| Report Development Policies and Procedures |
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The Information on this page describes the process we follow when developing a custom report solution for a client. If you are looking for information on what type of reporting services we offer please click the link below to be taken to the custom reports main page on this site. Custom Crystal Reports, QuickBooks Reports and SalesForce Reports
What We Need From You
Discovery Meeting The discovery process is how we as a company become aware of what you, the client, want and expect from a custom QuickBooks report(s) development project. The discovery process is multi-phased and actually begins with your initial, free, consultation. One or more discovery sessions will then take place to solidify the design and a Statement of Work (described below under "What You Can Expect From Us") that describes your project and it's final deliverable(s) will be the result.
Your initial consultation with us is free and generally occurs when you first call us to ask us about a custom QuickBooks report(s) project you have in mind. Occasionally the first call we get from a prospective client is an information gathering call for them and the initial free consultation call is set up for a later date or they call back at another time and request that a free consultation be arranged. It is during this initial free consultation that we determine if we can help you with the custom QuickBooks report(s) design project you have in mind. It is also when you, as a client, determine if you want to engage 4Sight to handle your project. If you determine you want to make use of 4Sights QuickBooks report development services then you will be asked to provide a mock-up or mock-ups (as described below under the section "Exact mock-ups of the reports you want produced") of the report(s) you wish to be developed. The discovery meeting occurs after you, as the client, determine you want to engage 4Sight to develop you custom QuickBooks report(s). This is a more in depth look at your reporting needs and is generally scheduled for 1-3 business days after you send the report mock-up(s) for us to review. During discovery process we will discuss the report mock-up(s) you previously sent us and go over any changes that need to be made due to technology limitations. We will also provide you with any suggestions for modifications or additions that we feel you may find of benefit but may have been unaware were capable of being produced. Generally only one discovery meeting is required however this process may be repeated one or more times if, during the course of the first discovery, new requests are made by the client which require new mock-up(s) to be delivered requiring additional discovery. At the end of the discovery process we will then draft a Statement of Work for your project as discussed below in "What You Can Expect From Us". What You Should Provide QuickBooks Custom Report Projects
Files should be QuickBooks Backup (.QBB) or QuickBooks Portable Company (.QBM) files. Files are to be submitted via the 4Sight Website's Submit File page. This option becomes available to customers, from the User Menu on the right hand column of the website, when they have an active project in process with us. Files of up to 800MB may be submitted in this manner. If your QuickBooks Backup (.QBB) file or QuickBooks Portable Company (.QBM) file is larger than 800MB, or if you do not have a reasonably high-speed connection to the Internet, other arrangements will be made for you to submit your file. These are the mock-ups of the report(s) you engage us to design and should look exactly as you you expect the final report(s) to look. These mock-ups are a direct result of the discovery process described above and we will work with you during that process to make sure that the final version(s) are within the abilities of the reporting technologies that currently work with QuickBooks to provide. The mock-up(s) will become part of your statement of work as described below under "What You Can Expect From Us" This should be provided to us over the phone for security purposes. This can be in the form of a Terminal Service login, PC Anywhere, VPN or any other remote technology you currently use. If you do not currently have remote capabilities available at your site we can work with you to find the best solution. The benefit to a remote access scenario is that it enables us to work without interrupting your day. If you prefer not to allow remote access into your system we can use GoTo Meeting. The drawback to using GoTo Meeting is that it requires someone to be on your end to start the session and this can impact both your work flow as well as ours. Regardless of the access method we will be happy to work with you via whichever you choose The Statement of Work document outlines all the details of the project and its deliverables and is described below in detail under the section "What You Can Expect From Us". Other Custom Report Design Projects
