There's so much more to managing software than changing the code!

Over the last year, we've been working to build a suite of products that go beyond code changes and address the whole spectrum of issues associated with accessing, using, maintaining, and producing software. Your response tells us that we're on the right track. Naturally, we were very curious about why you, our customers, seem to agree. Are the products in the suite having a positive impact on your company's collective experience? Did installing our product(s) improve the quality of life at your workplace? And, if so, how?

Further, we hear that it's often difficult to convince corporate management that these types of tools can actually make a difference in a company's bottom line. They're not just an expense; they can actually increase competitiveness. So, to encourage people to think about ways of measuring the effect that implementing our software management tools has had on their company, we decided to have a contest. Published here for your benefit are the winning stories.

We sincerely thank everyone who sent us an entry, and we particularly thank the companies who gave us permission to publish their entrant's submission.

First place: Kathleen Connelly

GOT PRODUCTIVITY?

Mayor's Jewelers, Inc., located in Sunrise, Florida, is a leading upscale retailer of fine quality guild jewelry, watches and giftware, with nearly 40 locations across the country. Our iSeries development staff has 4 full-time senior programmer/analysts and 2 project managers. In 1999, after upgrading a vendor software package without the benefit of a Change Management System (CMS), and seeing the production and development issues that we dealt with on a daily basis, I asked for permission to evaluate CMS products for our company.

It is a "given" that any CMS should promote objects and source successfully. After that, it becomes a matter of "What have you done for me lately?" If you're not asking that question when evaluating packages, you're not getting your money's worth! I expect a package to help me with productivity on a daily basis—and TurnOver has exceeded my expectations! Have we seen the cost-justification and increased productivity we expected? YES, and then some.

By setting some standards within TurnOver, everyone's daily routine can be improved. Entering details and user-defined fields on tasks can save you, and your co-workers, time in the future. Information entered once is available to everyone via WiseDesk, or in Projects.

By definition, we have the kind of job that requires us to constantly change gears, re-evaluate priorities, leave something half-done to work on immediately pressing problems, and keep doing a good job through it all. Companies give a certain number of vacation days, sick days, and holidays. How about those "stupid days" where you have trouble remembering your own name? When they come up, I need all the help I can get, and TurnOver gives it to me. I think this product has "helped keep me sane" and you can't put a price on that.

Second place: Randy O'Neil

We had 17 plants using 12 iSeries computers across the country. They were all using home-grown menu systems. We migrated all of the old menu options into SoftMenu using conversion programs, so we did not have to manually re-enter all of the menu options into SoftMenu.

The next phase of the project required all 12 computers to be consolidated into 2 machines located at our headquarters. We migrated one machine a month. By far the easiest part of the transition was copying the SoftMenu options from one system to the other. It was as simple as selecting the destination and pressing Enter. When it came time to cut over to the new system, we threw the switch, and the users never knew the difference.

Sometimes a project's success is not measured in the number of compliments, but in the lack of complaints.

This project finished on time and under budget. It could not have been so successful without the help and support of SoftMenu. It is easy to use and easy to maintain, which is a nice combination. Where it used to take hours to reprogram a menu, it now takes only minutes to add a menu option—whether for just one user, or for a whole group of users all at once.

Since SoftMenu is now centrally managed, it has resulted in a cost savings of over $159,000 per year! These savings are based on the fact that one analyst at each location would have to spend several hours a week maintaining their menu systems.

Third place: Michelle Brown

As the operations manager at my company, I truly have extensive experience in the 'before & after' category! Put quite simply, my life before implementing TurnOver Change Management system was, well . . . I am not sure I even HAD a life!

Before TurnOver, moving a typical task to production was a long, laborious process that allowed far too much room for error. A programmer had to create a source member that contained instructions for how the request should be promoted. Then my staff had to review these instructions and manually send network files of all the source members involved to the target machine. Next, we had to receive all the network files into the correct libraries, set our library list for the correct environment, then manually compile each affected object. After all that, we had to verify that security was correct on each object. Then, if we were lucky, everything was done and the users could access the newly installed objects. Clearly, this process did not allow for those 'emergency' tasks . . . you know, the things that simply MUST go to production immediately.

Far too often, we would promote a task to production, only to find it caused something else to fail. Why? Because the programmer who modified the program in question was not aware another programmer had modified it as well to address a different program, and someone's changes would be missing.

I simply cannot quantify the time differences between before & after TurnOver. We spent countless hours doing our manual change management and countless hours fighting fires created by missing files or programs with different source files. What I can say is, I was ready to pull out my hair!

We finally sought out a solution and chose TurnOver. Admittedly, getting TurnOver installed and set up correctly did take time. But, what a glorious new day after that was done! Now I can promote an almost infinite number of tasks daily, simply by selecting a couple of options. Programmers never modify the wrong source anymore, as TurnOver just won't let them! They don't have to spend unnecessary hours writing up promotion instructions, as TurnOver knows what to do. Object security? Yep . . . TurnOver has that covered as well! And much to the delight of the users and the programmers, we can wait until the last minute to promote a critical task to production because TurnOver makes it so fast and easy to accomplish.

The programmers were a bit reluctant at first to use this product, but now they can't seem to function without it! Thank you SoftLanding for giving me back my life!

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