At simPRO we know a lot, and one thing we know for certain is that getting client feedback on the development direction of simPRO is a high priority. With that in mind it was South Australia’s turn to host a user forum on Wednesday the 24th of February in Glenelg.
This was the first user forum held in Adelaide and proved to be a great day full of ideas, feedback and audience participation. Twenty seven clients, new and old as well as some prospective customers were put in mixed groups that changed throughout the day. This meant that by day’s end everyone knew everyone, which created a great setting not just for sharing ideas with simPRO staff, but with each other.
The first workshop for the day was on development ideas for the future development of simPRO. Every idea is important, so it the workshop was structured with that in mind. Everyone initially wrote down their own ideas, and then each group voted on the top 2 or three ideas from their table. These top few ideas were then voted on by the entire room. The most popular idea was to have employee category filtering/ordering on scheduling. Sarah Smith from Precise Plumbing was the owner of this top idea and for her efforts was also the winner of a Navman satellite navigation unit courtesy of Bruce Ramsey, National Sales Manager for Navman Wireless.
Following this flurry of ideas Curtis Thomson, Acorn Software’s Technical Director and all-round simPRO guru presented on the past 12 months development. 12 months is a very long time in the life of simPRO, so Curtis could only cover the highlights – it would have taken all day and then some to cover everything. Some of the key highlights were the client management portal, simPRO collaboration, REC’s/VEEC’s and much more. Following Curtis it was time for a well deserved lunch.
After Lunch, Bruce Ramsey from Navman Wireless presented on how vehicle tracking can be such a great tool for the trade service industry. Following Bruce, Curtis demonstrated the interface to simPRO which was met with a few claps from the audience.
Then it was time for the second workshop for the day, which also meant everyone was in different groups. The idea of this workshop was for each group to imagine themselves to be Directors of a company and to discuss resolutions to issues that could occur when implementing a new system. The “imaginary” scenario was to see your company have no time or budget restraints and to concentrate on the resolutions. Once again a collective sharing of ideas was encouraged and to that end some great resolutions to issues were presented to the entire group. Some of resolutions were: addressing change management issues directly, implementing mobility technology to retrieve information from the field and investing in people’s time to ensure each staff member was proficient in using the system.
The Director’s workshop was a great success and was a prime opportunity for users to share with each other on their experiences and advice on implementing simPRO. After the Director’s workshop Curtis presented on the proposed development path, which included a look at a first draft new Graphic User Interface (GUI) simPRO and various new user interaction technology with simPRO.
After the presentation on simPRO’s development path was a brief demonstration on collaboration between simPRO users. Collaboration is a big focus for simPRO going forward and the demonstration showed how easy it was to do – pushing a job from one simPRO system to another. This was the last presentation and a fitting topic to conclude what was a great forum in sharing ideas and experiences.
The first South Australian User Forum was a big success and enjoyed by all. So, maintaining this momentum and the continued collaboration between simPRO and our customers there will be quarterly information sessions held in South Australia to discuss and demonstrate the latest developments.
At the end of the day it was time for a well earned drink at the bar. Not everyone could stick around, but for those that did, Glenelg put on a nice setting for the end of a top day.
To find out when a simPRO User Forum is being held in your state please feel free to contact us anytime.
Insightful post. I really appreciated reading through it.
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That guy looks like he is going really fast!!
Hurry places are limited and we would love for you to come along!