This past month marks a significant turning point for our software. We have launched the new MissionConnect: PAL application, which is our management and billing program for Property And Liability insurance (hence the acronym “PAL”). What is significant about this is that it’s the last major module of MissionBase to be converted into a MissionConnect app.
It has been a long road. We first began discussing the need to replace MissionBase back in 2007. We spent two years evaluating platforms, identifying possible ways to rewrite MissionBase, determining roles, and looking at hundreds of details. We began the actual writing of the software in 2009, and launched the first implementation of MissionConnect in March of 2011. It was a pretty “bare bones” product, and we had to push certain data back into MissionBase for those modules that were not yet developed in MissionConnect (which was everything except the core system). The past three years have been spent writing the MissionConnect apps for each add-on module that was in MissionBase, converting customers into MissionConnect, and doing our best to keep up with the many daily needs of our customers as we went. So converting final app into MissionConnect is very significant for us.
We do have many loose ends to tie up, and several reports that need to be added before MissionConnect will truly be complete. We will continue to work on that list until it is completed.
However, software is never really complete. There are always more ideas on the table, more changes that are required due to new data needs, and new technologies that afford new opportunities for the usefulness of the software. But for the moment, and for just a moment, we are pausing to take a deep breath and enjoy the feeling of reaching this important milestone.
We are already working to identify a process for receiving, organizing, prioritizing and developing existing and new needs, requests, and ideas for taking MissionConnect beyond what it is today. We need your input, and we’ll be creating a better method for receiving it. I’ll talk more about that next month.
In partnership,
Al Fifhause
President
