problem by hand. Its best feature is the Problem Solver option, which helps your kid whenever they are stuck on a difficult problem by displaying a step-by-step solution, thus teaching the student how to solve it.

Edplus

Perks

  • Fun interface
  • Continuously expanding
  • Tik-Tok like videos to keep students engaged

Edplus is half a learning tool and half a quiz app. Such a mischievous approach tempts students into engaging by creating that “just one more reward” feel. You begin with some basic questions to farm coins which you can then use to unlock other subjects. The more you answer the more quizzes you have access to.

Edplus has quizzes about language, science, math, religion, hobbies, and weird but interesting subjects that should keep your kid stuck to their screen learning in a fun way.

Rivet

Perks

  • AI-based tools
  • Hundreds of books
  • Gamified activities

How can books stay relevant in a world where everything is trying to win over our attention? By becoming even more interesting than they already are. With a library of over 3000 books, Rivet has a book for every kid out there. 

Rivet is an enhanced-reading app, specifically aimed at teaching kids how to read as well as helping them develop a love for books. It’s simple to use, and it has a lot of functionalities for both teachers and parents to help kids with their learning.

One of Rivet’s strongest features is that it has activities, games, and other tools to enhance the students reading experience, as well as a learning tool that helps them learn new words and pronunciations. And the page tracking feature is perfect to keep track of the progress of your children. 

And there you have them. 5 apps that will help you homeschool your kids, each with a different approach. While you may benefit from using any of them, combining them can provide you with the best results. Be sure to try them!

DevelopmentInsightsProductsSaaSSEO

How to Set up a Print Server on Linux

on September 17, 2020

After years of working as a support technician, I can tell you one of the most frustrating pieces of technology out there is the printer. When they work, they are an indispensable tool in the office. When they don’t work (as it often happens), they are a never-ending point of frustration.

This is especially true when your printer is attached to a Windows machine that can cause any number of problems, without rhyme or reason. Getting that shared printer back up and running can take some time. Or you might wind up having to call in support. 
To make matters worse, printer problems don’t just plague end users. This almost universal bone of contention causes problems for every level of the user, even all the way up to JavaScript developers, like those at BairesDev.

Fortunately, there’s a way for your business to avoid the headaches brought about by sharing printers from desktop machines. That solution is to deploy a Linux printer server. Once you have such a server up and running, you’ll find it will serve you without fail (so long as the hardware and your network don’t become a problem).

Outside of reliability, the fact that you’ll be using open source means the only cost for you is the hardware. 

Requirements

First off, you need to have a printer that supports Linux. At one point in time, this was a challenge that caused many users to avoid the Linux print server. But that’s all in the past. Today, it’s fairly easy to have a Linux printer. To find out what printers are supported by Linux, check out the OpenPrinting site. 

With your supported printer at the ready, you’ll need to make sure it’s connected to your Linux server. 

You’ll also need to have a Linux server available. I’ll be demonstrating with Ubuntu Server 18.04, as that’s one of the most user-friendly Linux server distributions on the market. Do note, however, that Ubuntu Server 18.04 installs without a GUI, so you’ll be working from the command line.

Finally, you’ll need a user with sudo privileges.

And that it’s. Let’s get to work.

Installing the CUPS printer server software

The first thing to take care of is the installation of the CUPS printer server software. CUPS stands for Common Unix Printer Server and has been around for some time. 

To install CUPS, log into your Ubuntu server and issue the command:

sudo apt-get install cups -y

Once the installation completes, you’ll need to start the CUPS daemon and configure it to start at boot (otherwise you’ll have to start it manually anytime the server goes down). To start the CUPS daemon, issue the command:

sudo systemctl start cups

 To enable the CUPS daemon at boot, issue the command:

sudo systemctl enable cups

Configuring CUPS

With CUPS installed, it’s time to configure it. Only a few quick changes need to be made within the configuration file. To open that file for editing, issue the command:

sudo nano /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

The first change you need to make is the line:

Browsing Off

Change that to:

Browsing On

Next, you need to configure CUPS so that the web-based manager is accessible from within your Local Area Network (LAN). Look for the line:

Listen localhost:631

Change that line to:

Port 631

For our next trick, you’ll have to make sure that CUPS is listening on all network interfaces. Look for the following section:

<Location />

  Order allow, deny

</Location>

Change that to:

<Location />

  Order allow, deny

  Allow @LOCAL

</Location>

Finally, you’ll want to add access to the CUPS web-based admin console. Look for the section:

<Location /admin>

  Order allow, deny

</Location>

Change that to:

<Location /admin>

  AuthType Default

  Require valid-user

  Order allow, deny

  Allow @LOCAL

</Location>

If you do opt to make the web-based admin console available, you might want to lock it down to allow only a specific user. To do this, you would change the line:

Require valid-user

to

Require user @SYSTEM

Save and close the cupsd.conf file. Restart the CUPS daemon with the command:

sudo systemctl restart cups

If you opted to lock down the admin console to a specific user, you’ll want to create that user with the command:

sudo useradd -g lpadmin cupsadmin

Set the new user’s password with the command:

sudo passwd cupsadmin

With that configuration, you can point a browser to https://SERVERIP/admin (where SERVERIP is the IP address of the machine hosting CUPS). You will be prompted to log in with the cupsadmin user and the password you set above.

