CISION

Automated Testing Frameworks

Streamline Development Iteration Time by 95%

Background

CISION is a leading global public relations and earned media software company and services provider.

The Challenge

A large portion of CISION’s back-end infrastructure is composed of difficult-to-test web services, and automated testing suites only covered unit tests and functional GUI tests. Additionally, regression web services testing was performed manually – quite a time-consuming task.

The Solution

Kopius’* quality assurance team implemented an automated testing suite built on REST services. The framework for this test suite included real REST service interaction without having to rely on specific web service clients or tools. From here, a model was created for test creation, allowing manual testers and developers to easily write test scripts, and the framework was added to the Continuous Integration toolset.

Results

Ultimately, the time to run automated regression tests on a continuous integration server was reduced by 95%. After implementing the new automated testing framework, case creation time was reduced to only 30 minutes, and the refactoring time required for web services post-testing cycle went down by 80%.

*Work was performed under the previous business name, Tradehelm

DSC Logistics

Agile DevOps Improves QA Testing Times by 97%

Time to fix technical and functional issues reduced by 45%

Background

DSC Logistics (aka CJ Logistics) delivered integrated and multimodal logistics services, connecting every corner of the world via air, sea, and land. The company is an industry leader in transforming logistics and supply chain management into a critical business strategy based on innovative thinking and high-performance operations.

The Challenge

To accommodate the addition of fifty new warehouse sites that would bring new software application components to their ecosystem, DSC needed to perform quality assurance on the integrity of its data and pre-existing legacy services while efficiently integrating new services. They also needed their testing frameworks and resources to work in a DevOps environment.

The Solution

Our team recommended a mix of tools and best practices to provide earlier feedback to developers in conjunction with the DevOps team. Kopius’* team implemented:

REST-Assured Java framework to verify service health
Selenium to validate user interaction with all application services – web, mobile, and desktop
Automated load-testing framework created with Gatling to mimic a performance load of thousands of users

Results

Kopius’ automated checks within a continuous integration server reduced the prior testing cycle times by 97% overall. Thanks to a graphical system focused on quality and testing times, management and the development team had greater visibility into the process. This helped them reduce the time it took to fix technical and functional issues by 45%. In the end, DSC’s quality assurance team had more free time to perform true quality assurance on the product rather than running manual and semi-manual test scripts. This increased the overall level of quality and experience in the application.

*Work was performed under the previous business name, Tradehelm

Providence Genomics

Platform and Website Design + Development

How a solution goes from a beta test to a sustainable product

Background

Part of the Providence healthcare system, Providence Genomics builds cutting-edge programs including prevention, early detection, and therapeutic programs. Providence Genomics is growing quickly, and all efforts are intended to improve patient care using genomics.

Clinical research has complex resource and staffing requirements to support patient recruitment, education, and consent. Traditionally, a study coordinator guides each patient through a potentially complicated informed consent document and answers questions, before obtaining consent to enroll them in the clinical study. Motivated in part by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the Providence Genomics leadership set goals to transfer much of the manual education effort from study coordinators to online content, including recruitment, study descriptions, details about risks and benefits of study participation, actions needed from study participants, and information about the study experience.

Providence owned a technology platform that had been adapted for participant e-consent by affiliated Institute for Systems Biology (ISB). When the COVID pandemic hit, Providence urgently needed to manage e-consent for patient studies while minimizing potential exposures for study staff. Providence and ISB turned to this platform to recruit for several large COVID-19 studies. Following the successful execution of these studies, Providence Genomics recognized an opportunity for the platform to improve processes for several large precision genomics studies that were in the planning stages.

Working together, Providence, ISB, and Genomics teams expanded the platform’s capabilities beyond the COVID-19 study features. These collaborations made the platform more sophisticated, robust, and feature-rich. It was successfully deployed in two ongoing studies (Geno4ME and Galleri), which are lengthy, multi-year studies that engage thousands of patients.

Based on this success, Providence made the decision to further develop the platform for broader use within Genomics, rebranding it as Propel.

“It’s gratifying that other teams looked at what we created through innovative collaborations between developers, designers, and subject matter experts, and saw the value in it. They recognize that Propel meets a need that nothing else meets.”
Andrew Magis, PhD, Director of Data Science at ISB

The Challenge

The enterprise version of the product’s design needed to make it easy for patients, participants, and researchers to engage in research programs. The technical solution needed to be scalable for use by external partners and customers, and it needed to be sustainable so the number of engaged patients accessing genomic data within Providence could be expanded.

