PSF Modernizes Its Key eFleet App With Euvic
22 November 2019
Polski Serwis Floty (PSF), the leader of the vehicle fleet management market in Poland, has rapidly eliminated performance problems affecting its key system eFleet and regained the ability to develop it further thanks to its cooperation with Euvic. The cooperation has also contributed to relieving PSF’s own IT resources and rearranging eFleet’s maintenance and development. In this way the company has gained peace of mind in an area that was a matter of great concern until recently.
About the Client
PSF (https://www.psflota.pl/) has been present on the market since 2004. It provides Poland-wide services in the field of vehicle fleet management, such as comprehensive vehicle service, the optimization of mechanical and tire service maintenance costs, damage settlement, 24h assistance and vehicle rental. PSF has modern IT facilities, a qualified team of specialists as well as an extensive network of garages.
Initial Situation
In 2018 PSF was looking for an IT service provider to prepare a new version of its key system eFleet, providing direct online contact between PSF’s Customer Service Center, garages and clients. The system makes it possible to plan and control the vehicle service process as part of the PSF fleet program on an ongoing basis. It also contains comprehensive information about fleets as well as about the state of every vehicle and the manner of servicing in a given fleet. Additionally, eFleet gives customers the ability to monitor the repair status of their vehicles using a mobile app.
eFleet was created in 2004 based on the proprietary technologies of an IT provider cooperating with PSF. Over time it began to suffer from more and more problems affecting the application performance and its development possibilities. PSF considered creating the next version of its system either completely from scratch or by upgrading it using modern and publicly available technologies. The company began looking for a new IT service provider who would advise it on the best way to solve its problems with eFleet.
Challenge
One of PSF’s priorities is to constantly improve the quality of our services and introduce new, innovative solutions to meet the current and future needs of our clients. That is why we wanted to eliminate problems related to the performance of eFleet as quickly as possible. We also wanted to regain the ability to further develop it and thus to support the constantly improved processes related to vehicle servicing under the PSF fleet program.
CEO at PSF
Solution
After analyzing the offer of IT service providers available on the market, PSF decided to contact Euvic. The company had never cooperated with Euvic before but it found very good opinions about it from various sources. PSF paid particular attention to Euvic’s extensive experience in carrying out modernization projects as well as its web and mobile applications development competencies that were key to implement the project.
The starting point for the cooperation between Euvic and PSF was a thorough analysis of eFleet (in terms of its performance problems as well as security and backup policies) and defining its modules that were to be modernized or created anew in the first phase of the project. Initial talks took place in July 2018 and shortly thereafter there was a series of analytical meetings during which PSF presented the different modules, existing problems as well as the current and planned functioning of the entire system.
Having analyzed our client’s requirements, we proposed to modernize the system and its infrastructure instead of creating it from scratch. The basis of the new infrastructure was to be modern hardware, using very efficient Intel processors and dedicated high-speed SSD drives. In addition, we suggested the use of the new SQL Server 2016 database engine and the Windows Server 2016 operating system that are safer and more efficient than their earlier versions. We also proposed that the next version of the system should be created using the .NET 4.7 platform and modern front technologies, including Angular 7 and HTML5, and also backend technologies such as WebAPI, in order to optimize its operation even more.
Technical Director at Euvic
All the recommendations, including on how to monitor the operation of the system to optimize its performance, backup policy as well as others resulting from the application logs analysis, have been collected in a special document subject to customer approval. After obtaining the approval, Euvic launched the process of migrating eFleet to the new environment.
The scope of work at this stage included the following activities:
- recommendations for the new IT infrastructure hardware and its delivery,
- infrastructure replacement,
- completely new design of the system’s UI / UX using Angular 7 + HTML5,
- taking over application maintenance,
- providing hosting services in rented collocation,
- system configuration in production, test and development environments.
Together with the PSF team Euvic worked on the system mockup and defined requirements using the Agile framework. In addition, Euvic created detailed documentation of the implemented changes and improvements.
The customer has now access to a system monitoring service and also benefits from technical support in the event of any problems. This support includes two teams:
- the second-line support team – it performs complex administrative tasks and solves more serious problems reported by the first-line support;
- the third-line support team – it performs tasks related to the implementation of new technologies as well as deals with the ongoing development and maintenance of supported systems.
eFleet began to operate much more efficiently after it had been migrated to the new infrastructure and Euvic had taken over the maintenance of its first modules. This confirmed that we were right to carry out the changes as proposed by Euvic.
The current and upcoming project works are related to the development of the system’s next version. It will be migrated to the .NET 4.7 platform using Angular 7 and HTML5. The new version will also contain a number of improvements in the modules that are dedicated to customers, vehicles, garages, suppliers and catalogs. At the next stage an analysis of the system modules and system cost estimates will be carried out. They will form the basis for determining what development works are to be conducted on these modules. The Euvic team also develops the mobile app according to PSF’s needs on an ongoing basis.
Business Benefits
PSF has gained many significant benefits by entrusting Euvic with the modernization and maintenance of its e-Fleet application as well as its further development. The most important of those benefits are: eliminating system performance problems, regaining the ability to further develop the system and thus to quickly respond to changes in the market environment, relieving its own IT resources, systematizing its work and gaining the peace of mind in this area.
Eliminating problems with eFleet’s performance
With the implementation of the new infrastructure, which has become the basis of eFleet’s operation, problems related to the system performance were eliminated in a short time. Additionally, PSF’s policy on IT systems security and backup has been rearranged too which also has contributed to increasing the stability and predictability of eFleet. The system performance will improve even more after migrating its next version to .NET 4.7 using Angular 7 and HTML5.
Regaining the ability to further develop the system
By modernizing eFleet based on .NET 4.7, Angular 7 and HTML5 and supporting its operation with a modern environment, PSF has regained the ability to develop the system quickly using the DevOps approach and the Agile methodology. Currently, all work related to the app development is carried out using three independent environments – one for development, one for testing and one being a copy of the production environment. In addition, Euvic has also implemented tools that automate the creation of subsequent application releases and the transfer of these releases to the production environment.
Cost-effective cooperation
By choosing to modernize the system, as suggested by Euvic, instead of creating it from scratch, PSF has saved significant resources while achieving its goals. The cost-effectiveness of the cooperation for PSF was also ensured by the “nearshoring” approach it adopted. It means that Euvic consultants visited PSF personally only when it was really needed. The rest of the work was done off-site. Also the next stages of cooperation will be carried out on a similar basis. A very important benefit for PSF was also flexibility in accessing Euvic’s programmers and the adopted “only for working time” settlement system.
Relieving own IT resources and peace of mind
Thanks to its cooperation with Euvic, PSF has relieved its own IT resources and secured peace of mind in an area that until recently was a matter of great concern.
Credentials
backCooperation with Euvic confirmed the company’s reputation as a professional IT service provider with a very competent team as well as a pro-client and proactive attitude during the project. The efficiency with which Euvic implemented our project deserves to be emphasized. It allowed me to go safely on vacation at a critical moment of the first phase and in the meantime all the work was fully and timely completed.
CEO at PSF