Share the printer via Bonjour and IPP protocols

You’ll want to make sure your printer is visible to your LAN via Bonjour (for macOS desktops) and IPP (for most other desktops). To make this work, you’ll need to install the avahi daemon with the command:

sudo apt install avahi-daemon -y

Once installed, start and enable the daemon with the commands:

sudo systemctl start avahi-daemon

sudo systemctl enable avahi-daemon

Open the firewall

If you happen to have the UFW firewall enabled on the Server, allow Bonjour and IPP printer traffic through with the command:

sudo ufw all 5353/udp

Connecting your printer

At this point, everything is ready for desktops to connect. How you connect the desktop to the printer server will depend on which desktop you are using. For example, with Pop!_OS Linux, I can go to Settings > Printers, and (as long as the necessary drivers are installed) the new printer will automatically appear (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Our printer on the CUPS printer server is now available for connection.

Conclusion

And that’s all there is to set up a reliable Linux printer server. The only hiccup you will run across is if you have entities outside of your LAN (such as third-party JavaScript development companies). To allow those groups to use the printers connected to the server, you’ll need to employ a VPN. Otherwise, your printer server is ready and should serve you without fail.

ProductsSaaS

7 Best Customer Support Products for Better Customer Retention

on September 14, 2020

Building brand loyalty and retaining customers is one of the most important factors for the long-term success of your business.

If you feel like you’re constantly trying to keep up with your customers, we’ve compiled a list of 7 tools that will help you retain your existing customers so you can focus your time and effort on expanding your business.

The Benefits of Customer
Retention

If you’ve been running a successful business for any length of time, chances are you already have a number of returning customers.

Customer retention includes all the tools and techniques you can use to make sure customers like these keep doing business with your company in the long run.

Like with many other aspects of business, the 80/20 rule also holds here. This means that 80% of your profits will come from 20% of your best clients, so focusing on customer retention should be one of your top priorities.

Another thing to consider is that keeping your current customer base can cost up to 5 times less than trying to find new customers. An investment in customer retention will not only bring more profits but also let you stretch your budget further.

Top 7 Tools for Customer Retention

Now that we know how important customer retention can be, we will go over some of the tools that can help make the whole process easy to set up and use. These tools will cover different approaches and techniques you can use to build customer loyalty.

Zonka Feedback

Even if you do all you can to satisfy your customers, Customer Feedback is crucial for your business to know how your customers perceive your efforts and how satisfied they are with the experience you provide. Zonka Feedback, one of the easiest Customer Satisfaction Software and Survey Tool serves this purpose. With this tool, you can create surveys to collect feedback from your customers and take action on it to improve Customer Experience, enhance satisfaction and retention.

Key features

  • Inbuilt Survey Templates – It provides 40+ question types and ready-to-use survey templates that you can use to create customized surveys of various types for your customers, patients, students, and guests to collect their feedback.

  • Multilingual Surveys – You can create surveys in multiple languages to survey customers of diverse backgrounds.

  • White-labeled Surveys – It allows you to Whitelabel your surveys and add your own logo, branding, and style.

  • Multiple Channels – You can send your surveys to the customers through multiple on-premises and off-premises channels like email, SMS, website, QR codes, iOS devices, Android tablets, and smartphones.

  • Real-time Notifications – It’s real-time alerts notify you for every response or the responses falling in the criteria set by you like negative feedback, low rating, etc

  • Collaborative Response System – It allows you and your team to view feedback, convert feedback into tasks, assign and manage tasks, take action, and close the feedback loop to enhance customer retention and satisfaction.

  • Metric Surveys – You can use the tool to create metric surveys like NPS, CSAT, and CES to measure Customer Loyalty, satisfaction, and perceived efforts.

  • Logic Surveys – You can make your surveys dynamic and sound more logical with the feature of Skip Logic, Hide Logic, and Survey Redirection as the questions change for the customers based on their previous responses.

  • Automated Surveys – You can trigger automatic surveys based on both events like a purchase, a bill payment, or a ticket closure, as well as, on a periodic basis like monthly, quarterly, or annual surveys.

  • Powerful Integrations – It offers powerful integrations like Freshdesk, Zendesk, Shopify, Google Sheets, Slack, and more to make your work seamless.

  • Works Offline – The tool works offline too. It can save the response data for weeks without the internet and syncs all the saved data to the internet once your device is connected to the internet.