The platform needed significant changes to be marketed to new teams internally and externally. Focus areas included security, compliance, and features to ensure the product could support a broad range of use cases. The Genomics team also had to shift its mindset from meeting the needs of specific users to delighting and exceeding expectations of a broader group of customers.

The Solution

Providence needed a technology partner that could understand the strategy and translate it quickly into a working product. Further, Propel needed a brand identity that could introduce the solution and test its story. Kopius* was selected to help Providence transform Propel into a scalable product by introducing engineering capacity, including specialized design and technology skills to the “in flight” solution.

Kopius rapidly rounded out the engineering, design, content, and project management capabilities of the Propel team, and collaborated with Providence and ISB’s technical teams to build the scalable Propel SaaS product and website. Valance capabilities included product ownership, data visualization, and quality assurance.

Kopius provided a nearshore team with UX/UI design, quality assurance, data visualization, product management and strategy, and project management nearshore capabilities based in the US, and top engineering talent based in Latin America.

Kopius cost-effectively focused on deliverables and building the platform’s capabilities. By engaging Kopius, the Propel product could be developed without competing with internal initiatives that could pull the Providence engineering team in different directions. This was critical because the timeline to meet customer needs was tight and could not tolerate being reprioritized behind other internal initiatives.

The Propel platform is a complex technology stack based on multiple microservices and integrations that support a rich set of features. Shortly after onboarding, the Kopius team started designing and implementing a single-sign-on (SSO) capability across critical microservices, identity management tools, and study management tools.

“The Kopius Project Manager was incredibly helpful in helping us bridge the gap with new users. He brought a rigor of process, and I could rely on him to meet timelines, listen and understand requirements, and deliver results.”
Jon Clemens, Director of Programs, Providence Genomics

Results

Kopius’ involvement enabled the Providence and ISB teams to shift from a “start-up” mindset to sustainable, best practices following a continuous integration and deployment model.

With Kopius’ support, Providence Genomics was able to deliver: an enterprise software product and a set of websites that educate patients through dynamic media-rich content about available studies based on eligibility criteria; a platform able to manage patient identities, enrollment, and electronic consent in accordance with Institutional Review Board (IRB)-approved protocols; and functionality for researchers to track and engage with patients, collect data, and return results.

“The genomics industry is highly innovative- and this project required a true collaboration of exceptional talent. No one is naïve enough to think that one org has all the answers. We worked together to lay out a plan and we’re continuing to collaborate with Kopius to meet the needs of this dynamic industry,”
Cheryl Isen, Head of Marketing, Providence Genomics

*Work was performed under the previous business name, Valence

Boeing

Data-Driven Proof-of-Concept B2B Application

A working application allowed Boeing to demonstrate key features and gauge interest in a new offering

Challenge

Boeing is a large global company with a heavily siloed organizational structure and process-rich manufacturing environment.

Modern airplanes are basically flying IoT sensor arrays, with almost every part of the plane capturing data during a flight, which is downloaded for analysis by the airline when a plane lands. This data contains a wealth of potential insights, such as performance trends that can lead to more accurate maintenance planning. This data becomes even more valuable when it is aggregated with other airline-specific data as well as supplier data so it can be used to identify trends and issues early, to the benefit of the industry.

Of course, much of this data is also proprietary and demands high security so that different airlines and suppliers are only sharing what they are willing to share and can maintain control over who sees what and for how long.

Boeing needed a better way to share data between organizations in a highly controlled and secure way.

The company wanted a proof-of-concept that would demonstrate an interaction between Boeing, an airline, and a parts supplier, and the value of this aggregated data. It was needed under a tight timeline, and it needed to demonstrate innovation and customer-focused development to Boeing’s customers.

The Solution

Because this project was a new type of endeavor, Boeing did not have an established process internally and selected Kopius* as its innovation partner, benefiting from Kopius’ nearshore engineering services, with team members based in the US and in Argentina.

