"Unlike past vendors that have experienced a lot of staff turnover, we have had the same team."
Buildable Custom Software managed the front- and backend development work for an insurance company’s new website. They integrated a unique billing function and adhered to industry standards and rules.
I am the benefits operations manager at CityCounty Insurance Services. We provide various insurance benefits to any city and county in Oregon that wants to take coverage with us.
We were trying to build our own enrollment system for all of the benefits, and we needed full web development support.
Over the past five years, we have worked with two or three third-party enrollment system vendors. We tend to be a unique client for a lot of those vendors because of all the cities and counties that we help manage funds for. A lot of those enrollment vendors are more geared toward single employers, so we ran into a lot of issues with billing and the user interface.
We are halfway through the web development project. We’re relying on Buildable Custom Software for both frontend and backend development from scratch. The frontend work has been completed, but the backend elements are taking more time because we have to account for insurance rules associated with all types of events, such as marriages and births. Whenever somebody starts a new insurance plan, there are many different rules to account for, so we’re working to make our backend as comprehensive as possible. So far, Buildable Custom Software has done a great job of understanding what our needs are. They’ve managed the sprints well and have made sound recommendations for how to proceed from one sprint to the next.
We work with the company’s owner, a project manager, and three engineers. The project manager puts the contract together and outlines what we’re doing in each sprint. She does an excellent job of organizing everything we need.
We had never heard of their company before, but they responded to our RFP. Buildable Custom Software subsequently advanced through each of our rounds of cuts until we had a final three. They are a somewhat small company, so we were unsure if they could handle us, but they blew us out of the water with their proposal. They featured the latest and greatest software, and we were impressed by their past work. A lot of what was driving us to build our own system was the billing capability, which they had a lot of experience in.
Our engagement began in September 2018 and remains ongoing.
As we are building our own product, we are marrying our system with the enrollment system employees use. We have a rules engine that has hundreds of lines of codes to develop these rates, and Buildable Custom Software condensed that down to seven or eight lines of code, and it works great. From an efficiency standpoint, although it is very specific, it works. It is very fluid, and we can make changes to something in line with the code.
We have thorough weekly calls, so we don’t have much use for a project management tool. We use the meetings to receive our updates, take notes, and determine the next steps.
The owner is equally capable of leading the development or project management duties. We haven’t found many other vendors that can understand our unique business needs as well as Buildable Custom Software. The owner has been involved at every step, and he makes sure that the team communicates.
So far, they have done a great job and have stayed on budget. Buildable Custom Software has people on our calls that are dedicated to our project, which is something we have experienced before. Unlike past vendors that have experienced a lot of staff turnover, we have had the same team.
There have been instances when we’ve had to change parts of the project because it was outside the scope of work, but that falls on us too. There have also been times when it has taken longer than anticipated to receive a quote on something, which we have found strange because they usually are very punctual.
Have one single person who is responsive and dedicated to the project within your organization. If you don’t, it is going to be hard on Buildable Custom Software to do exactly what you need. In our case, the communication comes to me, and if I need to find answers elsewhere, I can do that, but it is all streamlined to one person. They have a point of contact whenever there is a question.
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