The purpose of this blog is to share some of our struggles, mistakes - it is a desire to not just charge our success but also our failures, mistakes, and challenges, and how these very failures help us to improve and serve our customers better. One of our clients has given us more work than we can efficiently handle. Orders would be placed directly from the customer via a shared spreadsheet. The client would communicate what they want, and we would then need to take that and enter it in our MIS system so that pricing can be generated, inventory deducted, a schedule created, tasks assigned, and invoices created. The process of simply entering an order with 10's or 100's of SKUs could take us days - just to enter. This was a challenge that created an opportunity for improvement and efficiency. We decided to create a custom portal for the customer that communicates directly with our MIS system. It was not a quick solution or a perfect solution but a solution that addressed a few things, including instant pricing (for most orders) and instant order entry. That does not mean it was perfect or did not need correction; it did and probably still does. But it was a stepping stone in the right direction. These custom portals are a work in progress. They are not perfect; we will continue to improve on them, their look, feel, and efficiency. As of right now, they allow our customers to get a view, a window into their account. Including open invoices, statements, past orders, and one very nice little feature, "feedback". It allows them to write and share their experience with our developer. One more story of a struggle or challenge we had and how it is helping us improve our service.