Building a Salesforce Appexchange product for Sigma Systems
Sigma Systems is one of the world’s leading players in the Configure-Price-Quote sector. Their platform integrates with all the other major players, via their suite of off-the-shelf products. When they needed a turn-key solution for the Salesforce.com Platform, they asked Desynit to build it for them.
Their Challenge
‘Every business wants to be a digital business’
This is the view of Catherine Michel, Sigma’s chief strategy officer, and it is the organisation’s mission to make this a reality for their clients in the Telecommunication, Media and High Tech sector. Through their industry leading software, they provide a platform for their customers to bring their products effectively to market, and notoriously complex subscription bundles can be modelled, quoted and ordered through Sigma’s products.
With their HQ in Canada, and regional offices in the US, UK, India, Japan and Brazil, Sigma serves an impressive enterprise client base, including many of the major international players in the telecoms and media sector. It’s their turnkey solutions, which can be deployed quickly across all the major platforms, that has driven their success.
Having a product which integrated effectively with the Saleforce.com platform represented a very important strategic move for Sigma. It would give the organisation that all-important presence on the AppExchange, and allow Salesforce users the opportunity to seamlessly integrate with the Sigma Catalog product.
Sigma had a full set of requirements for the integration with Salesforce.com and they needed to assemble a project team of experts to deliver within a well-defined timeframe. That was when they got in touch with Desynit.
The Results
Desynit delivered Sigma’s AppExchange connectors, using an Agile delivery methodology. The work was split into 2 week sprints, in order to effectively plan and track each element of the development work. Within these sprints, the two teams would have a daily ‘stand up’ (conducted over the phone in the case of this project) to review where they were in terms of items delivered and run through the day’s work ahead. Each week, the teams would also have a face to face catch up.
‘Agile worked really well on this project,’ says Simon Lawrence, one of Desynit’s Advanced Salesforce Developers, ‘We knew the core of what we wanted the to do. We didn’t spend time carefully planning the whole project from start to finish, but delivered continuously through Agile sprints.’
Once the application had been completed, Desynit carried out the rigorous tests that Salesforce demands of all ISV partners, followed by a successful submission through the AppExchange security review process. The Sigma Catalog is now available on the AppExchange for purchase.
I’ve been happy with the outcome. I’ve always been really impressed by the quality and the end result. In terms of delivery, the Desynit team have gone above and beyond.
