This article will discuss the concept of running Collection-Master in the Cloud.

Traditional Hardware

With traditional hardware, you have individual computers, routers, firewalls, and other components that make up your network.

Workstations might be a machine at the desktop, or a Terminal Server shared between many users.

You would typically set up a “Server Room” with the various components and workstations set up at the desktop wired directly into the servers through gigabit networking.

Virtual Machines (VM)

Virtual machines change the paradigm with three or more “Hosts” running Virtual sessions. A virtual machine is a compute resource that uses software instead of a physical computer to run programs and deploy apps.

There are various Virtual solutions including VMware & Microsoft Hypervisor.

Virtual machines may be deployed on-site, in a data center, or at a cloud provider like Microsoft Azure or Amazon AWS.

Cloud Hosting

Once you have adopted virtual machines, you will see that the actual hardware is less important, and you can host the various virtual components at cloud providers like Microsoft Azure or Amazon AWS.

Wide Area Network (WAN)

If you are hosting your servers in the cloud, you are going to want to set up a WAN connecting your local devices to your back-end servers. Keep in mind that the WAN is going to be responsible for all of the network traffic, including scanning, printing, and other devices.

VMware includes “Virtual Adapters” for printing, scanning, webcam, microphones, speakers, etc. With Remote Desktop or Hypervisor, you will need to find solutions to compress this information.

Keep in mind that you should not run your applications over the WAN; rather, you should connect to a virtual machine that is on the same infrastructure as your servers.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

While you can use Remote Desktop Terminal Server and host many people on the same machine, the best experience is when you have a dedicated virtual machine for each user. Sometimes you use a hybrid setup with some people having their own machine and others using a remote desktop. Tasks like automation, EDI, media & printing all might work better with a dedicated VDI desktop.

VMware Horizon Client

VMware has a special client used to access your VDI. The client is optimized to improve performance and usability, including many of the “Virtual Adapters” that provide a seamless interface to your printers, scanners, webcam, microphones, speakers, etc.

A big advantage is that the solution includes a fully encrypted connection so that you don’t need to have a VPN or wired connection to the servers.

Remote Desktop Connection

Microsoft provides a Remote Desktop Connection that will allow you to connect to your virtual machines. Keep in mind that you need a safe and encrypted connection and should not simply expose Remote Desktop to the world. There are third-party products that provide many of the “Virtual Adapters” built into the VMware Horizon Client.

Value-Added Resellers (VAR)

As with many services, hiring the right VDI implementation consultant is important. You shouldn’t just open an account on a service, and then spin up a bunch of servers without proper planning. There are many nuances that a professional can help with. Proper resource planning for CPU, memory, bandwidth, and other factors is key to your success.

Scalability

One of the greatest advantages of cloud services is that you can devote as many or as few resources to each device as you choose. As your demand goes up, you can add memory & CPU to your machines.

Required Virtual Servers

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Contributed by Luis Gomez

Chief Strategy Officer

It’s 5:00 p.m. and your remittance report is erroring out. Just before picking up the kids to take them to piano lessons, you shoot an email off to Vertican. “Getting an error #36 on account 100001.” Vertican reaches out for more details on your issue, but you’re busy and that email gets buried in your inbox. Three or four days goes by. After you reply, you get more questions and requests for screenshots from Vertican. You feel overwhelmed by the constant back-and-forth.

Today we’ll preview a better way to get your support cases resolved. Giving us the run down is Kurt Sund, creator of the new support tool. Note that while Kurt is Product Owner of Q-Law and Q-LawE, the new support tool is for all Vertican software products.

How did you build the support tool to be most helpful to clients?

Our Client Success team documented the most common issues that our clients encounter. For each of those problems, they recorded the questions clients could answer to help Vertican diagnose the issue. We captured all of this in a database and built an app with hundreds of scenarios using branch logic. Based on your reported problem, the application will tell you what questions to answer and what information to provide.

How is this better than the current way?

The main thing is to capture the information upfront when you have it fresh in your mind and most accessible. This minimizes the back-and-forth when you no longer have that screenshot, and you don’t remember the details of the issue. Rather than trying to follow email exchanges in your already-crowded inbox, everything can be captured in one place.

Instead of having to keep track of multiple requests for information, the tool will show you what information is needed and what you’ve submitted. This really helps when issues are complex. Let’s say you have a problem with a remittance report. We may need to know what version of the software you’re running, reference screenshots of the error messages, and review a screenshot of the remittance report itself. As it is now, partial information requires us to reach out to clients, sometimes multiple times, before we have sufficient information to diagnose and resolve the issue.

So how does it work?

Vertican Support Access (VSA) is an application that resides in the software itself. You’ll enter your issue in the VSA, which will ask you questions specific to that issue to narrow down the cause of the problem. You’ll also get step-by-step guidance on what information to provide. These prompts will ensure your ticket captures relevant information in advance of it going to Client Success. This will minimize follow-up, which will reduce turnaround time.

Will clients have visibility to their tickets?

Definitely. And right inside the tool, without logging into vPortal.

First of all, a firm will have visibility to track the status of all tickets. Support Coordinators will be able to mark tickets as “closed” and record the support reference number. Since tickets must be authorized by Support Coordinators, the firm will have oversight on how it wants to use its incident allowance. A significant benefit is that the firm will have a history of the issues they’ve encountered.

Anything else?

There is no additional cost for the VSA. When you update your software, it will automatically update the VSA, which will be ‘learning’ and improving as cases are submitted. This is phase one of the tool, with future enhancements on our roadmap in the coming months. I also encourage clients to attend our VSA Mastermind session on May 25.

