In 2005, our company, ServusXchange LLC, was a fledgling SaaS information technology startup focused on business process and workflow collaboration solutions. Led by our co-founder, Brian Javeline, we identified an emerging opportunity, an unanswered need in the home remodeling and repair industry: contractors, who don't typically spend a lot of time in an office, needed a better way to do business.

We felt we could engineer a comprehensive SaaS solution that would allow contractors to both streamline their business operations and improve interaction with customers, subcontractors, and vendors. By finding and leveraging the right commercial controls, we were able to successfully complete the project on time and on budget.

The Challenge
Contractors generally aren't at the same location every day; they're on the move, going from job site to job site, or meeting with customers, subcontractors, and vendors. However, they still need an effective means for carrying on the minutiae of everyday business life - paperwork like plans, estimates, and invoices - while still being able to manage projects and connect with customers.

Market reports indicated that spending on home remodeling projects was on the rise. Homeowners, squeezed by economic pressures, began staying put rather than purchasing new homes, instead investing in remodeling and repair projects. This increase generated new business opportunities for contractors, but it also brought heightened urgency in the need to find ways of improving overall productivity, operational efficiencies, and cost-competitiveness.

This untapped market potential soon began attracting notice from other prospective solutions providers. ServusXchange had to act fast to capitalize on this opportunity by engaging with investors and developing a sound business plan. With great opportunity also comes great challenge - turning an ingenious idea into technical reality, and doing so on an accelerated 18-month development cycle with limited resources, would put our skills to the test.

The ServusXchange solution, MyOnlineToolbox, was envisioned as a cross between Internet-based social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and high-end collaboration and document and content management software applications. At the center of this unique mashup is a feature-rich web portal. Once logged in, contractors would be able to easily manage back-end operational tasks such as estimating and invoicing, marketing and advertising initiatives, and connecting with customers, subcontractors, suppliers, and other professionals. The MyOnlineToolbox team had just three developers and 18 months to make it happen.

The Solution
In an agile, rapid development environment incorporating Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 2003 Server, SQL Server 2008, and ASP.NET, our team began working on the functional prototype. The alpha was made available to a select group of users from the contracting community to test usability and functionality. Based on their perceptions and feedback, we found that while not always Internet-savvy, our target audience required very specific functionality, such as collaboration and scheduling tools, wrapped in an immediately intuitive interface.

With the clock ticking, the decision was made to integrate a suite of commercial controls into our rapid development environment, enabling us to swiftly generate needed application functionality. After trying products from other vendors, we found that Telerik's RadControls for ASP.NET, AJAX, and Silverlight had the most complete control set available. It also offered the right mix of out-of-the-box features we needed, without requiring but still allowing additional customization. This immediate functionality removed much of the necessity for manual coding, saving us time and allowing our team to kick the development process into high gear.

Telerik's control suite was integrated seamlessly into our development environment and proved simple to use from the get-go; we didn't have to work around it. RadControls became an integral part of the application from day one and fit very nicely with what we'd envisioned for MyOnlineToolbox. We've also found that RadControls has an outstanding support system - we were able to overcome the few challenges that arose while customizing the controls by doing some quick online research.

Bringing MyOnlineToolbox to Life
With a good understanding of which portions of the application were likely to be most heavily used, we were able to determine which controls would need the most customization. Most of the basic controls for menus, tasks, and AJAX were implemented straight out of the box; the bulk of the customizations done by the team were for the most extensively used controls: RadSchedule, RadTreeView, and RadGridView.

Telerik's Scheduler control customized to allow color-coding of each appointment and showing additional details of the related record of the appointment

As scheduling ranked among the highest issues of importance to users, its core functionality had to be very strong in MyOnlineToolbox. Telerik's Scheduler control was databound to a custom data layer created for the application. We then used JQuery and Scheduler's API to customize the appointment object, incorporating a task management system. The system enables users to schedule tasks for individual work orders and permits resource-based color coding, allowing tasks to be assigned to and tracked against specific employees.