(if your database is a very large Oracle or MS SQL database or if it is any other very large datamart type installation then remote access capabilities will have to be set up as defined below) Data files for submission should be compressed in Zip format. If you do not know how to do this we will help you. Files are to be submitted via the 4Sight Website's Submit File page. This option becomes available to customers, from the User Menu on the right hand column of the website, when they have an active project in process with us. Files of up to 800MB may be submitted in this manner. If your Zip compressed data file is larger than 800MB, or if you do not have a reasonably high-speed connection to the Internet, other arrangements will be made for you to submit your file. These are the mock-ups of the report(s) you engage us to design and should look exactly as you you expect the final report(s) to look. These mock-ups are a direct result of the discovery process described above and we will work with you during that process to make sure that the final version(s) are within the abilities of the reporting technologies that currently work with QuickBooks to provide. The mock-up(s) will become part of your statement of work as described below under "What You Can Expect From Us" These should be provided to us over the phone for security purposes. This can be in the form of a Terminal Service login, PC Anywhere, VPN or any other remote technology you currently use. If you do not currently have remote capabilities available at your site we can work with you to find the best solution. The benefit to a remote access scenario is that it enables us to work without interrupting your day. If you prefer not to allow remote access into your system we can use GoTo Meeting. The drawback to using GoTo Meeting is that it requires someone to be on your end to start the session and this can impact both your work flow as well as ours. Regardless of the access method we will be happy to work with you via whichever you choose What You Can Expect From Us
Discussed below are specifics regarding what you can expect from us should you choose to engage us for a custom report(s) development project in the manner described above in the section "What We Need From You". Statement of Work A Statement of Work is basically a blueprint for a custom report(s) development project. It outlines exactly how the report is to be built, what its results will be, how it is formatted, etc. Included in the statement of work will be the final report mock-up(s) as determined by the discovery process outlined above under "Discovery Meeting". The Statement of Work serves a dual purpose. It provides you, the client, with a detailed picture of the work we are performing for you and it protects us, as the consultants, from what is known in the industry as scope creep. Scope creep occurs in a project that is not well defined and can lead to misunderstandings between clients and consultants about what the deliverable(s) of a project are supposed to look like and how they are supposed to perform. Scope creep can also lead to unnecessary project costs due to change requests made in the middle of a project that could have been avoided by a thorough discovery process and well defined Statement of Work. We will never begin a custom report(s) project without first sending a Statement of Work to a client for a client to sign off on. Data Privacy
Here at 4Sight we take our customers privacy very seriously. If you are delivering your data to us via FTP it is through a secure account to a destination on our FTP server to which only you the client and we (4Sight) have access to. No client has access to any other area of the FTP server then their own folder. Once your file has been uploaded we remove it from the FTP server as soon as we are notified (the notification is automatic) and place it on a secure system here in our offices. We will never share any account names or passwords to your data files with anyone outside the company or any subcontractors who work with the company who are not directly involved in working on your project. We will never share any remote access account names or passwords provided to us for access to your systems during a report(s) development project with anyone outside the company or any subcontractors who work with the company who are not directly involved in working on your project. Warranty on Workmanship We guarantee that reports developed by us will meet the standards set forth in the agreed upon Statement of Work (as described above under the "Statement of Work" section) as developed jointly between 4Sight and your company. Should you find any discrepancies in form or functionality of the report within 60 days of final delivery we will make the necessary adjustments free of charge. Warranty on Output We guarantee that the output of reports developed by us will meet the standards set forth in the agreed upon Statement of Work (as described above under the "Statement of Work" section) as developed jointly between 4Sight and your company. Should you find any discrepancies in the output of the report that are inconsistent with the output expected based on the Statement of Work within 60 days of final delivery we will make the necessary adjustments free of charge. Warranty Exceptions Should any discrepancies as covered by either the Warranty on Workmanship or Warranty on Output above be discovered to be the result of inconsistencies in the data in a clients database or the result of any third party software in use that was not previously disclosed during the discovery phase and thus not taken into consideration during the design phase and the subsequent development of the statement of work then any work done to determine such will be billable at the rate established for the development of the project and such discrepancies will not be covered by either the Warranty on Output or the Warranty on Workmanship. |