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BLOG CATEGORIES
Navigating Legacy Systems: A Guide to Managing Expectations
One of the greatest challenges we have as human beings is managing expectations. The ability to set realistic goals in our personal, and professional lives is a delicate balancing act and the ability to navigate them is a skill that can be the difference between fulfilment and disappointment.
Managing expectations is all about aligning reality with anticipated outcomes and it allows us to establish clear boundaries, realistic goals, and ensure that everyone involved understands what is achievable. When these expectations are not managed effectively, the result is often disappointment, frustration, and conflict, which causes strained relationships and unmet objectives.
Revitalising your Tech – Innovative Strategies to Extend The Life of Your Ageing Application
In an ever-evolving technology landscape it can be daunting to consider the challenge of adapting legacy applications to fit with modern development standards.1 It’s crucial to find the right balance between the need to update an existing system and the cost of replacement. This blog will explore the lifecycles of technology stacks and explore why businesses may choose to maintain older systems instead of investing in updates, and provides some strategies for modernising within budget constraints.
Harnessing AI Enabled Citizen Developer Potential: A Balancing Act Between Innovation and Governance
In the thick of digital transformation, Microsoft’s Power Platform is standing out as a potent catalyst, democratising development with its low-code environment. It has never been easier for staff to create their own bespoke applications and productivity tools. Particularly with the upcoming release of Copilot, the platform is championing a new generation of citizen developers, enabling them to design applications and automate workflows through text and image commands.
Starting Your Integration Journey Right
Now more than ever, integration is becoming a critical capability within organisations due to the ever-increasing demand for information and a connected ecosystem. This is often driven by increasing customer expectation for modern, convenient, and real-time methods of engaging with the business and of employees who are seeking more opportunities to streamline business functions and to rapidly adopt new technologies.
A retrospective into key processes for successful application development
Chamonix was awarded the contract to develop and manage a mobile channel for an Australian government agency, aimed at improving the healthcare management experience for everyday Australians.
After a year of workshopping, development, testing, and remediation, the team successfully launched a national app that was well received by both the client and the public. In this post, we’ll explore our processes that led to this success, including important considerations for best practice application development.
Embracing AI Tooling: Key Considerations for Future-Ready Organisations
With the increasing adoption of tools like ChatGPT, Azure OpenAI Services, Copilot, and even Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion, we’re rapidly entering a stage of technological advancement the likes of which most of us have never seen. The very definition of what it means to be a desk worker is going to change, and the biggest decision most of us in that space face is whether to embrace it and ride that wave, or to be on the back foot to everyone who has.
ChatGPT, Bing AI, Midjourney, and what comes next
When I wrote my last blog on GPT-3 back in October 2021, I had no idea that ChatGPT, Dall-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, or the rest were going to become the household names they now are. That wasn’t because it wasn’t obvious how disruptive those technologies would be, but we’ve had plenty of industry disruption previously that has never entered the common vernacular. There are still people out here that would struggle to explain how you can take a photo on your phone and then open it on your computer a few minutes later.
Avoiding technical and operational debt through an end-to-end view
All too often in workplaces we see inefficiencies, waste, unreliable systems and processes and wonder how these came to be. Core business processes often include workarounds that were introduced to save time, reports used to inform business decisions are based on ‘local’ copies of data or there is an excessive reliance upon manual tasks across the business.
Integrating with Dynamics 365 CRM and use of the Xrm.SDK
Integrating with Microsoft Dynamics CRM has only gotten easier in recent years with their native API providing growing and extensive functionality. From retrieving complex queries using OData or FetchXML to recalculating specific rollup fields and running workflows, you can do pretty much everything you need here.
Power Platform: Making apps that work offline
The Power Platform is an amazing platform to rapidly develop applications that integrate to a huge number of different systems. But did you know that you can use the same tools to develop an application that will work offline, even if it does read and write data from online systems?
Screen Readers in Cross-Platform Mobile App Development
Working in the digital health space continues to highlight the importance of integrating screen readers into our apps and development practices. In this blog post I’ll explore how this can be done with the specific case of Xamarin mobile app development in-mind.
Why Change Management Maturity Matters
One of the many perks of being a Change Management consultant is the exposure we get to a broad spectrum of organisations with varying levels of understanding and capability in change management. This ranges from organisations who have never heard of the discipline, to those who have embedded change management into daily business operations, and everything in between.