Kopius conducted a series of client interviews and design sessions with key stakeholders to understand current processes and capabilities for sharing this type of data. Because this was a new capability, there were many gaps and unknowns in the process. Our team led the customer through envisioning sessions to develop wireframes for key features in the solution while also working closely with Microsoft to integrate with existing technology solutions including Microsoft Synapse, Purview, and an unreleased Microsoft product that creates and enforces contracts when data is shared securely.

Results

The solution was a responsive web application hosted in Azure that allowed users to access, share, and analyze data with airline customers and suppliers in a secure and trusted environment.

The result was a working application that allowed Boeing to demonstrate these key features to customers to gauge interest in becoming an early adopter of this new offering. The effort also enabled Boeing to collect early user feedback to inform the exploration of new revenue streams by monetizing existing data. Boeing was able to conduct market analysis rapidly and inexpensively without the long and expensive process of launching a new service.

*Work was performed under the previous business name, Valence

Stealth Mode Startup

Human-powered Avatar

Background

A stealth mode startup was inspired to invent a new model of digital engagement that links artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, and hardware to achieve a real-time realistic avatar. This solution could enable enterprise organizations to interact with people in unprecedented ways for scenarios including training and role-playing.

Facial capture that includes emotional context had been developed in Hollywood – the innovation from this startup is that the facial capture would happen in real-time. While the opportunities for film and television productions are easy to see, this client also saw a massive unmet need in the public/private domain without all the post-processing work that Hollywood spends months to create realistic avatars and scenes

Challenge

To render real-time facial features for the avatar, the solution needs to operate faster than real-time, but with technology this new, no one had experience building it.

There was no clear and obvious path for the technology, so the hardware and software elements needed to be designed together. Further, the final solution needed to be extremely efficient in terms of computation cycles without sacrificing quality and reliability.

This project included ingredients like intense time pressure, expertise in cutting-edge hardware and software, creating a seemingly impossible user experience that hadn’t been done before – all amidst an unparalleled job market with extraordinary competition for data scientists and engineers.

Kopius* was engaged because the leadership team of the digital transformation startup had heard of Kopius’ reputation for technical innovation.

Kopius was experienced working in uncertainty and could manage a project that demanded rapid prototyping and pristine technical delivery in an agile development environment.

“Kopius demonstrated ongoing agility in the face of several unknowns and variables. It was great to work with a technology partner that didn’t require us to tell them exactly what to do and when to do it so we could be successful.”

Solution

Throughout the process, Kopius’ engineering team would present concise and well-researched scientific documents that articulate architecture and engineering strategies to be considered. Then Kopius would conduct an experiment, get feedback, and create work tickets to finish a set of requirements for the upcoming sprint.

The work started by testing a range of hardware and sensor approaches, while concurrently exploring ways to capture the surface textures and features of the human face in motion. The last hurdle was to process the data received from the cameras and sensors faster than real-time.

Ultimately the solution required that the hardware capture images at 60-frames-per-second so that they could be rendered and played back at 24-frames-per-second, which is the standard for video conferencing and is perceived as seamless by the human eye. The data is stored and processed on a local workstation appliance because latency and delay hazards with cloud computing introduced too much risk to performance.

Kopius researched dozens of cameras and sensors before selecting Intel RealSense 3D cameras with an integrated RBG sensor, offering the highest depth and performance.

“Kopius’ engineers didn’t just accept the challenge – they relished it. We needed to partner with a firm that was comfortable with the unknown, could do the necessary research, had the technical expertise to innovate, and then turn out an enterprise product – and that was Kopius.” Founder, Stealth mode Startup.

“When you think about partnering with a third-party technology consultant, the relationship between engineers is especially important. Kopius’ collaboration and communication were spot on and enabled our rapid integration.”

Results

As part of the solution, Kopius also built a custom solution that generated unlimited synthetic data of faces for machine learning. The client, therefore, did not need to purchase annotated faces from third-party vendors, saving tens of thousands of dollars in training data.

The final real-time solution powers the startup’s avatars in a fully interactive 3D environment, with details like different lighting and shadows reflecting the choice of interior and exterior environments.

In addition to creating something that has never been done before, Kopius helped the startup to effortlessly collaborate between the two teams to create an enterprise-caliber platform that was more than just a science experiment. Kopius’ work has been seamlessly integrated into the startup company’s larger solution.

