For those of you unfamiliar with the much-loved comedy character Trigger from the British sitcom ‘Only Fools and Horses’, he claims he has had his road sweeper’s broom for more than 20 years. But he then goes on to say that it’s had 17 new heads and 14 new handles! It sounds the same when we talk about Achiever. Although the product has been around for more than 20 years, it is almost unrecognisable from how it started out in life. However, at its core it’s still the same. Essentially, we set out to create a product that fits your requirements, that you can change quickly and easily and that grows with you. And, hopefully, as our 20 years’ plus history shows – we have more than achieved and proved this.
Reinventing our products so you continue to grow
You can’t afford to stand still – or you’ll just get left-behind.
And as your business keeps adapting – whether it’s to environmental, social, political, legal or economic changes – the software supporting you also needs to evolve.
Over the years, we have made significant changes to our Achiever systems. We designed and created our Achiever CRM and Achiever Medical lab sample management systems based on your critical processes, data and reporting requirements. So, you can hit the ground-running and start using the software within weeks. And we regularly release updated versions of these with amendments to data structures, optimisations, and new enhancements and modules that you can adopt if, and when, you want.
Plus, we’ve also made significant changes to our configuration tools. Using these you can create whatever processes you need, define your own interactive dashboards, manage user and role permissions, and integrate with your existing or new systems. Gone are the ‘userstrings’ and ‘userdates’ that we – and many other software systems – used in our client-server product. Now you can create whatever new data fields or tables you need. And any new objects you create become part of your system – not stored in some separate area or file. This means they are automatically available to be used in screens, grids, email and letters as well as for searching and reporting. And, importantly, they can also be encrypted.
Achiever Medical Product Timeline
Changing how we work so you can be live and gaining benefits quickly
It’s not only our software we change. We review and adapt our implementation methodology and services in line with changes to our products, and how you want to work and communicate with us. Our online customer portal and our Achiever Essentials package are just two examples of this. And we regularly review our internal processes to make sure we remain responsive to your needs and maintain quality throughout.
You can take advantage of best-practice with the latest technologies
Firstly, although the philosophy behind Achiever software may be more than 20 years old but the technology it’s built on isn’t. Everyday some new technology seems to emerge.
We want to make sure we are taking advantages of all the good things new technologies bring. But we also want to make sure these technologies have been tried and tested!
Since its inception Achiever software has undergone major changes in terms of its architecture, infrastructure and underlying technologies. 20 plus years ago, client-server solutions were the standard with complex communication methods used to transfer data between systems. The idea of web and hosted solutions was inconceivable – ‘your head was in the clouds’ rather than the actual software! Now being able to access your systems anywhere at any time is normal.
Today we use the latest Microsoft technologies, industry standard frameworks and tools. Achiever software runs on popular, modern browsers and is available as a hosted or on-premise solution. Our aim is to make sure you have a product that meets your requirements today, that you can also extend and enhance when you need.
And we will continue to invest in working with the most recent, trusted technologies. However, we know it’s not always so easy for you to upgrade so we continue to work on some older technologies that are still supported by their manufacturers.
You are getting a future-proof solution
We have been fortunate to have worked with some of our customers for many years including helping them move from their original client-server version of Achiever to our web version. We also still have a couple of customers that continue to use the client-server version of Achiever – and configure it. Why fix it if isn’t broken?!
Whether viewed from a technology or configuration perspective, Achiever software gives you a solution that you can:
- roll out across different departments
- change to meet your new requirements
- extend by adopting new features and functionality.
Plus, we regularly review our Achiever products to not only extend functionality but optimise existing functionality. A recent example of this is our storage management functionality in Achiever Medical. We carried out a complete redesign of this area – both from a user-experience and data structure perspective. In our latest version, Achiever Medical 5.5, you can create unlimited levels of storage, define layouts and images for racks and shelves, and view and manage your storage layout and its contents using our new, dynamic, searchable tree view.
Achiever Medical Software Storage Set Up Screen
A final thought on our 20 plus year history and what it means for you
Although Achiever software is more than 20 years old – its underlying structure, technologies and design aren’t. Creating software products is a continuously evolving process – adapting as you learn, and to changes in the marketplace and technology. We can’t afford to stand still. But we also need to make sure that we take you with us – whether that’s through our upgrade paths, additional modules, or remaining backward compatible for as long as reasonably possible to give you time to make the move.
We can share with you a lot of best-practice, plus the pitfalls and gotchas! We also learn from you to make sure we continue to deliver what you need. What’s in store for the next 20 years? Who knows? The pace at which things are changing and our focus on continuous development and improvement mean we will look very different in the future compared to today. But we will still be the same at our core.
References
- ‘Only Fools and Horses’ a BBC sitcom
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