Digital Health Partnerships: Leveraging technological expertise to improve clinical capability and health outcomes
Chamonix is privileged to have had a long history working in digital health. Throughout the course of our 12 year journey, we’ve gained a wealth of insights into the unique needs of healthcare organisations in providing solutions to provider and user whilst accommodating a complex landscape of stakeholders and legacy information.
Uncovering DevOps – A Powerful Formula for Success
At its core, DevOps uplifts the software development life cycle for increased efficiency, higher velocity, more reliable delivery, and enhanced security. This methodology represents a cultural change that begins at an organisational level.
Testing – The Understated Hero of Development
Software testing is a process of determining whether a software product meets the business requirements, and ensuring that the product is bug-free. The Test Team not only verify that the software functionality meets the business requirements, they also seeks out any errors, gaps, or missing functionality in comparison with the specified requirements.
DevOps: A Single-Click Performance Testing Framework
Find out how our solution helped to develop a repeatable, single-click performance framework for our client.
GPT-3 and the Future of Software Development
GPT-3. Friend of C-3PO and R2-D2, I’m sure. Surprisingly, that’s not too far from the truth. Sitting somewhere between ‘Fluent in over six million languages’ and that noise your dialup modem used to make when connecting the internet, GPT-3 will certainly go down in history as one of the defining moments in the creation of Artificial Intelligence.
Nuget package references in .NET (Framework and Core)
.NET developers are spoilt for choice when it comes to third party packages that are available to use in their solutions. With over 250k unique NuGet packages available for various purposes ranging from standard cross-cutting concerns such as logging, caching and error handling; through to more specific use cases such as generating PDFs, working with JSON data, or using Azure resources, packages can make the life of a developer much easier and more efficient.
Challenges of Introducing DevOps
Recently I’ve worked with a number of clients who are enthusiastic to start introducing DevOps practices into their organisations. DevOps has definitely gained a lot of momentum and buzz in recent times, and it’s been interesting to assist as organisations approach its introduction in different ways.
Bringing Defence into the Cloud
The COVID outbreak has affected the actions and operations of almost every business. The government and defence sectors, of course, were no exemption. The pandemic essentially forced every worker who could, to work remotely and collaborate electronically.
Continuing the Journey to Essential Eight Alignment – Pathway to Accreditation
Here at Chamonix, we’re continuously on the journey with multiple organisations to improve their cybersecurity posture. The common starting point is the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) Essential Eight. While this is a foot in the door, alignment to the Essential Eight is often self-assessed; and mostly addresses the technical controls of a much larger organisational cyber resilience picture.
Journey to Essential Eight Alignment
The internet has never been a more dangerous place for business. The number and sophistication of cyber-attacks is increasing every day with any website, file downloaded, or email opened a potential target for malicious actors.
Cutting through the complexity of safeguarding your business
We live and work in an era where cybercriminals are targeting Australians at an unprecedented level. Theft of sensitive information, money and identity is on the rise through ransomware attacks and other methods of exfiltration of data. The fall-out from a serious cyber security incident can be devastating to both organisations and individuals.
The Five Pillars of Exceptional Customer Experience
Winning customer loyalty and advocacy has never been so important as in this era of ever-widening competition. Organisations are striving harder to acquire customer loyalty – through differentiation of products and services and the overall customer experience.
Important Updates to the Essential Eight Maturity Model
The ACSC released a significant update to the Essential Eight Maturity Model earlier this week.
Taking the plunge into Digital Health
I believe you’ll concur when I say:
Small changes eventually add up to huge results. I have stood by the above quote throughout both my professional and personal journeys. Recently, I have had an amazing opportunity with Chamonix IT Solutions to further deliver the best business and technology support and value to customers.
Messaging for Azure Integration – Choosing the Service that Fits
There’s no doubt that Azure offers architects and developers a panoply of integration messaging services, with each suited to different architectures. Implementing Microservices? Event Driven Architecture? Choosing the right messaging service can be daunting.
A Nuanced change at Microsoft
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Microsoft has acquired Healthcare AI and voice recognition powerhouse Nuance for the modest sum of USD$19.7 billion (Around AUD$25.5bn). For many, this is just another feather in the already very impressive cap that is Microsoft. After all, this is the ninth company that Microsoft has acquired in the last twelve months, and Microsoft already have their LUIS platform and a strong set of Cognitive Speech offerings, so what – aside from the dollar value -makes this one special?
