Houghton Mifflin is one of the leading educational publishers in the United States, publishing textbooks, instructional technology, assessments, and other educational materials for teachers and students of every age.

In order to maintain their competitive advantage in the accounting textbook market, the client required a new e-learning General Ledger System (GLS) to accompany their suite of accounting texts and workbooks. The accounting titles were the top revenue-generating books in the College Division.

The solution required an intuitive and easily useable interface that needed to connect with problems in the text as well as existing electronic ancillaries. As with all educational titles, budgets were extremely tight.

GLS was highly successful in the market. We were contracted out for at least ten additional updates and enhancements. This solution was used across almost every accounting title the client published.

GLS was a key factor in winning adoptions by both private and public colleges and universities. When the Houghton Mifflin College Division was purchased by Cengage Learning in 2008, the revenue strength of their accounting titles was a major factor in Cengage’s decision.

New England Survey Systems, NESS, is a Boston based company, expertly skilled in the design, development, and support of all survey instruments and automated systems supporting researchers involved in clinical and epidemiologic data collection, tracking, management and analysis.

The client was contracted by Boston University to update a knee alignment study. Several hundred points of data were collected for each patient across multiple visits. While the existing application worked for entering new data, the prior contractor had not implemented a viable means of changing and updating data. The client needed a way to update information as soon as possible to meet some publication deadlines.

New England Survey Systems had contacted the prior contractor who told them this was his first ASP program and that updating the solution would be a huge undertaking. Further, there was no development environment for the application, so all work had to be done remotely with Remote Desktop and the ASP pages had the be edited with a text editor.

With these constraints NESS was looking for a quick ad hoc solution, but after consulting with us, we came up with a solution in which the data and logic of the server was left intact and all the modifications were done by the client machine. A project that NESS had thought would take at least four to six weeks was completed in one.

After the quick success of this update, we were contracted out for additional work on the report functions. We developed a set of updates with ASP.NET and JavaScript, and then QA the program to insure that the data was being handled correctly.

The solution was completed well ahead of anyone’s expectations and further solidified Boston University’s relationship with NESS.

Brown Publishing Network offers editorial development, design, and production for major publishers.

The client was contracted by McDougall-Littell to make a complete revision of their high-school literature text, grade 9 – 12, and to customize these texts for over 20 states. With about 3600 pages x 20 states and each page going through about ten different stages, i.e., writing, editing, proofing, page design and development states, a significant management problem was present.

Each page had to be carefully tracked so the project would stay on schedule and on budget. Each day, the schedule needed to be checked and adjusted. A weekly report needed to be generated for each department head to make sure they were on schedule.

In the past, these reports and schedules were done in Excel and maintained by hand. However, with this volume hand entry and reports would be extremely time-consuming as well as highly prone to user error.

Using Excel, VBA, and AppleScript, we created a custom solution that automated the scheduling process. The user was only required to date what came in and when and what was shipping out to whom. All dates, charts, reports, and graphs were automatically updated.

The system also allowed for the supervisors to have a clear visual picture, both quantitative and qualitative, of what a workload for a particular department would be during any given week of a two-year time frame.

The solution allowed for the client to have a clear visual picture, both quantitative and qualitative, of the projects process. This allowed the client to have information necessary for making staffing decisions and managing work expectations. A supervisor of the clients remarked on several occasions that, even though he had been in print production for almost twenty years, he had never seen anything as useful and powerful as this tracking software.

Company Profile: Abt Associates Inc. is one of the leading global think tanks on social, political, and health related issues. They are hired by the State, Federal , and foreign governments as well as nonprofit associations and institutions to assist with large scale projects.

Abt creates numerous reports and proposals using MS Word. Many of these documents must be 508 compliant (accessibility standards set by the U.S. Government) in order to have them accepted. Designers had to spend a large amount of time reworking documents to make them compliant.

The company needed a tool to assist them in creating documents that had the proper structure for 508 compliance and allow for the insertion of compliant tables and figures

A custom front-end application was written using VBA to create a management system that offered users a set of choices in how to set up their document, headers, page size, styles, etc. These choices were then incorporated into a template that would be 508 compliant.

The client had struggled for many years with developing a consistent way of developing proposals and reports that were 508 compliant. The new solution allowed designers to spend much less time on basic tasks such as updating styles and reformatting paragraphs. New and inexperienced writers now had a document template that insured they would stay within 508 requirements.

Oriental Research Partners (ORP) is one of the leading distributors of Eastern European books on art, linguistics and most Slavic topics, especially Russian history. They act as a library wholesaler and sell new Slavic books to university libraries world-wide including Harvard, Toronto, Milan, Oxford, Hokkaido, Yale, UCLA, Canberra, etc.

ORP required a desktop management system for their inventory, a searchable online database, and a tool for emailing lists of their latest offerings. They had a tight budget along with a collection of legacy systems that need considered.

The backend database was written in Access. A front end was written for managing inserting, updating, deleting and modifying entries. Part of the interface allowed for the easy creation of email lists that were then sent through a list server. An Ajax enabled, .NET based website was designed that used the Access database the backend for online searching. A shopping cart was created so users could easily email their requests for books.

ORP has had a marked increase in world-wide orders from existing and as well new clients. Staff now spends much less time organizing papers and data and more time on tasks that generate income. They have also been able to use the management system to easily expand their presence with other online book sellers such as ABE books.

Lynx Collaborative Care Network is an organization that provides individualized medical research, consulting and advocacy to clients with complex medical conditions.

The client’s business was growing and in need of multi-faceted services including: client case coordination, medical records management, marketing, and a methodical system that allowed multiple independent contractors to be informed about the progress of individual clients within the Lynx system.

An initial intake form was created, along with care plan documents to evaluate client needs. A Consultation was provided to ensure that Lynx would be the appropriate medical research consultant for the client.

Medical Records were obtained on behalf of each client for review by medical staff. Advocacy, case coordination, and liaison services were provided as needed for clients. Payment plans were set in place and new marketing contacts were provided to the company president and chief medical officer.

Ease of communication was enhanced among multiple reviewers of medical records who often resided in multiple locations both nationally and internationally. Improved client liaison services allowed the medical researchers to focus on their area of expertise rather than managing the intricacies of medical records, client payment plans and general administrative questions and concerns

Dermatology Associates of Colorado is a full-service dermatology practice wanting to develop adjacent cosmetic services including medical skin care products along with cosmetic services such as collagen, botox and multiple skin laser procedures.

The client needed a consultant to research and oversee business start up needs such as a cash register system, phone system, administrative equipment, medical equipment and leases, hiring of staff and training of administrative staff.

A PC based cash register system was researched and installed, along with a credit card and phone system. Installation was managed and supervised for compliance. Medical equipment was researched, purchased and delivered along with administrative office equipment. Medical retail products were ordered, organized, and scanned into computerized inventory system. Administrative staff were hired and trained. Administrative procedural manual was created all staff were trained on operational procedures.

The solutions helped the company to succeed in its expansion goals. Many of the hired staff are still with Cara Mia Medical Day Spa today.