Pricing

Pricing starts from @29/month. It also offers different higher plans:

  • Professional plan costs $79/month and offers white-labeled surveys and advanced reporting for growing teams.
  • The growth plan costs $169/month, designed for larger teams to manage a complete feedback platform.
  • Enterprise plan costs $429/month, is a Complete Feedback Management Solution with personalized support.
  • Custom plans are also available for businesses looking for a custom solution, price depends on business requirements.

Document360

Document360 gives you a full suite of tools needed to build and maintain a knowledge base.

This resource can be invaluable to your customers, offering answers to any questions they might have about your product. At the same time, it saves you the time and resources you would spend on customer support calls.

On top of that, strong customer support is one of the best ways to build brand loyalty. It lets your customers know you’re there for them and are ready to help with any problem they might have.

Document360 also has a handy internal knowledge base, covering all the
features they offer and showing you how to make the best use of their tools.

Key Features

  • Product
    documentation     – Tools that will help you create, preview, and
    publish your knowledge base articles.
  • Category manager – Lets you create categories
    and subcategories, use them to arrange articles, and manage user access.
  • Editor – Lets you manage article content and
    insert additional elements, such as images, code blocks, and tables.
  • Branding – Allows you to customize the look
    and feel of your knowledge base and bring it in line with the rest of your brand identity.
  • Security – Lets you backup and export your
    articles and determine the level of access for your team members.

Pricing

  • Startup ($49 per project, per month) – Offers
    a limited range of tools and storage for smaller teams.
  • Business ($149 per project, per month) – Full
    range of tools with expanded storage.

Upsend

Upsend is less focused on specific customer retention techniques, instead offering a multi-faceted approach with a range of tools that help you engage with your customers.

These tools range from automated marketing campaigns to live chat and even guided tours of your products and services. Upsend is great if you want one tool that will help you cover all the bases in an easy-to-use way.

Key Features

  • Customer data hub – Lets you capture and
    manage customer information, sort customers by categories, and validate
    customer emails for use in marketing campaigns.
  • Customer support – Allows you to set up a live
    chat with your customers, which you can also automate using chatbots. It also
    lets you integrate outside elements in your chat, such as pictures and videos,
    shared files, and articles in your knowledge base.
  • Marketing automation – Lets you create and use
    templates for email campaigns. These can then be additionally personalized
    using the information from your customer data hub. You can also set up
    automated email campaigns and instantly send the to customer categories you
    already set up.
  • Knowledge base – Allows you to set up a
    knowledge base for your products and sort articles by categories.
  • Product tour – You can onboard new customers
    quickly and easily through interactive product tours.

Pricing

  • Free – Only supports one team member, but
    offers live chat and a team inbox.
  • Grow ($39) – Supports up to 3 team members
    with limited features.
  • Pro ($99) – Unlimited team members, full set
    of features.

Crisp

Crisp focuses on direct communication with
your customers. It combines live chat, CRM, email campaigns, and knowledge
bases to help you set up a comprehensive customer support and marketing system.

Communication is key when it comes to customer
retention. The more you engage with your customers, the more they will keep
your brand at the forefront of their minds.

Key Features

  • Live chat – Provides a live chat service with
    an integrated inbox and lets you set up a video chat with customers.
  • Chatbot – Integrates with the live chat
    feature to make sure you provide customer support 24/7.
  • CRM – Helps you capture new leads and keep
    track of existing ones with ease.
  • Shared inbox – Keeps all incoming messages in
    one place, while letting you set up automated replies.
  • Integration – Lets you connect Crisp with
    tried-party apps like Slack, WordPress, Mailchimp, Shopify, and many others.
  • Campaigns – Allows you to create automated
    marketing campaigns using email or in-app messages.
  • Knowledge base – Create and manage help
    articles.
  • Status page – Lets you alert your customers
    about changes to your products and technical issues through live chat or in-app
    messages.

Pricing

  • Free – Two live chat seats and team inbox.
  • Pro ($25 per website, per month) – Four chat
    seats and a limited set of features.
  • Unlimited ($95 per website, per month) –
    Unlimited chat seats with a full range of features.

lemtalk

Similarly to Crisp, lemtalk tries to help you
make customer support easy and convenient. However, lemtalk focuses on
integrating customer support features, like live chat and email, with your
company’s Slack.

Key Features

  • Slack integration – Provides quick integration
    and expands the list of commands you can use in Slack.
  • Slack live chat – Integrate live chat with
    your company’s Slack workplace.
  • Emails in Slack – Integrate support emails
    into your company’s Slack workplace.
  • SMS in Slack – Receive and answer text
    messages directly from your company’s Slack workplace.
  • Facebook integration – Integrates your
    company’s Facebook inbox with your Slack workplace.
  • FAQ – Lets you set up an FAQ page for your
    customers, with any support tickets going directly to your company’s Slack.
  • Multilingual live chat – Allows you to set up
    live chat in over 150 languages.