Kopius set this startup to be able to ship V1 of its commercial avatar product to market much faster than if it tried to organically hire the right skill sets in its early stages.

“Kopius is our go-to partner for high-end innovation tackling the toughest problems. Their contributions accelerated our innovation and go-to-market.”

*Work was performed under the previous business name, Valence

Spaceflight

Enterprise Application Design and Development

Background

Spaceflight is a premier launch services and mission management provider, offering routine, cost-effective access to space.

With the growing industry of smallsats, the demand for routine, cost-effective access to space has increased exponentially. Demand, coupled with the growing number of launch vehicle providers, created an opportunity for Spaceflight to assist in identifying, booking, and managing rideshare launches.

With a suite of products and services including satellite infrastructure, rideshare launch offerings, payload integration, and global communications networks, Spaceflight enables organizations to get launched, achieving their mission goals – on time and on budget.

Kopius has worked with Spaceflight since 2020 when we built Book My Launch and the first iteration of Mission Control, which is a task management and ticketing system that allows Spaceflight Mission Managers to manage the tasks such as testing, documentation, and communication. Mission Control also provides a Resource Center, giving customers access to reference documents, templates, and information about their Spaceflight team.

Challenge

Prior to Mission Control, Mission Managers had to patch together ad hoc management solutions, leaning heavily on decentralized documents, emails, texts, and endless phone calls.

Spaceflight needed a system to link the self-service model of Book My Launch to the backend systems used by Mission Managers. The company also needed to enable Mission Managers to support more customers as the business scaled and to provide customers with a single source to view all their mission information.

Spaceflight’s team had a strong vision for the end product and its business impact but had not previously worked on a software development effort of this nature. Spaceflight needed a partner that could guide them through the process.

Spaceflight continued its engagement with Kopius, building upon the knowledge and relationships built during the Book My Launch project.

“We could tell that Kopius* was excited about this project and was really engaged,” says Kristen Smithson, Spaceflight vice president of business operations, “When the whole team came to the office and gave a presentation, they spoke to all our needs, and we were impressed. Kopius was able to speak to the backend setup as well as how we would design it. The end-to-end capability made a difference.”

Solution

Mission Control was developed in a phased approach, with Phase 1 relying on out-of-the-box software for task management and Phase 2 relying on custom-built software for Spaceflight’s unique workflows. The phased approach enabled faster process improvement and provided user feedback that contributed to a more successful software solution in Phase 2.

“Our primary objective was to simplify the user experience to support the adoption of the tools,” said Alice Watkins, Kopius Technical Project Manager, “In addition to adding features to make the system easier to use, we were ruthlessly focused on streamlining the experience. We improved the ease-of-use, the booking process, and functionality for Mission Control.”

Because Mission Control’s intent is to digitize and streamline processes, understanding those processes was critical to success. As is the case with many fast-moving and young companies, processes had been defined at a high level but had not yet been documented at the level of granularity needed to design and develop the right software solution and user experience.

Kopius conducted dozens of research sessions, bringing designers and engineers together with Spaceflight users to explore processes and user needs. Q & A sessions were insightful and benefited from Kopius participants with strong user experience practices with deep engineering skills. Part of Kopius’ role was to capture ideas that were still forming among the Spaceflight teams and to advise Spaceflight about how to use those ideas to create a better solution. These working sessions revealed the “hidden steps” in Spaceflight’s processes, which are critical to achieving adoption by Mission Managers.

Kopius also conducted user experience research and provided UX design, interface design, software engineering, testing, and QA to Spaceflight. In addition to features that allow Mission Managers to manage customers, create tasks, and easily see what the customer can see, Kopius also built filtering functionality so Mission Managers can easily manage their work and assignments.

In Phase 2, Kopius restructured tasks and workflows, created task management systems, built a notification system that triggers emails when a customer submits a task, improved the user database, and implemented multifactor authentication via text messages to increase security.

Following the release of Phase 2, Kopius collected user feedback for future enhancements and conducted internal training and client onboarding.

“I appreciate that Kopius was good at guiding us through the technical aspects of the project while also always treating us as equals. We felt like engaged and respected partners,” said Tony Frego, vice president of mission management, “Kopius also got to know our business at a detailed level, which is not easy. It’s cool that Kopius can talk about orbits with us now.”

