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Case Study

Overview

The Altec Design team researched, prototyped and ultimately built a custom HR system & front end website for the West County EMS & Fire district. Altec was contacted during the planning stages and after winning the contract the Altec team worked directly with West County staff members to build a custom system that fit their exact needs, in total the goals for the system were:

  • Create an onboarding process to ensure every new employee completes all needed documentation
  • Allow all employees to submit overtime requests & HR forms using their phones
  • Create a secure backend management portal that staff members could use to update the website
  • Build reports inside the password protected area of the system that staff members could use to pull important records and metrics
  • Create a new employee application page that would save new applications in an easily accessible report

Choosing The Foundation To Build On

Our preferred Framework is Laravel and whenever possible we prefer to use Laravel for custom development projects. Laravel is an exceptional framework that offers many benefits. First and foremost it standardizes the project so that down the road it is much easier for any other developer to come in and update/maintain the system. It also provides the benefit of helping to enforce good coding habits. We have been called in countless times by clients to come and update or fix other custom applications only to find outdated or improper coding practices in place. Most of the time these systems were built entirely "from scratch" which makes it more difficult for others to step in and contribute to the system. We are strong proponents of using a great framework as the foundation for all our systems so that clients can benefit from the best practices and standardization that comes with them.

Prototyping and Wireframing

With our framework in place we built an interactive wireframe. We shared this document with the client and over the course of several remote and in person meetings we refined the functionality of the system. Once all details had been approved by the client we created a formal design spec document and received sign off from West County staff to move onto design & development work.

Design & Development

While our back end developers worked to build out the custom HR system, our front end design team finalized the look and feel for the public facing portion of the website. This entire design and development process took 3 months to complete.

Site Launch & Ongoing Relationship

Altec’s engineers worked with the West County staff to launch the new website and update their DNS and internal firewall to allow all team members access to the new website. The West County team chose to purchase ongoing maintenance and to host the website on Altec Design servers. Altec has continued a great working relationship with the West County team, often doing quarterly updates to the site. Unlike WordPress Laravel is a framework that does not need constant updates to stay safe and secure, however it is still a best practice to update Laravel versions every 1 – 2 years to keep the site in line with current best practices.

Interested In Working Together?

Hear What Our Clients Think

pete Sam and Brian are an unbelievable asset to me personally and the multiple businesses I run. No matter what technology or digital project I throw at them; they can always handle and always shoot me straight and make sure I understand it in regular language. I honestly don’t know where our companies would be today without "the boys" because they power all things digital and we have a blast doing it.
Pete Fusz: Lou Fusz Automotive
leo I get email after email, call after call from companies claiming they can make my SEO better. Well I am not interested in anything these marketers tell me because I have Alec Design doing my work. These guys are not only on top of the game, they convey to me options as they see fit. I was using a larger national operation before going to them, I now spend less and get better and more with "the guys" at Altec.
Leo Anglo: Vincent's Jewelers
stl mens Great Company! The folks at Altec Design have been instrumental in building a secure system to house our schedule and monitor our patient care. They always have our best interest in mind and we continue to call on them for advice whenever we can!
Dr. Shawn Bradley: St Louis Mens Clinic
no-name Altec did a great job on our site. We were not 100% sure initially what all we needed to do to get our business online. Altec Design sat down with us a went over each step we needed to accomplish to get our website completed. Between our thorough understanding of our business and their technical know-how we ended up with a site that is the envy of our competition. Thanks a lot guys!
Dr. Candice Coffey: STL Back Care Clinic
mike As a fledgling startup trying comprised of two guys with zero technical/web skills, Sam helped hand hold us through the early stages of securing a website and developing an effective and simple site to communicate our businesses value proposition. He helped set up company emails, and pointed us to some great tools for other business assets (newsletter, analytics). They made everything in the process simple and easy.
Mike Sale: Brew Bracket
mikes My experience with Altec Design has been awesome. They worked to accommodate my needs above my means at the time, and they built a website I was very happy with. It helped take my business to the next level!
Mike Oldroyd: Mike Oldroyd Comedy
mh The guys at Altec really know how to communicate their knowledge and expertise on a human level. I've worked with other web design companies in the past and they may as well have been speaking Latin. Altec worked with me on our project with the care and patience you'd expect from a friend or family member. The projects we have partnered on are successful mainly because I understand all the steps and trust in Altec's experience.
Max Zofness: Zofwel Student Exchange