Pricing

  • Startup ($48 per month) – Allows 1 widget,
    chat language, and rule for automation and includes lemtalk branding.
  • Super Hero ($96 per month) – Unlimited number
    of live chats, knowledge base articles, and automation rules, multilingual live
    chat and knowledge base, no lemtalk branding.
  • Agency ($249 per month) – Full set of tools
    with unlimited access, supports up to 5 Slack teams.

Woobox

Loyalty programs are an often overlooked
aspect of customer retention. This has a lot to do with how they are perceived
since they’re often associated with brick-and-mortar businesses.

Loyalty programs can be a great tool in your
arsenal even if your business is fully online. They encourage customer
engagement with a system of rewards. This is a small investment on your end
that can have a great impact on your bottom line.

Woobox focuses on helping you set up loyalty
programs and contests on your website, such as giveaways, polls, coupons, and
more.

Key Features

  • Templates – Use pre-generated campaigns and
    landing pages as a base for your contests and giveaways.
  • Customization – Change the design of available
    templates to bring them in line with your company’s brand image.
  • Participant management – Helps you easily
    approve and manage participant entries and pick winners.
  • Integration – Allows you to customize your
    campaigns for mobile devices and integrate them with social media profiles.

Pricing

  • Free – Unlimited campaigns with 100
    participants per month. Allows Facebook integration.
  • Basic ($37 per month) – Unlimited campaigns
    with 1,000 participants per month with access to all types of campaigns and
    full customization.
  • Standard ($32 per month, billed annually) –
    Unlimited campaigns and participants, all types of campaigns, and full
    customization.
  • Advanced ($99 per month, billed annually) –
    Unlimited access with up to 5 team members, custom HTML & CSS for your
    campaigns.
  • Power ($249 per month, billed annually) –
    Unlimited access with no limit for team members, custom HTML, CSS & JS for
    your campaigns.

Qualaroo

When all is said and done, you will still need
to know how satisfied your customers are with your brand. After all, this is
what determines your brand reputation and drives customer loyalty.

This is where Qualaroo steps in. It helps you
set up surveys for your visitors directly on your website and analyze the
results to get an accurate picture of your customers’ likes and dislikes.

Key Features

  • Survey templates – Lets you save time by
    choosing from a library of pre-generated surveys.
  • AI sentiment analysis – Allows you to
    automatically mine customer feedback and set up actions based on the sentiment
    score.
  • Mobile integration – Lets you integrate
    surveys with the mobile version of your website.
  • Nudge for prototypes – Allows you to set up
    surveys for design prototypes of your web pages.
  • Exit intent surveys – Set up surveys that will
    trigger with completed purchases or if a customer is about to leave your
    website.
  • Questions branching – Set up dynamic surveys
    where the questions change based on previous answers.
  • NPS – Include questions that determine your
    Net Promoter Score.
  • A/B testing – Integrates surveys with A/B
    testing on your website.

Pricing

  • Startup ($199 per month) – Full survey functionality with up to 500k Nudge views on one domain, logo & color customization, and Google Analytics support.
  • Growth ($499 per month) – Full survey functionality with up to 1 million Nudge views on three domains, full customization, and advanced audience segmentation.
  • Turbo Growth (starting at $2,250 per month, billed annually) – Full suite of tools and customization with up to 2 million Nudge views on 20 domains.

Final Thoughts

Tracking down new leads and attracting new customers can prove to be much more expensive and time-consuming than building brand loyalty with the customers you already have.

The 6 tools we listed above will help you with this process, tackling and automating different aspects of customer retention. Also, you can check Net Promoter Score, software that can help you measure, analyze & grow your Customer Loyalty.

This will not only free up your time and let you focus on the big-picture business decisions, but will also drive up customer satisfaction, and, finally, profit.

DevelopmentInsightsMartechProductsSaaS

Text Message Archiving: One of The Best Ways to Improve Litigation Preparedness

on September 9, 2020

There are several reasons why organizations should record text messages or SMS, and capture other mobile content, including voice calls and emails. The main purpose is to stay compliant with data preservation regulations imposed by the government. Archiving in advance using sophisticated tools and software can save your time and money in eDiscovery to recover data in its original form and context.

eDiscovery or electronic discovery is the process by which electronically stored information (ESI) gets requested, located, and produced with the primary intent of being used in a lawsuit as evidence. It can also be used as part of a Freedom of Information Act request or for government investigations.

Prevent Evidence Spoliation with Text Message Record

Electronic data is believed to be very specific. This is not just because it is in an intangible form and of transient quality, but also because it is accompanied with highly useful metadata. This refers to the device that was used to send the text message, the time and date sent, and the contents of the message.

Such a text message record can play a vital role in evidence. It is not viable to take screenshots of every single SMS sent. It requires archiving software to preserve document metadata and to make it available through a vast volume of organizational information.