Power Automate: Firing Up Productivity in your Organisation
Manual data entry is the ultimate nemesis for any organisation. Not only does it put you to sleep, but it wastes precious time and valuable resources – which can go on to destroy overall productivity. Fortunately, Microsoft has come to the rescue and introduced Power Automate which helps automate these mind-numbing tasks, eliminate human error, leaving you to focus on the work that actually matters.
PowerApps: Business Apps for Everyone
Business apps make it easier to manage various aspects of your business, whether working from home, the office, or on the go. They are an essential tool to keep your organisation agile and efficient.
Organisational Process Optimisation: Achieving Automation
Business process automation is, arguably, the main driver behind the invention of the computer. So why does it feel like so much day-to-day complexity is at least related to, if not directly caused by these machines? Why hasn’t the ‘Automation Revolution’ already happened?
Organisational Process Optimisation: Architecture and Automation
Business processes are by and large the means by which an organisation delivers services to its customers and operates its business. Therefore, they’re a fundamental part of how effectively a business functions and can be directly linked to profitability, customer satisfaction and risks.
The Power of Low Code Platforms
Most organisations understand that software development can be complex and costly. Sometimes basic, working software is enough to enable a team or department to become more productive and deliver more value to an organisation.
Power Platform Governance Principles
The Power Platform in M365, as the name suggests, is incredibly powerful. It is capable of developing applications to meet almost any business need and can often be developed by users with little to no developer background.
Microsoft 365 Governance Toolkit
Microsoft 365 is a vast platform capable of uplifting an organisation’s productivity, collaboration, and communication capability. Many of the products within M365 require little oversight
The Many Arms of Cyber Security
Depending on the level of exposure, people may generally think of Cyber Security as people stealing identity details, bank account details and funds, or taking
Happy 10th Birthday Chamonix!
September 2020 marked Chamonix IT Solutions’ 10-year anniversary! This milestone is a great opportunity for us to look back at all our achievements since 2010
Integration management as an added value
Maintaining agility Over the past 10 years, we’ve seen a constant increase in the need for integration by our customers, largely driven by new solutions
The Changing Face of IT
After a more flexible, transparent and exploratory approach to engage with vendors? The Competitive Dialogue (CD) tender process opens up a host of benefits
A Different Approach to Procuring Solutions
After a more flexible, transparent and exploratory approach to engage with vendors? The Competitive Dialogue (CD) tender process opens up a host of benefits
Agile Metric Estimation
We look at the tools that can be used to help validate initial project estimations, answering the most commonly asked project management questions around timeframes and resources.
Facilitating Spaces for Remote Collaboration
How we are helping our clients innovate through creative collaboration in times of social distancing.
Major Cyber Attack Underway – What Should I Do?
As you may have read on the news today, Australia is currently being hit with a massive cyber-attack. It is of paramount importance that Australian businesses are alert to this and be more resilient in the face of adversity and threat.
Project Management In Uncertain Times
As Project managers, we’re used to dealing with uncertainty, change, conflicting priorities and managing risk in the process of getting the job done. But no one had COVID-19 on their risk register. So, how do we deal with things differently in these unprecedented times?
Multi-Factor Authentication – Why Do We Need It?
Moore’s law states, to paraphrase, that the speed of computing processors grows exponentially, doubling roughly every two years. That’s fantastic news for businesses and users alike. More speed means more productivity. Less time waiting for systems. More work done.
Implementation, Testing And Support – Our Ongoing Quest To Deliver The Best Value Possible, Always.
Now time to conclude our journey, starting with our testing practices.
Speed And Consistency – Leveraging Relationship And Team Values In Development And Delivery Practices
In the last instalment of our series, we introduced some of the changes we’ve applied to our relationship and working practices with a federal government customer providing a middleware product to the healthcare industry. These changes have made a substantial difference to both the product and the outcomes we’re able to deliver. It’s now time to continue our journey, starting with product development.
The 6 Core Values That Made A Significant Difference To Both The Way We Work And The Customer Outcome
Late last year we released a case study on our partnership with a federal government customer providing a middleware product contributing great healthcare outcomes to Australians. While this has been a long-running engagement dating back almost 10 years, it hasn’t always run so smoothly. Our case study touches on some of the challenges and changes we’ve made along the way; this series of articles dives into much more detail.
Leveraging Office 365 For Remote Working
With many companies having recently transitioned to a remote working model, it is more important than ever to leverage the collaborative tools available to us to ensure we are working as productively as possible.
