We Do:
- Application Development
We develop web and mobile applications that will transform your business.
- Online Services
Our online services include AddressFinder and MapMySites.
- Consulting Services
Helping you to develop a web application strategy.
AbleTech are specialist web and mobile application developers with a reputation for the rapid delivery of innovative applications.
Our experienced team thrives on applying our know how to developing innovative solutions which meet our customer’s complex business needs.
We are great to work with, and the processes we use let our customers see what we are producing every step of the way.
Discuss your project with us today and see the value we can add.
Featured Case Studies
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Share Sight
Online Share Portfolio Manager
Sharesight is a SaaS application that helps DIY investors to manage their shares. Sharesight is simple and intuitive to use. It is designed to provide maximum output for minimum input.
AbleTech took responsibility for the technical aspects of Sharesight.
This included many aspects:
- the development of the Ruby on Rails web application
- leasing and administering servers
- database administration
- daily system and data backups
- web service integration with external vendors – NZX, ASX, Google and StrikeIron
Building Sharesight was a challenge, but AbleTech’s depth of technical and business experience led to the success of this great company. AbleTech continues to work with Sharesight as it expands into Australia.
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iPhone App
The AED Locator
AbleTech has built an iPhone app to help save lives. The AED Locations app will quickly locate the nearest AED (Automatic External Defibrillator) to your current iPhone location using the fully customized version of AbleTech’s MapMySites API.
AED owners have contributed their locations to this New Zealand wide database with the hope of saving lives in their communities. The app allows you to have these life saving locations available on your iPhone wherever you go or use the app to plan ahead or have the data at your finger tips when needed most.
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Ministry of Social Development
Developer Training & Application Development
AbleTech’s contribution at the Ministry of Social Development was twofold – to train Java developers in the use of Ruby on Rails, and to contribute to the redevelopment of an existing application using these new technologies.
Ruby on Rails training
AbleTech were asked to contribute by peer programming with an experienced Java developer. Although AbleTech was aware of Peer Programming, this was the first time AbleTech had actually participated in it. They found it to be a very effective way of transferring the required Ruby on Rails knowledge. Within a week, although starting with almost zero experience with Ruby on Rails, the Java developer was contributing positively. By week three, the developer was at a stage where he could independently build his own components.
AbleTech continued to peer-program with this developer for five months. By the end of this period, he was trained to a sufficient level that he could lead his own project. This has been an approach AbleTech has taken now with a number of other MSD developers being trained in Ruby on Rails.
Development
AbleTech lead a project to replace an existing Java based application with a Ruby on Rails replacement. Interesting aspects to this application include:
- Deployed on top of JRuby
- Integrated with corporate LDAP for authentication and authorisation
- Complex workflow between front and back office
- Used at all MSD service centres
- Export reports to Microsoft Excel
AbleTech continue to work with MSD in ongoing projects.
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Streets Alive
Wellington Walking Challenge
Streets Alive is a walking challenge where workplace teams compete in a six week ‘walk off.’ The initiative is part of Greater Wellington’s work to encourage sustainable transport and the challenge hub, Streetsalive.org.nz, is developed by AbleTech. It is the place where teams sign-up, record their walks and track their progress against the other teams.
The building of the streetsalive.org.nz web application is a great example of agile development. In conjunction with Greater Wellington, Living Streets Aotearoa had successfully trialled a web-based walking challenge in 2010. Greater Wellington brought their learning from that programme to the design of Streets Alive and in one whiteboard session with AbleTech the core functionality was mapped out. AbleTech then rolled out the website functions in rapid iterative steps allowing the Greater Wellington team to experience the site and provide feedback very quickly. The final solution was delivered in a very short timeframe, but with each piece of functionality trialled and refined as it was built.
Claire Pascoe, Sustainable Transport Planner, Greater Wellington Regional Council says…
“Working with AbleTech was a dream. They very quickly grasped what we were after and were away making it happen – within days we had something to look at. Feedback was always welcomed and taken on board with changes implemented almost immediately. The layering approach to the process meant that we could easily tweak the site along the way to make sure the final product was exactly what we wanted. Once the initiative was launched, the AbleTech team continued to provide fantastic support, leaving both Greater Wellington, and our Streets Alive participants, very satisfied.”