Remember, electronic data is easily susceptible to spoliation because of its intangible nature. You cannot expect all your employees to have the same phone they do now after a year or so. In addition, there is always the risk of losing data when a particular mobile device gets damaged or messages get accidentally deleted.

You could lose vast amounts of information that could have a major impact on the outcome of your litigation case and eDiscovery process. Many organizations have improved the way they deal with eDiscovery requests by establishing best practices. You can better cope with an ESI request by investing in a tried and tested litigation preparedness archiving software.

In fact, the right kind of tool could cut down your time to respond by one-third.

Text Archiving Allows for Better Organization

There is a reason why successful lawyers come prepared with organized files. This is to reduce the risk of missing something that could be vital to the legal proceedings. Without archiving your organizational text messages, you risk leaving everything unorganized. No internal, incoming, or outgoing text messages will be captured.

However, with the right text message archiving solution, you could ensure that every text message is not only captured but indexed and made searchable. There are various software solutions that could pack the archived information into long-term storage and allow for easy access whenever you require.

You can have access to a well-indexed and searchable archive when you receive an EIS request. Depending on the software you choose, you may also gain access to the metadata of those message records in addition to the information contained within them.

This way you can easily search for all relevant records on the basis of context and retrieve whatever is required at a fraction of the time. 

DevelopmentInsightsMartechSaaSSEO

How Odoo Can Cover All Your Needs

on August 27, 2020

Each business carries a large amount of data that needs to be generated on a daily basis. As technology continues to grow more complex every day, it has made it harder for business owners to find an efficient solution to keep all employees up to date on sales and purchase processes.

Having an excellent customer relations team is a major part of a successful business and that can be difficult when you need to focus on the challenges of owning your own company.

Odoo can help solve all your business problems by integrating your customer relationship management software and enterprise resource planning together to improve your business and your staff’s productivity.

Here are the top advantages of using Odoo for your company:

1. Real-time access to important data

There are a lot of complications that can happen when your system is not integrated fully. When your employees are processing a purchase without having the most updated information, you could risk leading them to making a big mistake that will cost customers a lot of money.

Having a fully integrated CRM and ERP system will always give your employees fast access to information that gets updated immediately to ensure that you won’t have to run into any problems with customers, inventory, shipments, payments, returns, order history, and more.

2. Save money by reducing IT costs

When you are using two different systems instead of one means that you are spending double the cost on everything including IT costs and hours of training your employees to use both programs.

Integrated ERP and CRM will create one platform to use for everything, which means no more expensive maintenance cost for two separate systems and wasting your money on individual platforms.

3. Get rid of unnecessary data entry

Combining ERP and CRM into one system that will have all of the information that you need can eliminate the unnecessary data entry work that has to be done twice on each system.

You can enter the data once on an integrated system and it will show on ERP database as well as CRM without accidentally duplicating it. This also applies if an account needs a custom field to be added and when the data is removed or edited from the system.

4. Allows your team to be more productive

Your CRM system is focused on sales and providing customer support and ERP is for shipping and billing information, inventory data, warehouse, and more. Both systems depend heavily on each other to avoid making any mistakes, which can slow down your employees’ productivity when they have to double check every information before confirming a purchase.

It is especially a hassle for your staff when they are in the middle of an important sale process that has to be done as quickly as possible. By integrating both systems you will improve the customer’s experience with your company by making it easier for your employees to collaborate through the platform and giving them the ability to track all operations.

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A Handbook on “Go Agile”!

on August 21, 2020

Agile is a procedure by which a team can deal with a project by separating it into a few stages and including steady coordinated effort with stakeholders and consistent improvement and emphasis at each phase of the task. It starts with clients laying out how the finished result will be utilized and what issue it will resolve.

What is Scrum???

  1. Scrum is a subset of Agile. It is a lightweight process framework for agile development, and one of the most widely used one.
  2. It’s not a process or methodology.
  3. Easy to understand.
  4. Based on Empiricism which means that scrum artifacts should be transparent to everyone in the team.

Principles of Agile

  1. To fulfil the client through right on time and continuous use of important software.
  2. To cater to changing requirements, even late in app development. 
  3. Delivering working software frequently.
  4. Stakeholders work with the scrum team together throughout the project so as to avoid any communication gaps.
  5. The most efficient way of communicating information within the team is face-to-face conversation.
  6. The progress of work is measured by working software.
  7. Continuous attention is paid to technical excellence.
  8. Due to the self-organizational team structure, the best architectures, designs, and ideas come up.

Empiricism

  1. Transparency:- All artifacts of the process should be visible to the stakeholders and the scrum team. Due to transparency, they can inspect the current state of the project and take necessary action if needed.
  2. Inspection:- Having regular inspections of artifacts will help the stakeholders to incorporate changes in order to achieve the goal.
  3. Adaptation:- Improvements can be made by adjusting the process based on the inspection results.