Demystifying The Role Of Change Management
Unless you’ve worked with a Change Manager (CM) before, you probably don’t really know what it is that they bring to the table aside from the obvious: Jazz Hands, Glitter and sparkles & Fluffy stuff.
So, perhaps we should clarify how they can be of value on the projects being worked on across Chamonix.
Top Tips For Enabling Security And Productivity With A Remote Workforce
As a method of prevention in the current COVID-19 climate many Australian businesses where possible are moving towards a remote workforce solution. This will lead to employees working from home or another low-density low-exposure location.
Business Continuity – How to Enable your Organisation in Volatile Times
With the escalation of COVID-19 to a global epidemic, many businesses owners are currently looking at how to respond to this confusing and potentially risky situation.
7 Key Themes in Maximising your Performance Testing Outcomes
Having recently been engaged to evaluate a client’s approach to load testing a web-based application, we wanted to share some of the themes arising from the outcomes in the hope that some of these can assist you in your own performance testing journey.
Digital Transformation & Security
To strive and excel in the digital economy, it’s innovation that enables organisations to stay competitive and agile. Unfortunately, more often than not, security is unjustly considered an impediment to this.
What is RPA?
While the term itself may conjure up images of old 1980’s Science Fiction, Robotic Process Automation (or RPA) is fast becoming a mainstay in the toolkit of many businesses. Simply put, RPA refers to software robots, which can be configured to fulfil predefined tasks or activities within a business process. Where does RPA fit in the broader scheme of things? Think of it as the ‘hands and legs’ while the cognitive technologies i.e. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning etc are the ‘brain.’ All of these elements form a part of the suite of emerging technologies, which are increasingly becoming more mainstream.
6 Steps to Modernise your Workplace
You’re sitting at your desk. It’s likely the same one you’ve had since you started, or at least since that last big restructure a few years ago. You have your work-supplied computer on the desk and – laptop or desktop – that’s pretty much where it’s been since IT installed it there. There are meeting rooms nearby you can use as well as a sizeable boardroom. Whilst you generally like the people around you, quite frankly, sometimes you just need some quiet time to focus and get your work done.
RPA in Action
In our last article, we emphasised the importance of having the right approach in setting up RPA successfully for your business. We shared our experience around the kind of processes RPA can be applied to as well as some of the key reasons for failure.
Emerging Technologies Sparking Innovation at DPTI
The Department for Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) Library recently hosted their first ‘Lunch and Learn’ session for 2017 with a deep-dive into emerging technologies at the Office for Design + Architecture on Leigh St. Chamonix, in partnership with Cortex Interactive, were invited to present on, and demonstrate the application of, Virtual and Augmented Reality solutions to guests from across Government and industry.
AngularJS Fix for Duplicate Iframe Requests With Internet Explorer
The ng-src AngularJS directive is used to bind an iframe source Url to a scope property. During performance testing, I noticed in IE (10 and 11), that the Url was being updated twice. This causes two GET requests, which slowed the page load down.
Bypass the Office365 Login Redirect Page with ADFS
Office 365’s single sign-on capabilities with ADFS are a great improvement over dual-identities, and it takes online users a step closer to the seamless experience they have become accustomed to with an on premise web application. If you’re looking to set it up, Microsoft provide some great information and even some step-by-step videos: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3061192.
Why is Working on A Healthcare Project so Different? (Part 2)
If you didn’t read part one of this blog, you can read it here. It talks about some of the unique challenges faced on projects in a healthcare setting. This next blog looks at some of the strategies I have seen employed to overcome these challenges and deliver great outcomes for health projects.
Why is Working on a Healthcare Project so Different? (Part 1)
In projects we have all heard about the triple constraints of time, cost and scope. While these are important considerations on all projects, they are not the main drivers for healthcare projects. From a clinical perspective the following factors appear to be key attributes of the project or proposed change.
Engaging Employees as Consumers
As a Change Manager it is my job to come up with new ways to engage people and influence their behaviour and thinking in terms of how the change that is coming can help move the organisation forward. I like to encourage the project teams that I am working with to try to think like an advertising executive. How can we influence our employees and stakeholders to buy (or buy into) this product or idea we are selling?
Not Just a Role – A Responsibility
In many projects the need for getting the right people to sponsor, lead and influence a change is often overlooked. People are given roles and titles within a project without the understanding of what responsibility comes with that position. This can lead to poor adoption, lack of ownership and ultimately even project failure.
The Competency Model
Contrary to what some people think, incompetence is not a bad thing. It’s merely a phase one goes through on the way to being competent in a new skill; enter the competency model…. Personally I love this model. It’s simple, has many applications but most of all it just makes sense.
