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:

• 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 helped lead to the success of this great company. AbleTech continues to work with Sharesight as it expands into Australia.

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.

As the needs and demands of the Radio New Zealand website changed and grew a number of issues were starting to emerge. These included the ever increasing costs the website was starting to generate in both financial terms and resources of time in order to maintain the site. As a media site in this day and age it was also under-performing in its responsiveness to new content with at least a thirty minute delay between reporters adding new content and that content going live. Scaling was also becoming a serious issue in that when the site was experiencing a heavy load of visitors it would often cause the system to crash.

Abletech had already developed a great relationship with Radio New Zealand having worked in the past on a number of different projects. With these growing issues in mind, Radio New Zealand turned to AbleTech to help them resolve their website woes. The answer was a complete website overhaul where the entire site was rewritten in Ruby on Rails code replacing what had been an off-the-shelf content management system with a custom built business specific application.

Some of the challenges that were faced included:

• Such a complex website that needed to remain live at all times
• Restructuring data that had previously been either unstructured or loosely structured
• Creating a more efficient and intuitive back-end experience for easy updating of content in real time

AbleTech started the process in a low risk area of the website replicating what was as well as refining and enhancing new features such as tags and author search capabilities for the site. In rebuilding the site piece by piece it reduced the risk of any failure in the site as work progressed remaining live at all times.

The finished site has provided a totally customised computer system in its structure and architectural design specific to Radio New Zealand’s unique business model needs. New content is now able to be updated in real time with ease and after the recent Canterbury earthquakes, the site was placed under huge load with no issues in it’s speed or performance.

This project is yet another great example highlighting AbleTech’s ability at modeling business problems applying the right technology providing innovative and future proof solutions with the business smarts to make it happen.

AbleTech was approached by a client who had a great idea for an iPhone app but needed both a technology partner and graphic designer to make it a reality. With our business partners we were able to take care of project managing both the software development and graphic design to deliver the product from initial concept right through to uploading the finished version to the iPhone App Store.

As its name suggests, iPoint2 points to places, any place you like and using an extremely accurate algorithm, produces both accurate range and bearing giving you a fantastic personal tool that knows where you are, where you’ve been and where you want to go; and points you to them. What use is this, you may ask? A part from being a whole heap of fun, you can find the direction to your house made even more fun if you are on the other side of the world! Maybe a religious site such as Mecca or historical sites such as the Pyramids in Egypt. More practical uses could include where your car is parked or your favourite fishing spot; the applications are endless.

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 time-frame, but with each piece of functionality trialled and refined as it was built.

LoadStorm is a SaaS application that provides load testing for web sites and web apps with their customers including such companies as Dell, General Electric, Microsoft, Oracle and Nokia. 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.

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

Xtreme Networks is a business focused company. They started by helping businesses to get a presence on the internet - setting up their customers with a domain name and website. Just over 10 years later Xtreme Networks are offering complete internet solutions for New Zealand business. They supply wired and wireless internet connections, networking hardware, they operate data centres and offer a wide range of managed network services.

The Xtreme Networks iPhone Application came out of a desire to keep their customers up to date with their Internet usage even when they are away from the office.

AbleTech were commissioned to build an iPhone App that would integrate with Xtreme Networks customer portal to provide up to date usage information. The iPhone App provides:

• A unique journey routing solution which plans journeys based on terrain factors important for cycling and walking and not considered by available routing solutions
• Summary usage data for all data connections belonging to a customer
• Push notifications when a connection reaches preset usage thresholds
• One-button connection through to the full Xtreme Networks customer web-portal

This project was a perfect opportunity for AbleTech to demonstrate our capability to translate our deep understanding of web applications to the world of iPhone Apps.

Macaulay Metals is New Zealand’s largest, privately owned scrap metal recycling business. Their extensive operation covers a very large chunk of the North Island. From their network of yards they transport hundreds of skip bins to and from their suppliers collecting a variety of scrap metals.

Macaulay Metal’s CFO Phil Springford, had an innovative concept that would significantly improve the way they dispatch their drivers and track the turn-over of bins at their supplier’s sites. As a result, Macaulay’s and AbleTech worked together to make the idea - a real time tracking and dispatch system - to life. The solution developed includes the following features:

• An android phone application which is used by each truck driver to geo-locate bins when delivered, track movements and provide a real time delivery and pick-up task schedule for the drivers.
• A web based dispatcher application for the real-time scheduling of truck driver tasks directly to the drivers mobile phone application
• Real-time mapping and reporting features for the location and movement of bins and trucks

For AbleTech the development of this application was an exciting and challenging project which allowed us to leverage cost effective Android devices, mobile and web applications, agile development processes and “kiwi” ingenuity to make it all a reality.