Scrum is Iterative and Incremental

First one – Incremental

Second one – Iterative

Incremental:- This type of development is to build small increments of the entire product. Each increment adds more features to the product. After multiple increments, you will get the complete product.

Iterative:- This development is to build something, take some feedback, and then refining to make it better. This will keep happening until we receive the product of good quality.

The Scrum Team

  1. The Product Owner.
  2. The Development Team.
  3. The Scrum Master.

The Product Owner

The product owner is liable for augmenting the estimation of the product and work of the development group.

  1. Clearly describing the Product backlog items.
  2. Responsible for managing the product backlog.
  3. To ensure the PBI is visible and clear to all.
  4. To ensure the requirement is understood by all to the level it is required.
  5. Accountable for building high-value products.
  6. Ordering of Product backlog items to achieve the best goals.
  7. Responsible for understanding and answering all questions pertaining to the product domain.
  8. Responsible for tracking the release progress.
  9. Liable for making and dealing with the release plans.
  10. Liable for making and building up the product vision.
  11. Enhancing the estimation of work done by the development team.

The Development Team

The Development Team comprises experts who accomplish crafted by conveying a conceivably releasable Increment of “Done” product at the end of each Sprint.

  1. Cross-functional and self-organizing.
  2. Participates in all scrum events.
  3. Responsible for creating the product increment.
  4. Collaborates with the Product Owner for optimal value.
  5. Responsible for identifying and eliminating technical debts.
  6. Liable for creating and coordinating the sprint backlog.
  7. Responsible for implementing good engineering practices.
  8. Helps product owners in backlog management by explaining the technical constraints.
  9. Answerable for learning all the functions required to convey a product increment.
  10. Answerable for following the advancement of the sprint.

The Scrum Master

The scrum master is responsible for ensuring that Scrum is understood and enacted by all. He ensures that the scrum team adheres to Scrum practices and rules.

  1. He is a servant- leader to the scrum team.
  2. Responsible for building the product fast by eliminating impediments.
  3. Goes about as a change agent that builds the productivity of the scrum team.
  4. Mentors the development team for self-organization and cross-functionality.
  5. Helps the product owners prioritize the work and teaches stakeholders value-based prioritization.
  6. Facilitates Scrum events as requested or required.
  7. Finds and teaches techniques for effective product backlog management to the product owners.
  8. Enables workers and partners of the association to comprehend and institute Scrum and experimental product development.
  9. Assists with streamlining the outside connection with the scrum group to amplify the value created.

Scrum Events

All occasions are time-boxed occasions, with the end goal that each occasion has a maximum duration. When a Sprint starts, its span is fixed and can’t be abbreviated or extended.

The remainder of the events may end at whatever point the explanation behind the event is accomplished, ensuring an appropriate proportion of time is spent without allowing waste at the same time.

The Sprint

The core of Scrum is a Sprint, a time-box of one month or less during which a “Done”, usable, and possibly releasable product Increment is made.

  1. Sprint Planning:-  A time-boxed event that occurs at the beginning of every sprint where the team determines the product backlog items they will work on during the sprint.
  2. Daily Scrum:- It’s a brief time-boxed occasion for the development group to synchronize exercises and make an arrangement for the following 24 hours.
  3. Sprint Review:- This is again a time-boxed event that occurs at the end of every sprint to inspect the increment and adapt the product backlog if needed.
  4. Sprint Retrospective:- This occasion gives a chance to the team to review itself and make an arrangement for enhancements to be done in the following sprint

Scrum Artifacts

Scrum Artifacts speak to work or incentive to give transparency and chances to investigation and transformation. Artifacts have been planned with a reason that everyone has a similar comprehension of the artifact.

  1. Product Backlog:- An arranged rundown of everything that may be required in the product which is the single wellspring of necessities for any progressions to be made to the item. The Product Owner is liable for the Product Backlog, including its content, accessibility, and ordering.
  2. Sprint Backlog:- The arrangement of Product Backlog things chose for the Sprint alongside an arrangement for conveying the item increase and understanding the run objective.
  3. Product Increment:- The whole of all the Product Backlog things finished during a Sprint and the estimation of the additions of every past Sprint is called item increase. 
  4. Product Backlog Refinement:- The ongoing product backlog refinement takes place within each sprint to refine items to be ready for future sprints.