Results

With Book My Launch and Mission Control, Spaceflight is transforming its business and the aerospace commercial space flight industry.

The Mission Control tool is scalable, flexible, trackable, and provides better records, impressively advancing Spaceflight from its previous ad hoc systems. Further, the onboarding of new Mission Managers is more consistent, and Mission Managers can save time and effort compared to previous processes.

And because Mission Managers can better manage customers, customers are expected to have a better experience with Spaceflight and demonstrate higher satisfaction – ultimately leading to future bookings and a stronger business.

*Kopius performed this work under it’s previously known business name, Valence.

Fortune 1000 Healthcare Company

Data Strategy, Web Application, and Recommendation Engine

Challenge

Hospital administrators and staff are under intense pressure to optimize performance within facilities while delivering best-in-class care to patients. This highly regulated industry has an abundance of data, but it’s often collected and managed in disparate systems by people with ranging levels of proficiency.

One opportunity to improve hospital efficiency is to optimize the scheduling of operating rooms, surgical procedures, and services.

We were approached by an advanced SaaS-based healthcare data analytics company that needed to use existing data feeds to improve the scheduling of operations for a hospital that used its systems. Because of the sensitive nature of EHR data, security was a priority.

Solution

Kopius delivered a web application including a scheduling recommendation engine. On the back-end, the web application relied on a Paas-based solution that analyzed trends using artificial intelligence.

First, we transformed and normalized the hospital’s robust pipeline of raw and structured EHR data. Using that data, we developed a recommendation engine that prompts hospital staff to take actions based on key data indicators.

Then we designed and developed a custom web-app to present and manipulate data, including the scheduling recommendations.

Results

The solution provided hospital staff with a decision support tool capable of improving room scheduling and revealed trends and opportunities for efficiency over time. These improvements resulted in improved patient care and hospital efficiency.

*Kopius performed this work under its previously known business name, Valence.

Fortune 500 Commercial Real Estate and Logistics Solutions Provider

Data Warehousing and Analytics

Fast Growing Company Upgrades its Data Systems

Challenge

This client is a leading global investment manager and business leader in commercial real estate and logistics. The business was growing fast and expanding its footprint across five US regions.

Fast growth can be exciting, but it comes with challenges. As the business expanded into new regions, its legacy home-grown tools built in Excel struggled to meet the operational needs of management. The company had significant data but was reliant on manual processes and unstable data processes to produce reports that were critical to decision making.

The leadership knew that there were important insights hidden within their data but couldn’t reveal those insights with their legacy tools.

This challenge inhibited agility, innovation, decision-making, and reporting.

Solution

Kopius was engaged to develop a data strategy to help our client organize its data and use it to inform the business. Kopius also designed and developed KPI dashboards to make it easier to understand and use the data.

We conducted site interviews with client stakeholders to document the existing reporting processes and technologies in each region, along with tracing the KPIs from current Excel files to source data. The transitory steps focused on data foundation updates, restructuring core data platforms to enable readiness in integration with a unified global reporting architecture. The new architecture was consolidated into a global BI Reporting Suite for automated KPI reporting across regions and performance insights via interactive dashboards to the company’s leadership.

Our design team worked with the data engineering team to develop a branded interface that would highlight key data points based on input received during the discovery and interview period.

Results

The dashboards were launched and widely adopted. The client reports high satisfaction and excitement about the impact and ROI of this project.

This project also initiated a digital transformation for this client. Experiencing the efficiency gained by automating certain reporting functions from varied data sources freed the management team to consider additional opportunities to advance their growing business.

The company is now exploring additional technical advancements that could transform its business, including AR/VR, IoT, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning.

*Kopius performed this work under its previously known business name, Valence.

Healthcare Non-Profit

Clinical Trials Healthcare Research Accelerator

Background

Our client is a national not-for-profit healthcare system committed to improving the health of all people. The system includes hospitals, clinics, and a comprehensive range of services.

Among its services, the client’s organization offered a web portal where donors, patients, providers, and research scientists could look for clinical trials to improve patient health outcomes, called the Healthcare Research Accelerator.

The Healthcare Research Accelerator is a special project because it is used by doctors across the globe who are working with patients who are out of options. These doctors want to help their patients, and they have to be creative, so they seek out the latest trials in hopes they can enroll their patients and get them access to promising therapies. These doctors are often under a lot of pressure when they come to this tool, and they need a tool that is easy to use.