Decision Making and Organisational Change
Have you ever witnessed an attempt at organisational change and thought to yourself, “How could they have possibly thought that would work?”. I know I have, and the answer can often be traced back to the decision making process used to decide on the change in the first place.
A retrospective into key processes for successful application development
Chamonix was awarded the contract to develop and manage a mobile channel for an Australian government agency, aimed at improving the healthcare management experience for everyday Australians.
After a year of workshopping, development, testing, and remediation, the team successfully launched a national app that was well received by both the client and the public. In this post, we’ll explore our processes that led to this success, including important considerations for best practice application development.
Power Platform: Making apps that work offline
The Power Platform is an amazing platform to rapidly develop applications that integrate to a huge number of different systems. But did you know that you can use the same tools to develop an application that will work offline, even if it does read and write data from online systems?
Screen Readers in Cross-Platform Mobile App Development
Working in the digital health space continues to highlight the importance of integrating screen readers into our apps and development practices. In this blog post I’ll explore how this can be done with the specific case of Xamarin mobile app development in-mind.
Challenges of Introducing DevOps
Recently I’ve worked with a number of clients who are enthusiastic to start introducing DevOps practices into their organisations. DevOps has definitely gained a lot of momentum and buzz in recent times, and it’s been interesting to assist as organisations approach its introduction in different ways.
AngularJS Fix for Duplicate Iframe Requests With Internet Explorer
The ng-src AngularJS directive is used to bind an iframe source Url to a scope property. During performance testing, I noticed in IE (10 and 11), that the Url was being updated twice. This causes two GET requests, which slowed the page load down.
Taking the plunge into Digital Health
I believe you’ll concur when I say:
Small changes eventually add up to huge results. I have stood by the above quote throughout both my professional and personal journeys. Recently, I have had an amazing opportunity with Chamonix IT Solutions to further deliver the best business and technology support and value to customers.
Happy 10th Birthday Chamonix!
September 2020 marked Chamonix IT Solutions’ 10-year anniversary! This milestone is a great opportunity for us to look back at all our achievements since 2010
6 Steps to Modernise your Workplace
You’re sitting at your desk. It’s likely the same one you’ve had since you started, or at least since that last big restructure a few years ago. You have your work-supplied computer on the desk and – laptop or desktop – that’s pretty much where it’s been since IT installed it there. There are meeting rooms nearby you can use as well as a sizeable boardroom. Whilst you generally like the people around you, quite frankly, sometimes you just need some quiet time to focus and get your work done.
Why Change Management Maturity Matters
One of the many perks of being a Change Management consultant is the exposure we get to a broad spectrum of organisations with varying levels of understanding and capability in change management. This ranges from organisations who have never heard of the discipline, to those who have embedded change management into daily business operations, and everything in between.
Demystifying The Role Of Change Management
Unless you’ve worked with a Change Manager (CM) before, you probably don’t really know what it is that they bring to the table aside from the obvious: Jazz Hands, Glitter and sparkles & Fluffy stuff.
So, perhaps we should clarify how they can be of value on the projects being worked on across Chamonix.
6 Steps to Modernise your Workplace
You’re sitting at your desk. It’s likely the same one you’ve had since you started, or at least since that last big restructure a few years ago. You have your work-supplied computer on the desk and – laptop or desktop – that’s pretty much where it’s been since IT installed it there. There are meeting rooms nearby you can use as well as a sizeable boardroom. Whilst you generally like the people around you, quite frankly, sometimes you just need some quiet time to focus and get your work done.
Engaging Employees as Consumers
As a Change Manager it is my job to come up with new ways to engage people and influence their behaviour and thinking in terms of how the change that is coming can help move the organisation forward. I like to encourage the project teams that I am working with to try to think like an advertising executive. How can we influence our employees and stakeholders to buy (or buy into) this product or idea we are selling?
Decision Making and Organisational Change
Have you ever witnessed an attempt at organisational change and thought to yourself, “How could they have possibly thought that would work?”. I know I have, and the answer can often be traced back to the decision making process used to decide on the change in the first place.
GPT-3 and the Future of Software Development
GPT-3. Friend of C-3PO and R2-D2, I’m sure. Surprisingly, that’s not too far from the truth. Sitting somewhere between ‘Fluent in over six million languages’ and that noise your dialup modem used to make when connecting the internet, GPT-3 will certainly go down in history as one of the defining moments in the creation of Artificial Intelligence.