Scrum Values

  1. Commitment:- It is a team activity where you and your team are accountable to work together and confirm your team commitments. The scrum teams must be committed to progress and stick to the goal of the project.
  2. Focus:- Once the requirements are clear and the target is set, one should be goal-oriented which motivates you for delivering faster and better.
  3. Openness:- Colleagues ought to be open about their work, progress, what they realized and the issues they are confronting. Additionally, you ought to be available to work with partners, perceiving people to be people, and not resources, robots, or replaceable bits of equipment.
  4. Respect:- As a piece of the Scrum group, you should regard partners, their choices, and their experience. You should regard your partners by not building anything in which individuals are not intrigued. You have to similarly regard your clients by settling their issues.
  5. Courage:- Flexibility to change shapes the bedrock of any Scrum project and to acknowledge a change, fearlessness is required. Scrum is tied in with facing challenges and discovering an improved arrangement. The Scrum group is permitted to consider various ways to deal with the workshop the best and most proper arrangements. So as to execute new things to the undertaking, we have to disclose these new plans to the group for which you would require fearlessness.

Author bio

Radhika Sethi is a tech enthusiast with specialization in Digital Marketing. She is passionate about technology, internet marketing, big data, and writing. Currently working in Affle Enterprise, a chatbot development company. Reading novels, traveling, researching new online marketing trends are some of her areas of interest that keep her rejuvenated.

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Manufacturing Toolbox for Next-Level Productivity

on August 19, 2020
The story of the manufacturing industry has been one of progress. Few manufacturers continue to produce the same products as they did in their infancy years. In order to remain competitive, manufacturers must continue to evolve their products to meet the demands of the marketplace. But meeting consumer demand is only half the battle — the other half is staying up to speed with industry advancements. New technology brings a host of changes that manufacturers must recognize. For example, increasing dependence on automation leads to the need for more skilled workers who understand these advanced systems. If workers cannot adapt successfully, organizations could find themselves struggling to keep up with the rest of the industry. To remain competitive in this dynamic environment, organizations should have several tools at their disposal that go beyond the physical equipment and technology innovations used in their facilities. These tools are ideas manufacturers can keep in their toolbox and use to produce next-level productivity. For example, one tool can be an investment in regular maintenance, which can ensure that machinery stays in service for as long as possible. This results in higher productivity and fewer costly downtime periods. For more ideas manufacturing companies should keep in their toolboxes, check out this infographic containing important concepts manufacturers can use to boost their production and become more efficient overall. There’s more than one kind of tool necessary for success in manufacturing. Here are some concepts and ideas you should have in your toolbox to yield higher productivity
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5 Ways Businesses Can Avoid Risk of Information Breach Online

on August 12, 2020

Successfully managing a business is a daunting errand because of the challenges you face amidst the journey. Cyber-attacks have been exponentially increasing; alone, in 2019, it is reported that breach of data exposed 4.1 billion records. And with that, the need to secure your business is becoming of enormous importance.

Business information serves as a critical asset for any company and makes it of the utmost worth. Therefore, in this post, I will be sharing 05 hand-picked ways to minimize and eradicate the risk of getting your information stolen by hackers. 

Let’s dive right into how you can protect your information online from cyber thefts. 

1. Use a Secure Network 

Surfing on the websites using public Wi-Fi makes your information exposed to cybercriminals. That further leads to increased chances of getting your vital information stolen. Thereby, it would be best if you used a secured network that is end-to-end encrypted. 

One of the best ways is to incorporate a virtual private network connection on all your devices to get full-fledged security. On top of that, using multiple devices VPN makes it easier for you to protect information sharing on all systems. Besides top-notch security, it will also enable you to have online anonymity on all networks.

2. Beware of  Phishing Emails

To avoid information breach, you need to be vigilant about the emails you entertain in your daily routine. Phishing emails are increasing enormously and are one of the apparent reasons behind security vulnerabilities. Make sure you do not click any of the emails that seem like a spamming activity.

Also, companies must provide adequate security training to the staff, administering the emails to know the parameter to recognize a fraudulent email. Based on a recent report conducted by Mimecast State of Email Security, almost 60 percent of companies are likely to bear email attacks if not appropriately secured. Therefore, you need to ensure to keep intense monitoring before you open any email. 

3. Encrypt Confidential Information

Access to sensitive information must be in the hands of critical stakeholders only. Company owners need to make their employees well-versed in handling cyber-security. It is essential to encrypt all the data you have stored in your business systems.

Never share any of your details using the collaboration tools as the risk of information theft is considerably high. For instance, it has been reported that the Zoom app has some serious privacy concerns that make your shared data vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Therefore, it is best to encrypt your data on all the platforms and restrict access to trusted people only. 

4. Create a Strong Password

If you are operating multiple business accounts, you must be concerned about making it secure from cyber-attacks. One way is to make your account password sturdy enough to provide security defense to your accounts. That means you have to create a strong password to secure your sensitive information on online platforms. 

People who use easy-to-remember passwords are more vulnerable to security breaches. Thus, you need to ensure you follow the standard security policies while creating your password on business accounts. Ensure you modify your password after 6 months so as to avoid the risk of code-cracking.

