Elite, Professional, Kind Software Solutions for Discerning Clients

Noion Labs is a small software development firm led by Jordan Schatz. We provide the deep technical expertise to tackle the most challenging technology & business problems. We work with you so you can understand possible solutions, and then deliver reliable systems with the time and budget identified.

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Challenging Data Import

Sometimes things go wrong. We worked with a client on a relatively straight forward ETL — extract, transform & load — engagement where we helped them extract data from their current system, transform it to fit a new data model and load it into another system. The ETL process was intended to run once, was completed, the result data reviewed / tested by the client, etc, and the new system went live.

Two days later it was discovered that the there was a significant problems with the data. The client had not realized the importance of some additional data, which hadn't been identified for ETL, and was critical... but that this point we can't just "go back" to the old system while the ETL process is updated, re-run and tested, the new system is live, is servicing new business, and must not be rolled back.

The resulting week has been frenzied, but we effectively pulled all data from the new system, combined it with the missing data from the old, and reloaded it — all without overloading the new system or any downtime.

Not That Way

This is a hard one. For this project we where a subcontractor to a subcontractor to a prime who was delivering a solution to a moderately sized "local government" on the east coast. There isn't a typo in that last sentence — larger contracts tend to get sub'ed out several layers deep.

For various reasons — technical and managerial — it became apparent (to us) that this project could not succeed if it stayed on the course it was on. However as a sub of a sub we also didn't have the ability to change the direction of the project. So we declined to continue to work on the project in protest. Saying "no we won't do this" is a serious and hard thing to do. It comes with financial consequences, relationship consequences, and it is hard to know you are right when other teams/colleagues view something as "ok", "normal", "business as usual" etc.

But in this case we've been down this particular road before, and that path doesn't work.

This story ends happily though — our declining to continue the contract was enough to get our "parent" subcontractor and the end client leadership's attention, which has resulted in a major "re-align" of the project, and an informed client making informed decisions about their time and budget.

We may even rejoin the work.

Partner Referral Portal

Today we delivered a "Referral Portal" so that the Health and Human Services Department of a major US city could coordinate service requests between the city, and external non-profit organizations to deliver needed services.

Data Modeling Software as a Service

Over the past year we've built a niche, domain specific data modeling tool, and used it to good effect on several related projects. One of our clients liked the tool so much that they offered to purchase it — intellectual property, exclusivity, etc with the intent to resell it as a service. Today marks the completion of that sale.

Salesforce Data Import

We helped a client move from an aging, legacy system into Salesforce by handling their ETL: Extract, Transform & Load. We extracted their records and associated files from the legacy system, transformed the data a shape that fit their new data model in Salesforce, did some data cleaning, and then loaded the result into their Salesforce org.

Highlights

  • More than 650,000 records.
  • 65 GB of additional files/documents outside of the structured records.

Programmers Reading Club

As the academic year kicks off we're starting a "Programmers Reading Club" — the plan is to read some of the great works of our field and discuss them together. The first text will be The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

If you are interested please drop us a line and we'll invite you to the group!

Custom Business Rules Engine on Salesforce

A client running on Salesforce needed a "Business Rules Engine" — something where they could customize the logic for a business process based on data they entered, and clicks, and not require business users to write code or make a request of a developer. We delivered a solution that leveraged Salesforce's native capabilities, met all their requirements, and worked better than any system they had previously had in place.

eSignature

A solution that many businesses need — the ability to electronically sign documents. A client came to us looking to develop an eSignature tool that was tightly integrated with Salesforce, also supported signing of arbitrary documents outside of Salesforce, supported signing on mobile (in particular on iPad), and which was built to be re-sold as a SaaS or standalone Salesforce App to their customers.

Form Builder v2

A prior client returned to us looking for an update to an application we had built for them. It is always nice to have clients return. Previously we built an application for the where end users, without programming experience could build web forms which saved to Salesforce. Salesforce has a built in web-to-lead feature, but it is very limited, supporting only "single use" forms, which must be connected to the Lead object. The tool we built for the client permits forms to be connected with any object, or a collection of objects, allows saving of draft submissions, pulling information from Salesforce to be edited in the forms etc.

The client came back looking for updates, especially around internationalization, and more complex form handling.