Challenge

The original search tool was designed and developed long ago by in-house resources, and because of considerable gaps in functionality and usability, platform support was going to end. Further, the design and development team that had originated the portal had disbanded and there was no documentation about its architecture or functionality. Our client needed to replace the Healthcare Research Accelerator with a new solution for this critical service.

The accelerator is incredibly important, but the search function had coding flaws and had reached a point where patients and providers didn’t like or trust the tool – because our client’s organization is on a mission to improve patient outcomes, it was urgent that we deliver a better way to connect people with clinical trial information.

Solution

Thanks to our significant experience working with this client on other digital projects, Kopius* had gained the client’s trust and was engaged to re-platform the clinical trials Healthcare Research Accelerator tool. Services included user experience design, user interface design, engineering, quality assurance, and deployment support.

Because of the loss of user confidence, change management practices were woven into our approach. From discovery to user experience design, and through user acceptance testing, we engaged a variety of users and provided visibility into our thinking and process. This rebuilt trust in the tool’s potential and helped to improve market sentiment.

“If you want a deployment to be adopted, you must invest time and energy in communication and collaboration with your users. The change management plan needs to address stakeholder communication and internal business processes.”
Glen Lewis, Kopius technical project manager

One of the first stages of the effort was to reverse engineer the structure of the previous iteration of the platform to identify data sources and reveal the cause of the failed search results. We conducted a four-week assessment to document how the platform was built.

Understanding why the previous platform was failing was an important step in rebuilding trust among users that this new iteration would perform as expected.

The assessment unearthed that the previous platform relied on a search function in what amounts to a continuous document. Kopius engineers built a new database according to industry best practices, which is more flexible and can scale and be managed over time.

Our data team also built custom logic for the clinical trial searches to address the unique and specific needs of users. The updated search function uses criteria to return highly relevant results without requiring an exact string of words.

We simplified the XML ingestion process by reducing and consolidating a three-step process that moved data across multiple servers to a single drag-and-drop interface.

The User Acceptance Testing period (UAT) included additional time and resources to engage users and build trust in the new tool. We prepared users for the UAT by explaining what they should expect and how we expect the tool to work before they tested it. The UAT process was divided into three testing events, and each event was followed by a detailed review of issues identified, including what happened, why it happened, and how it would be fixed, further building trust in the system.

Upon completion, we provided comprehensive and detailed documentation of the new platform and how it is built so it can be referenced, integrated, and updated more easily in the future.

Results

The new Healthcare Research Accelerator tool is easy to use, and users are excited to use it. The database has also become the primary source for clinical trial information across client websites. The design was seamless with the client’s updated brand strategy, and the platform nested within the larger brand strategy perfectly.

Through our collaborative process and open communication, we won over users who were skeptical that our project was merely to re-skin a dysfunctional tool.

Kopius’ efforts to build elegant mapping logic will help doctors and patients easily find the trials they need, which will hopefully enable patients to overcome their sickness and feel better.

“This project was not easy. You handled our requests with grace and with integrity, and we’re so thankful to you for this hard work.”
Client Project Director

*Kopius performed this work under its previously known business name, Valence.

Fintech

Cryptocurrency Trading Screens

Results in Faster Adoption by Users

Challenge

A global financial technology provider needed cryptocurrency trading screens created from scratch as part of a digital assets trading and payments platform for a cryptocurrency offering.

Our client had an API that could be coded against, but it lacked a front-end screen for retail-based customers to trade.

The trading user interface needed to be visually engaging and easy to use for traders as well as encompass the nuances of managing a crypto asset.

The work needed to be delivered quickly to get ahead of certain market conditions.

The Solution

We were engaged to design and develop cryptocurrency trading screens. Our nearshore team implemented a React.js solution to build out the trading order entry screens, which allowed for efficient updating of screen elements and a fast and responsive user experience, with screens that included engaging trading chart visualizations. Our services included visual and user experience design, resulting in a new and improved graphical user interface (GUI).

Results

The client now has a world-class trading screen that allows for faster adoption by users that don’t want to integrate directly into their API. The work was accomplished in half the time that it would have taken the client’s own teams to get to market.