New! 2024 Customer Portal Update
Varsity has been hard at work on a complete rebuild of our customer website. This update has been long overdue, but we are very close to a release. The need for this new version is to modernize the entire framework we built on several years ago and incorporate new technologies with direct integrations with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.
The plan for this rewrite involved literally rebuilding the platform from the ground up. Why the big investment? The payoff comes in the development of new features, reduced bugs, and shorter time to market. Already in the QA testing phase (pre-release), the development team is finding that fixes to bugs can be done in about 90% less time. Yes, 90% less effort, which also means even faster turnaround times. QA testing success (validating software changes work correctly) is showing a 95% success rate. Previously, that number was as low as 40% due to legacy code and integration issues.
It’s just another lesson on the work involved in building platforms. So why do we do it?
We are getting to the true vision of why we started down this road. Our goal is to provide a management platform for your daily use, from viewing and managing your assets (Asset Inventory), managing your IT policies, and creating your own workflows integrated with cloud applications.
Our first release will be a direct replacement of the customer portal. But post-release, we will be able to move immediately into the features customers have asked for over the years.
We appreciate your patience and your input as we reach this final stage of our release. We expect a release this quarter. We will continue to keep you posted.
– Varsity Dev and Product Team
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Initiatives for Third Quarter 2025 (Q3)
As I’ve shared previously, we follow a business model framework that works towards continually making improvements within our operation. The goal is to consistently ask how we create value for our customers and then do the tasks/actions that reach that goal. For the quarter ending September 30, we have some ambitious initiatives that will challenge everyone in the organization.
PowerBI Migration
For many years, we’ve been on a proprietary dashboard platform that integrates with our core ERP solution. Although we decided to migrate off this platform at the end of 2023, we haven’t been able to start until this quarter. In this quarter, we plan to have our internal PowerBI reports completed for our core services. After completing that goal, we will reassess in October about tackling additional analytics, visualization, and whether we are ready to incorporate Azure Cognitive Services.
IT Documentation Migration
We will be migrating our document management solution to a new platform. The new platform uses AI for problem identification and provides better out-of-the-box automation and integrations.
Device Remote Management
We’ve been long overdue to reevaluate the management tool we use for remote monitoring and management. Unfortunately, it looks like Microsoft Intune isn’t going to be that product for many reasons. So we expect to finalize our decision and begin implementation this quarter. Our top contenders provide out-of-the-box automations, some AI features, and better support for Mac OS features. More to come in the coming months. But our expectation is that this migration will have little or no impact on clients and should be transparent in the background.