A Nuanced change at Microsoft
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Microsoft has acquired Healthcare AI and voice recognition powerhouse Nuance for the modest sum of USD$19.7 billion (Around AUD$25.5bn). For many, this is just another feather in the already very impressive cap that is Microsoft. After all, this is the ninth company that Microsoft has acquired in the last twelve months, and Microsoft already have their LUIS platform and a strong set of Cognitive Speech offerings, so what – aside from the dollar value -makes this one special?
What is RPA?
While the term itself may conjure up images of old 1980’s Science Fiction, Robotic Process Automation (or RPA) is fast becoming a mainstay in the toolkit of many businesses. Simply put, RPA refers to software robots, which can be configured to fulfil predefined tasks or activities within a business process. Where does RPA fit in the broader scheme of things? Think of it as the ‘hands and legs’ while the cognitive technologies i.e. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning etc are the ‘brain.’ All of these elements form a part of the suite of emerging technologies, which are increasingly becoming more mainstream.
RPA in Action
In our last article, we emphasised the importance of having the right approach in setting up RPA successfully for your business. We shared our experience around the kind of processes RPA can be applied to as well as some of the key reasons for failure.
Emerging Technologies Sparking Innovation at DPTI
The Department for Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) Library recently hosted their first ‘Lunch and Learn’ session for 2017 with a deep-dive into emerging technologies at the Office for Design + Architecture on Leigh St. Chamonix, in partnership with Cortex Interactive, were invited to present on, and demonstrate the application of, Virtual and Augmented Reality solutions to guests from across Government and industry.
Implementation, Testing And Support – Our Ongoing Quest To Deliver The Best Value Possible, Always.
Now time to conclude our journey, starting with our testing practices.
Speed And Consistency – Leveraging Relationship And Team Values In Development And Delivery Practices
In the last instalment of our series, we introduced some of the changes we’ve applied to our relationship and working practices with a federal government customer providing a middleware product to the healthcare industry. These changes have made a substantial difference to both the product and the outcomes we’re able to deliver. It’s now time to continue our journey, starting with product development.
The 6 Core Values That Made A Significant Difference To Both The Way We Work And The Customer Outcome
Late last year we released a case study on our partnership with a federal government customer providing a middleware product contributing great healthcare outcomes to Australians. While this has been a long-running engagement dating back almost 10 years, it hasn’t always run so smoothly. Our case study touches on some of the challenges and changes we’ve made along the way; this series of articles dives into much more detail.
Why is Working on A Healthcare Project so Different? (Part 2)
If you didn’t read part one of this blog, you can read it here. It talks about some of the unique challenges faced on projects in a healthcare setting. This next blog looks at some of the strategies I have seen employed to overcome these challenges and deliver great outcomes for health projects.
Why is Working on a Healthcare Project so Different? (Part 1)
In projects we have all heard about the triple constraints of time, cost and scope. While these are important considerations on all projects, they are not the main drivers for healthcare projects. From a clinical perspective the following factors appear to be key attributes of the project or proposed change.
Starting Your Integration Journey Right
Now more than ever, integration is becoming a critical capability within organisations due to the ever-increasing demand for information and a connected ecosystem. This is often driven by increasing customer expectation for modern, convenient, and real-time methods of engaging with the business and of employees who are seeking more opportunities to streamline business functions and to rapidly adopt new technologies.
Integrating with Dynamics 365 CRM and use of the Xrm.SDK
Integrating with Microsoft Dynamics CRM has only gotten easier in recent years with their native API providing growing and extensive functionality. From retrieving complex queries using OData or FetchXML to recalculating specific rollup fields and running workflows, you can do pretty much everything you need here.
Challenges of Introducing DevOps
Recently I’ve worked with a number of clients who are enthusiastic to start introducing DevOps practices into their organisations. DevOps has definitely gained a lot of momentum and buzz in recent times, and it’s been interesting to assist as organisations approach its introduction in different ways.
Messaging for Azure Integration – Choosing the Service that Fits
There’s no doubt that Azure offers architects and developers a panoply of integration messaging services, with each suited to different architectures. Implementing Microservices? Event Driven Architecture? Choosing the right messaging service can be daunting.
Challenges of Introducing DevOps
Recently I’ve worked with a number of clients who are enthusiastic to start introducing DevOps practices into their organisations. DevOps has definitely gained a lot of momentum and buzz in recent times, and it’s been interesting to assist as organisations approach its introduction in different ways.