Moreover, it is recommended to use a blend of unique lower and upper case letters, symbols, and numbers. Make use of two-factor authentication in your password to fortify security. This way, you can create an impenetrable password that will make it hard for hackers to attack. And eventually, your information will be safe from unwanted malware. 

5. Regulate Vulnerability Assessments 

To make sure you are following all the standard security practices on your business systems, you must use an information security management system (ISMS). That has all the power to manage your business security in one place. This way, you can be assured that all your organization data is safe from any security threat or possible vulnerabilities. Try doing security audits every after some time to ensure business systems are well-equipped to combat threats. 

Key Takeaways

The risk of an information breach is getting high, and with that, the need to upgrade your security practices is a must to consider. The online world is a cut-throat medium for hackers and other spammers. And to restrain them from harming your business, it is better you keep in practice the above shared 5 ways to avoid the risk of an information breach. Although there are other practices, too, the ones I have shared are imperative for your security. 

Author Bio

Amtul Rafay is a Cybersecurity enthusiast who loves to write on topics pertaining to online privacy, internet security, and web privacy. She believes in the influential power of research-backed opinions to stay updated with the futuristic technology trends.

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The Best Zoom Alternatives for Work and Play

on August 4, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has pushed more people than ever to work remotely. Yet, to function well, many types of teams still need to meet, including teachers, marketing professionals, and software developers like those at BairesDev. As a result, online meetings have become the norm and the videoconferencing application Zoom has become a well-known name and a de-facto alternative for group chats.

Zoom is also helpful for creating socially distant gatherings of family, friends, and other groups. But it isn’t perfect. In addition to being disappointed by Zoom’s limited features, users have experienced issues with data privacy and “Zoombombing,” which describes the activity of trolls who enter Zoom meetings uninvited and express hatred or display offensive images. The privacy issues stem from the application not being end-to-end encrypted, resulting in leaked user email addresses.

You may choose to use Zoom despite these drawbacks. But if you’re looking for a change, there are many similar applications available for you to try, including those listed here. 

Google Meet

If you want to replace Zoom for business meetings, Google Meet is a good application to try. You can include up to 100 participants per meeting and you get unlimited call time for free from now through September 2020. After that, call time will be limited to 60 minutes unless you upgrade your account. Google Meet also offers real-time translation, a useful feature for international calls.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is another good choice for work-related meetings. Each meeting can accommodate up to 250 participants and you can store your conversations, files, meetings, and apps in a shared workspace. Useful features include the ability to search conversations, customize notifications, and blur your background for privacy. To use Teams, you must have an Office 365 subscription or a trial subscription of Teams.

Skype

Skype was one of the first videoconferencing applications and it’s still useful for online meetings. The new Meet Now feature enables functionality similar to Zoom and meetings can accommodate up to 50 users. You don’t need an account to sign in, just a link. Special features include reaction emoji, call recording, and the ability to blur your background. Skype offers both free and paid versions.

GoToMeeting

Packed with features, GoToMeeting enables you to include up to 150 participants per meeting with the entry-level plan or up to 3,000 when you upgrade. This application allows you to include multiple facilitators, share your screen, record and transcribe meetings, and assign follow-up tasks. You also get drawing tools to help participants make important points while presenting.

WhatsApp

For more informal conversations, such as those with family or friends, WhatsApp is a good option to try. While better known for messaging, the app does allow you to videoconference as well. You can include up to eight participants on each call, and the app is free to use. The best thing about WhatsApp is that it can be used across platforms, so it doesn’t matter if you use an Android device and your cousin has an iPhone. WhatsApp provides end-to-end encryption so you can be sure your conversations are secure.

Facebook Messenger

If you’re on Facebook a lot, Messenger is a great tool for videoconferencing with friends. Even if you don’t use Facebook much, it might be worth using Messenger for those calls because the video quality is better than that of some other apps. With Messenger, you also get emoji reactions, stickers, and the ability to include up to six people on-screen during a video call (though you can have up to 50).

FaceTime

Practically synonymous with video chatting, FaceTime enables those who use the Apple ecosystem to easily communicate with each other. You can get up to 32 callers on at one time and use special features to project your digital look-alike or add fun effects in your call. FaceTime is also end-to-end encrypted so you can be sure your calls are secure.

Discord

Discord is popular with gamers because it integrates with games like Call of Duty: WWII and Divinity: Original Sin 2. But it can be used by anyone who wants encrypted chat, messaging, and video call functionality. Users can set up their own “rooms” in which to chat via video or text. Up to 50 users can participate in a call.

Houseparty

Many things are just not possible with social distancing, but game night isn’t one of them. Houseparty enables you to connect and also provides the entertainment! Up to eight callers can play Trivia, Head’s Up!, and other fun games that are included. The app also allows you to purchase additional games if you want.

In Summary

Social distancing is making communication more difficult, but the right technology can help. If Zoom isn’t for you, there are many other options available for keeping in touch with colleagues and friends.

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