Highlights

  • Internationalization — support for form translations.
  • Multi-page forms.
  • Support for one-to-many relationships within forms.
  • UI updates.
  • Extended help text blocks.
  • Improved handling of metadata / improved performance with large forms.

Elysium

We where approached by a "new" law firm — "new" is usually easier, this was actually a new company that was formed out the merger of five existing companies.

They had wide ranging and ambitious goals and while they possessed deep expertise in law, real estate, financial planning, etc. IT technology was well outside of their comfort zone.

We worked with them to begin bringing the five disparate companies technology towards being able to talk with each other, and to remove redundancies, and build a new product offering, and new marketing website.

Highlights

  • Deep integration with HubSpot
  • Integration with external legal document generation systems
  • Combining multiple departments (which previously where separate companies) into a holistic whole.
  • Bespoke payment system integration
  • Teaching & guiding a company that is new to digital

Help, the server is gone!

(Note that this was a new client, these weren't servers that we managed!)

We got an emergency request in over the weekend: my servers are down, my backups don't work, if I can't get someone to help me soon then my business is gone. It was touch and go for a bit — often data cannot be recovered, and without prior knowledge (or very good documentation) it is challenging to work out how a system was put together: what database does it need? Redis? Memcache? Filestorage? dependencies? But we had them back up in 48 hours and their business weathered the storm.

Document Generation for Salesforce

Something that is (not yet) built in to the Salesforce platform, but that many businesses need is a solution for document generation — provide a document template, and fill it with data contained in Salesforce. We built a solution for a startup that now sells the solution to companies running on Salesforce.

Highlights

  • Support for Word & PDF templates and Word & PDF output.
  • Template management — create, share, organize & archive document templates.
  • One click document generation buttons.
  • Ability to query user at document generation time for additional information.
  • Support for arbitrarily complex SOQL queries to select data to generate documents from.

Simple Merchant Product Pages & Cart

A client approached us with a need: Shopify, but simpler. They had existing customers that needed short term "popup" stores, themed to the merchant, sale, season, etc. That where dead quick to setup, handled checked, inventory etc. We delivered a solution that integrated with their existing system and supported creating a new store and listing the first product with less than a dozen clicks.

Highlights

  • Support for theming.
  • Basic inventory management.
  • Integrated with Stripe.

Custom Email Marketing Platform

Email is still one of the best ways for small businesses to stay in contact with their followers. We built a marketing email system for a startup that focuses on delivering marketing solutions for small to medium businesses.

Highlights

  • Delivering 100s of thousands of messages per week.
  • Templates
  • Scheduled sends
  • Email list management
  • Support for sending via multiple infrastructure providers (AWS, SendGrid, etc).
  • Automated unsubscribe, bounce list, metrics.

CWIS for Adoption Agency in Tennessee

Another CWIS — this time for an adoption agency in Tennessee. It is isn't really fair to call it "another" — while we build on the knowledge of previous builds, and re-use what we can, each build is also custom to the specific client, their processes, and state requirements.

Highlights

  • Integrated Portal
  • Data Import
  • Customized to the agencies specific needs and processes

Custom Mobile App

A client needed a mobile app that could reproduce their website + browser extension's functionality on mobile, and needed to do it on a tight budget.

Highlights

  • Uses the same API endpoints / backend as the existing website & browser extensions
  • Cross OS — works on both iOS and Android with the same codebase

Portal Launch for Adoption Agency in Wayne County

We launched a portal which ties the agency's Salesforce system and website closely together, allowing the bi-directional data flow and improving the efficiency of their operations.

Highlights

  • The solution uses technology we've developed.
  • It allows for very close integration with their site, running as an SPA without their site, integrating fully with their existing look and feel, page navigation etc.
  • The solution requires no additional Salesforce License Fees

In the beginning...

Well, not really. Just the beginning of this version of this site.

We are a small, tightknit group of seriously competent engineers, let by Jordan Schatz, we've been in business since 2015. Almost all of our work is done under an NDA or "white labeled" for other firms, but we wanted some way to celebrate each accomplishment. So we'll post the ones we can here, though details will of necessity generally be vague.

We tend to work with clients for a long time, and so besides the project celebrated here, we also maintain systems for the long haul. Which is the real work of unsung heroes.