Emerging Technologies Sparking Innovation at DPTI
The Department for Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) Library recently hosted their first ‘Lunch and Learn’ session for 2017 with a deep-dive into emerging technologies at the Office for Design + Architecture on Leigh St. Chamonix, in partnership with Cortex Interactive, were invited to present on, and demonstrate the application of, Virtual and Augmented Reality solutions to guests from across Government and industry.
Bypass the Office365 Login Redirect Page with ADFS
Office 365’s single sign-on capabilities with ADFS are a great improvement over dual-identities, and it takes online users a step closer to the seamless experience they have become accustomed to with an on premise web application. If you’re looking to set it up, Microsoft provide some great information and even some step-by-step videos: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3061192.
Happy 10th Birthday Chamonix!
September 2020 marked Chamonix IT Solutions’ 10-year anniversary! This milestone is a great opportunity for us to look back at all our achievements since 2010
Integration management as an added value
Maintaining agility Over the past 10 years, we’ve seen a constant increase in the need for integration by our customers, largely driven by new solutions
The Changing Face of IT
After a more flexible, transparent and exploratory approach to engage with vendors? The Competitive Dialogue (CD) tender process opens up a host of benefits
A Different Approach to Procuring Solutions
After a more flexible, transparent and exploratory approach to engage with vendors? The Competitive Dialogue (CD) tender process opens up a host of benefits
Agile Metric Estimation
We look at the tools that can be used to help validate initial project estimations, answering the most commonly asked project management questions around timeframes and resources.
Facilitating Spaces for Remote Collaboration
How we are helping our clients innovate through creative collaboration in times of social distancing.
Project Management In Uncertain Times
As Project managers, we’re used to dealing with uncertainty, change, conflicting priorities and managing risk in the process of getting the job done. But no one had COVID-19 on their risk register. So, how do we deal with things differently in these unprecedented times?
Why is Working on A Healthcare Project so Different? (Part 2)
If you didn’t read part one of this blog, you can read it here. It talks about some of the unique challenges faced on projects in a healthcare setting. This next blog looks at some of the strategies I have seen employed to overcome these challenges and deliver great outcomes for health projects.
Why is Working on a Healthcare Project so Different? (Part 1)
In projects we have all heard about the triple constraints of time, cost and scope. While these are important considerations on all projects, they are not the main drivers for healthcare projects. From a clinical perspective the following factors appear to be key attributes of the project or proposed change.
Leveraging Office 365 For Remote Working
With many companies having recently transitioned to a remote working model, it is more important than ever to leverage the collaborative tools available to us to ensure we are working as productively as possible.
Business Continuity – How to Enable your Organisation in Volatile Times
With the escalation of COVID-19 to a global epidemic, many businesses owners are currently looking at how to respond to this confusing and potentially risky situation.
Digital Transformation & Security
To strive and excel in the digital economy, it’s innovation that enables organisations to stay competitive and agile. Unfortunately, more often than not, security is unjustly considered an impediment to this.
6 Steps to Modernise your Workplace
You’re sitting at your desk. It’s likely the same one you’ve had since you started, or at least since that last big restructure a few years ago. You have your work-supplied computer on the desk and – laptop or desktop – that’s pretty much where it’s been since IT installed it there. There are meeting rooms nearby you can use as well as a sizeable boardroom. Whilst you generally like the people around you, quite frankly, sometimes you just need some quiet time to focus and get your work done.
Engaging Employees as Consumers
As a Change Manager it is my job to come up with new ways to engage people and influence their behaviour and thinking in terms of how the change that is coming can help move the organisation forward. I like to encourage the project teams that I am working with to try to think like an advertising executive. How can we influence our employees and stakeholders to buy (or buy into) this product or idea we are selling?
Not Just a Role – A Responsibility
In many projects the need for getting the right people to sponsor, lead and influence a change is often overlooked. People are given roles and titles within a project without the understanding of what responsibility comes with that position. This can lead to poor adoption, lack of ownership and ultimately even project failure.
The Competency Model
Contrary to what some people think, incompetence is not a bad thing. It’s merely a phase one goes through on the way to being competent in a new skill; enter the competency model…. Personally I love this model. It’s simple, has many applications but most of all it just makes sense.
Testing – The Understated Hero of Development
Software testing is a process of determining whether a software product meets the business requirements, and ensuring that the product is bug-free. The Test Team not only verify that the software functionality meets the business requirements, they also seeks out any errors, gaps, or missing functionality in comparison with the specified requirements.