Reusable templates for the most-frequently used documents were created using RadTreeView, RadTab, and RadGridView

Another feature critical for workflow streamlining was the ability to create reusable templates for the most-used documents, such as estimates and invoices. Using RadTreeView for category and template display, users can organize documents quickly and easily. Each template contains Tasks, Materials, Expenses, and Notes, which are displayed using RadTab, while RadGridView displays the contents. These were customized using JQuery by calculating in real time the results from the input data entered into the grid. For example, if a user added a task with a quantity of 1 and a price of 100, when the quantity was changed to 3, the new price of 300 would be automatically calculated.

RadGridView and RadAjax form the heart of the private messaging and communications function

As an integrated solution, messaging and document tracking was an essential function. Using RadGridView and RadAjax, we were able to quickly build the private messaging and communications component of MyOnlineToolbox, which allows users to see incoming messages displayed in a pane below the grid area.

Replacing SQL Server Reporting for report generation, RadChart, RadCalendar, and RadGrid are used for each of the numerous report types found in MyOnlineToolbox

Telerik Reporting was also deemed an indispensable component of MyOnlineToolbox, as it enabled easy generation of key reports and time-sensitive documents, including estimates, schedules, invoices, and collections notices, as well as allowing for in-depth data analysis. The original design called for SQL Server Reporting as the basis for document and report generation; however, after seeing its simplicity and flexibility, switching to RadControls was a unanimous decision for the team. The RadChart control became the foundation for the application's bar charts, with RadCalendar date pickers employed to filter data by date ranges and results displayed using RadGrid.

RadMenu, RadAjax, and Push technology delivers real-time content and alerts in a clean, polished front-end that can be customized thanks to RadDock

The customer-facing component was the final task in taking MyOnlineToolbox from concept to finished product. The web portal had to offer users an inherently intuitive, user-customizable interface and a feature-rich environment. RadMenu enabled us to design a sleek easy-to-navigate front end, integrated with RadDock to give users the ability to rearrange the onscreen modules as desired. Push technology was combined with RadAjax to deliver real-time alerts and tracking of open task items.

Most of the 70 different controls that make up RadControls were instrumental to MyOnlineToolbox. While we did do a significant amount of customizing, such as creating code to automatically calculate values between two different columns, much of the application was created using out-of-the-box features and functionality. RadControls' rapid adoption and integration into our development environment allowed us to maximize our time and limited resource pool, enabling us to launch on schedule and on budget. Its flexibility has continued to pay off by permitting us to rapidly deliver new iterations as needed.

The Results
MyOnlineToolbox was put into prototype testing in January 2007; by early 2008 it went into live testing with nearly 100 users ranging from independent contractors to Inc. 5,000 companies. The platform went live later that same year and has continued to grow steadily, with active users now numbering well over 1,300. The application's rapid success earned ServusXchange a 2008 Dell Top 10 Innovator Award and a Forbes America's Most Promising Company Award in 2009. More recently, MyOnlineToolbox joined the ranks of influential Silicon Valley strategist Sramana Mitra's 1M/1M Incubation Radar, and in August 2010, MyOnlineToolbox was profiled as one of Entrepreneur Magazine's monthly "Success Stories".

It's a mantra you hear all the time: work smarter, not harder. There are lots of toolsets, controls, and platforms out there that promise to do just that - help you get more done in less time and with less money and fewer people - but often, these wonder products don't live up to the hype of their flashy taglines. So when you do find a technology, like RadControls, that delivers on its promise to help you make the most out of your time and limited resources, it's something that you want to share. RadControls has and continues to be fundamental to the success of MyOnlineToolbox.

For more information on ServusXchange and MyOnlineToolbox, please visit www.myonlinetoolbox.com. For more information about Telerik, please visit www.telerik.com.