+351 210 995 028
I worked with Karma Consulting in a project that combined Java and Rails, running on JRuby. Everything went smoothly and according to schedule, and the quality of the deliverable was high. Although the project was done remotely, that didn't cause any issues since we were in continuous communication and always had the latest version of the project to check out and provide feedback.
Some of our Client References
Optimus
Optimus is the #3 wireless telecommunications provider in Portugal. The company sells wireless voice, mobile Internet, and multimedia services under several brands. It also bundles home Internet and digital television services with its wireless plans.
In partnership with Optimus and a third party sales force incentives company, under the Optimus’ initiative Academia On, Karma Consulting developed a sales force incentive software, which is not just a full featured shopping cart and ecommerce platform with over 6000 products, but also includes content management modules, an advanced reporting system and business intelligence support, rules engine and notification system. In addition, it also integrates with several backend systems, including ERP and payment providers. Currently the system supports more than 1000 active users.
Universidade Atlântica
Administered by E.I.A. – Ensino, Investigação e Educação SA, the Universidade Atlântica is one of the most recognized private institutions for higher education in Portugal. Their main subjects of teaching and research are based in four strategic areas: “Business Studies”, “Health”, “Information Technology and Communication” and “Planning, Environment and Development”.
Karma Consulting developed the new class scheduling system, which replaced a legacy single user system. The main benefits of this system are the automation features in generating, managing and publishing class schedules, taking into account several restrictions and rules. The new system, also enables several users to collaborate in the building of schedules, and makes them directly available to students online. The application is available only in the University's VPN, is internally hosted and features heavy load during the start of each term. The system makes heavy use of recent frontend technologies to facilitate schedule navigation, adjustment and validation, and also features Crystal Reports integration.
Grupo Valouro - Rações do Nabão
Grupo Valouro S.A. is comprised of several companies that engage in the production of animal feed and associated activities. It was founded in 1977. Currently the market leader in Portugal, with several factories and sites, Valouro exports a significant part of it's production.
In a newly created factory, Grupo Valouro wanted to improve the level of control on some of it's processes, for efficiency reasons, but also to meet regulatory requirements such as fine-grained traceability (some of the customers require or encourage HACCP certification). Karma Consulting developed an operational control system that manages production, shipping and raw materials, to facilitate operational plant management. The system interfaces with line equipment such as Zebra barcode printers, and handles generation of barcodes according to international standards and client specifications.
Vodafone Portugal
Vodafone Portugal is the #2 wireless telecommunications provider in Portugal. The company serves about 4 million subscribers over its nationwide cellular network . In addition to mobile telecom services, Vodafone Portugal offers fixed-line voice and data telecom services to corporate clients.
Vodafone’s sales force incentive system was developed back in 2008. Since then, several improvements and upgrades were applied, allowing for a continued operational success during the entire period, and also ensuring a continuously innovative solution for more than 1000 users. Integrating the Spree eCommerce platform, this system is not just a full featured shopping cart and ecommerce platform, but also a content management solution for the sales force team, with an advanced reporting system and business intelligence support for managers. It also features a rules engine, a notification system and campaign system management, to create, customize and publish different commercial campaigns. It integrates with the Vodafone’s ERP sales system.
41concepts
41concepts is a Danish technology consulting company, specialized in web applications development in Ruby on Rails technology.
In a new product the company was building, 41concepts wanted to combine in the same application a Java core with a modern web frontend developed in Rails. Karma Consulting developed the integration between the Java application and the Rails application (both running in JRuby in the same JVM, they were effectively a single application), with a special emphasis on resource unification (database access, logging, network, external APIs, other resources). One of the features of the project was a very integrated startup process, meaning that the Rails boot process had to be customized, instrumented and fully controllable from Java, with a high level of granularity.
PTGamers
PTGamers was a Portuguese community for gaming enthusiasts, ranking in the top 15 Portuguese sites in terms of traffic, and with over 400.000 members. There were also other associated communities dedicated to Music, Movies, Football, Lifestyle and others.
When the site owners wanted to introduce improvements, Karma Consulting developed the new version of the site (a complete rewrite and change of technology from ASP.NET), introducing several new features including a social dimension, a new layout, seamless integration with the forum system, and transformation from separate sites to a unified and multi-site platform. One of the project's challenges was the migration of content and asset database, containing several Terabytes of data. The security, performance and reliability of the service was also much improved by this new site, and due to the volume of traffic (several million page views per day) , optimization and scaling were important aspects of the project. The project was externally housed, but managed by a dedicated system administrator.
SUMOL+COMPAL
SUMOL+COMPAL enjoys a leading position on the Portuguese drinks and food products market. It produces and represents some of the best known, most consumed product, and most popular brands in Portugal, with large market shares in carbonated drinks, juices, nectars, still fruit drinks and carbonated or still waters, including flavored waters.
Due to it's very specific requirements, they needed to build a custom employee attendance and access control system. Karma Consulting developed the system, and it has been in successful operation for over 3 years, managing over 2000 employees. The application has a very strong focus on operational management, due to the highly distributed nature of the operation (dozens of facilities, spread all over the country). Features include a very close integration with SAP R/3 (although the system can function standalone) using RFCs, efficient management and auto-configuration of terminals and support for multiple terminal models, both for attendance and for access control. Because of to the need to efficiently integrate with both SAP and attendance hardware, JRuby (Ruby running on a Java Virtual Machine) was used to allow using existing vendor libraries. Another positive consequence of using JRuby was the easy inclusion of the application in the company's IT Department.
Stealth Startup
Portuguese startup specialized in Energy Certification consultancy and software development for that business purpose.
Karma Consulting joined their development team to design and to assist in the development of the new Energy Certification portal, supported on a SaaS - Software as a Service - model using ruby technologies. End-to-end certification workflow, integration with ADENE (public utility institution, with participation of the Portuguese Ministry of Economy and Innovation), rules and calculation engine, a complex integration with OpenOffice.org (via it's UNO API), were some of the components and functionalities supported in this web portal.
Iveco
Iveco is an international leader in the development, manufacture, marketing and servicing of a vast range of commercial vehicles. It’s a major player in the Portuguese medium and heavy transport market, including a range of financial and after-sales services.
To improve the sales of their vehicles, Iveco decided to get a new web incentives solution that all their representatives could easily access and use to exchange points for products and prizes, according to their (direct and indirect) sales results and Iveco specific marketing rules. Karma Consulting developed a system featuring a full featured ecommerce platform, integrating a content management solution for the sales team, with an advanced reporting system and business intelligence support for managers. It also features a rules engine with advanced customization capabilities and campaign system management, to create, customize and publish different commercial campaigns, among other functionalities. Since one of the main variables to consider for the sales is the new vehicles registrations (new number-plates), this system supports a number-plate attribution workflow that begins with the data upload from the vehicle registration center, passing through the seller identification and validation, finishing on the calculation process of the seller credits for latter use on Iveco’s online shop.
Sales Report is a web CRM system, specific developed for Portuguese Iveco’s Directors and Managers, to track and manage, in real time, the evolution and status of active proposals (vehicles and financial products) acquired by the different sales teams that are geographically dispersed. This system integrates with a number of other different systems and information, including the internal authentication system and the sales ERP. The system is comprised, among others, of a roles manager component, workflows and several dashboards with various indicators and reports.