Implementation, Testing And Support – Our Ongoing Quest To Deliver The Best Value Possible, Always.
Now time to conclude our journey, starting with our testing practices.
7 Key Themes in Maximising your Performance Testing Outcomes
Having recently been engaged to evaluate a client’s approach to load testing a web-based application, we wanted to share some of the themes arising from the outcomes in the hope that some of these can assist you in your own performance testing journey.
Digital Health Partnerships: Leveraging technological expertise to improve clinical capability and health outcomes
Chamonix is privileged to have had a long history working in digital health. Throughout the course of our 12 year journey, we’ve gained a wealth of insights into the unique needs of healthcare organisations in providing solutions to provider and user whilst accommodating a complex landscape of stakeholders and legacy information.
Uncovering DevOps – A Powerful Formula for Success
At its core, DevOps uplifts the software development life cycle for increased efficiency, higher velocity, more reliable delivery, and enhanced security. This methodology represents a cultural change that begins at an organisational level.
DevOps: A Single-Click Performance Testing Framework
Find out how our solution helped to develop a repeatable, single-click performance framework for our client.
GPT-3 and the Future of Software Development
GPT-3. Friend of C-3PO and R2-D2, I’m sure. Surprisingly, that’s not too far from the truth. Sitting somewhere between ‘Fluent in over six million languages’ and that noise your dialup modem used to make when connecting the internet, GPT-3 will certainly go down in history as one of the defining moments in the creation of Artificial Intelligence.
The Five Pillars of Exceptional Customer Experience
Winning customer loyalty and advocacy has never been so important as in this era of ever-widening competition. Organisations are striving harder to acquire customer loyalty – through differentiation of products and services and the overall customer experience.
Taking the plunge into Digital Health
I believe you’ll concur when I say:
Small changes eventually add up to huge results. I have stood by the above quote throughout both my professional and personal journeys. Recently, I have had an amazing opportunity with Chamonix IT Solutions to further deliver the best business and technology support and value to customers.
Organisational Process Optimisation: Achieving Automation
Business process automation is, arguably, the main driver behind the invention of the computer. So why does it feel like so much day-to-day complexity is at least related to, if not directly caused by these machines? Why hasn’t the ‘Automation Revolution’ already happened?
Organisational Process Optimisation: Architecture and Automation
Business processes are by and large the means by which an organisation delivers services to its customers and operates its business. Therefore, they’re a fundamental part of how effectively a business functions and can be directly linked to profitability, customer satisfaction and risks.
Power Platform Governance Principles
The Power Platform in M365, as the name suggests, is incredibly powerful. It is capable of developing applications to meet almost any business need and can often be developed by users with little to no developer background.
Microsoft 365 Governance Toolkit
Microsoft 365 is a vast platform capable of uplifting an organisation’s productivity, collaboration, and communication capability. Many of the products within M365 require little oversight
The Many Arms of Cyber Security
Depending on the level of exposure, people may generally think of Cyber Security as people stealing identity details, bank account details and funds, or taking
Happy 10th Birthday Chamonix!
September 2020 marked Chamonix IT Solutions’ 10-year anniversary! This milestone is a great opportunity for us to look back at all our achievements since 2010
Leveraging Office 365 For Remote Working
With many companies having recently transitioned to a remote working model, it is more important than ever to leverage the collaborative tools available to us to ensure we are working as productively as possible.
Digital Transformation & Security
To strive and excel in the digital economy, it’s innovation that enables organisations to stay competitive and agile. Unfortunately, more often than not, security is unjustly considered an impediment to this.
Starting Your Integration Journey Right
Now more than ever, integration is becoming a critical capability within organisations due to the ever-increasing demand for information and a connected ecosystem. This is often driven by increasing customer expectation for modern, convenient, and real-time methods of engaging with the business and of employees who are seeking more opportunities to streamline business functions and to rapidly adopt new technologies.
Multi-Factor Authentication – Why Do We Need It?
Moore’s law states, to paraphrase, that the speed of computing processors grows exponentially, doubling roughly every two years. That’s fantastic news for businesses and users alike. More speed means more productivity. Less time waiting for systems. More work done.
Top Tips For Enabling Security And Productivity With A Remote Workforce
As a method of prevention in the current COVID-19 climate many Australian businesses where possible are moving towards a remote workforce solution. This will lead to employees working from home or another low-density low-exposure location.