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Radio New Zealand
Upgrade of legacy systems
Radio New Zealand’s system for managing publishing rights was showing it’s age. The DOS-based application was difficult to use, and almost impossible to modify. The data was stuck in an outdated, inaccessible database.
Radio NZ were referred to AbleTech who worked with them to develop a replacement system based on Ruby on Rails. This involved:
- modelling the system using UML
- building the new web 2.0 interface
- migrating the existing database to the new model running on MySQL
- introducing multi-user capabilities
AbleTech continues to work with Radio New Zealand to improve both this system and others.
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LoadStorm.com
On-demand load testing
LoadStorm is a SaaS application that provides load testing for web sites and web apps.
AbleTech worked remotely with the American-based client, leveraging our SaaS business experience and Ruby on Rails technical capability.
Areas of particular interest include:
- Optimising a user’s first time experience
- Using AJAX to enhance the application’s speed
- Using background processes to execute time-consuming tasks
- And using AJAX to feedback to the user the progress
- Applying screen-scraping tools to define and execute the load tests
Working with a remote client such as CustomerCentrix proved remarkably easy with tools such as Skype and IM. AbleTech were able to make the time zone differences a real asset, as tasks were completed here in New Zealand and ready for use when the client arrived at work the next day.
AbleTech has continued to build and apply its expertise in SaaS and start-up businesses.
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Inland Revenue
Online initiatives for families
AbleTech worked with Inland Revenue in the development of a number of their web-based systems.
Working for Families tax credits
AbleTech were initially engaged to work with IRD’s Business Consultants on the
development of a web system for capturing the personal and financial information.This data was then fed into IRD’s existing back-end systems via an XML interface,
the then resulting entitlement information was displayed to the user.
External authentication
AbleTech were then engaged to build much of IRD’s user registration, authentication and authorisation systems. These front-end and back-end modules were used for both the Inland Revenue and KiwiSaver web sites. These modules interfaced with numerous existing systems such as their LDAP repository, mainframe and document management
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Cycling and Walking Journey Planner
Alternative Transport Planner
Walking and cycling is not only good for our health, they are truly sustainable forms of transport. The challenge for the Sustainable Transport Team at the Greater Wellington Regional Council is to encourage participation in these alternative forms of transport.
The tool they have created, in conjunction with AbleTech, is the Cycling and Walking Journey Planner which plans optimum trips utilising the many facilities and natural features of the region, while also considering the often challenging terrain. Specific features developed by AbleTech for the planner include;- A unique journey routing solution which plans journeys based on terrain factors important for cycling and walking and not considered by available routing solutions
- On screen drag-able rerouting, so that specific locations can easily be added to the journey plan
- Auto-complete address search, including points of interest, for speedy entry of journey start and end points
- Calculators for the health, economic and environmental benefits of a cycling or walking journey
Simon Kennett, Active Transport Coordinator, Greater Wellington Regional Council says…
“The cycling and walking journey planner was a very ambitious project for us to take on as the Wellington region features complicated topography and an extremely complicated track and road network. In order to improve on the alternatives (including our own regional cycling maps) this journey planner needed to be absolutely world-class. AbleTech’s team tackled the many challenges this project presented with great creativity and determination. It’s been very satisfying to see the journey planner evolve and become more and more popular in the year and a half since it’s launch. We’re confident it’s a world leader.”
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Telecom New Zealand
Address Location Management
AbleTech built an Address Location Management application for this major Telco which allows users to find and modify an address as well as exchange information through the use of an interactive map.
The application is deployed into a full stack enterprise system – Oracle Enterprise Manager (J2EE server), Oracle spatial datasets with Oracle MapViewer, Oracle 10g Database, and a single-signon security model.
The application was built using JRuby to leverage the Ruby on Rails framework and enable a rich AJAX web application to be quickly constructed outside of a heavy weight Java environment.
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Powershop.co.nz
Electricity shop – in a website
AbleTech helped Youdo build the supplier portal/billing and network reconciliation components for Powershop. Powershop is a large scale consumer and retail facing online electricity supplier.
The system is entirely Rails based and is a great case study demonstrating how Rails scales well delivering a large enterprise sized application in arguably a fraction of the cost than that of using traditional enterprise tools.Powershop is set to revolutionise the retail power sector in New Zealand and is another great example of the way the Internet and web applications are changing traditional industry paradigms.