This Mastermind session was recorded! To view the Vertican Support Application (VSA) Mastermind video, click here.

Contributed by Kurt Sund

Product Owner, Q-Law/Q-LawE | Chief Innovation Officer

Alexandra Szilasi in the Spotlight

What is your title and when did you begin working at Vertican? I started my cooperation with Vertican at the end of 2020. In the first half of 2020, I worked as a Quality Assurance (QA) Analyst for the vExchange Analytics website and SMS product.

Since the second half of the year, I have been working on the QA team and we have been cross-training on all of our products.

What sort of work did you do before joining Vertican? After graduating from university with a degree in Chemical Engineering, I worked as a Project Manager in the engineering department of product development and process engineering for retail products and medical devices. I was interested in IT, but I had only taken a few programming classes in university, so as IT became an essential skill in the world, I decided to learn more. I enrolled in an IT school and graduated with a degree in Software Development.

During my studies, I had the opportunity to join the software development team of a global IT company. Then, when I saw a LinkedIn post sharing that the Vertican team was looking for another QA Analyst, the tasks looked very interesting, so I did not hesitate to apply.

What is a typical day at Vertican like for you? When I start work, I always check my email and my Teams to see if there are any updates or news related to my ongoing tickets that I should know about and prioritize. Until now, I have been working on Q-Law, Analytics, and vExchange tickets, but I will be working on Collection-Master and vMedia tickets in the future.

The team also has meetings on a weekly or sometimes daily basis to discuss upcoming questions, issues, etc.

What do you like most about working for Vertican? I like that the people are very friendly! It’s like a whole family and I can take my questions to everyone, and they are always open to help me.

If you could learn anything new, what would it be? While I learn new things every day about the products I work closely with, I would like to learn more about other Vertican products like Collection-Master and vMedia as well as improve my QA technologies skills as a whole. In my private life, improving my language skills is a never-ending story.

What was your very first job and how old were you? At the beginning of my university studies, I had a student job for the public transport company to count the bus or train travelers in the stations. I was 21 years old at that time.

What is something about you that may surprise your colleagues? I like to go to the gym. In 2015, I participated in a fitness competition.

What (else) do you like to do outside of work? I love reading and try to read for a half hour every day. I also enjoy sports, but this has gone through many changes due to the pandemic.

A hobby of mine is nail art; I like to do my own gel polish manicures and especially during the lockdown, it was nice to do it at home. I also love to spend time with my family and friends.

Share something exciting you did in the last 12 months. I have worked many interesting tasks and test cases with very good teams as well as participated in the making of a regression test plan for two different products which was an exciting chance to learn more about these products.

Because of COVID lockdowns, I also read many interesting books in the past year and even learned to be an at-home hairdresser!

Do you have a favorite movie, artist and/or book?

Movie: The Great Gatsby, Forrest Gump, Good Luck Chuck

TV: News, 24 series, Baywatch, and Knight Rider (I was a David Hasselhoff fan )

Musical or Other Artists: Ariana Grande, The Weekend, Armin van Buuren

Book or Author: Ken Follet: Pillars of the Earth, Stephen Hawking: Brief Answers to Big Questions, Dan Brown: Digital Fortress

Please share a favorite quote. “Never stop learning, because life never stops teaching.”

Peter Vittmayer​ in the Spotlight

What is your title and when did you begin working at Vertican? I am a Business Analyst assigned to vExchange Analytics, and I started at Vertican in February 2019.

What sort of work did you do before joining Vertican? I have been a Business Analyst/Product Owner over the past 8 years. Besides that, I have very strong airline experience. In the ten years leading up to joining Vertican, I worked for three different airlines: Malev Hungarian Airlines, Lufthansa Systems, and Wizz Air. I worked in many different positions, including pricing analyst, revenue analyst, service support manager, problem manager, IT business analyst, and test manager.

What is a typical day at Vertican like for you? First, I check my to-do list and my top priorities, then check the current state of the running user stories. My main job is to write specifications which describe what to develop, what to test, and what the Product Owner will receive as a new feature in the product. I take any questions to the Product Owners, developers, and Business Analyst Leads. When the requested feature and the technical solution are not 100% overlapping, I try to reach the optimum point, where everybody gets most what they would like to see from our product. For this if needed, I arrange and moderate meetings, and I liaise with other teams (mainly collect information or inform them about our needs). When the specification is ready, I review it with the developers for a final feasibility check, then I present it to the Product Owner for review. Then, I present the specification to the whole team and if there are no changes, and the team accepts, the specification gets a status of ‘ready’ and I close my ticket. As a next step, the developers start to develop the new feature, then the testers test it. During these parts of the workflow, I support these colleagues if needed.

What do you like most about working for Vertican? I can have ideas and the colleagues who I work with listen to me. Also, they are very helpful.

If you could learn anything new, what would it be? Professional – Relational database and data modeling. Personal – Beer brewing.

What was your very first job and how old were you? My first job was pricing analyst when I was 24 (before that I was studying).

Word on the street is you can fix anything. Tell us about it and how that began. I’ve been known to fix anything. My dad was a competent mechanic and teacher and would take on any project. I followed him around for years and learned from his example. I’ve not attempted brain surgery yet.

Word on the street is you do aikido and ninjutsu. Tell us about it and how that began. I was always interested in martial arts and started with ninjutsu when I was 18. Then years of back pain came. So, I continued with something less aggressive, and I have done aikido for 10 years. Currently I don’t practice because of COVID.

What is something about you that may surprise your colleagues? I built a fence from wood with a concrete base (for the columns) for my dog, an Old English Sheepdog. The next goal (I promised to my older son so I have to complete it) is a wooden playhouse over the sandpit. I can also paint a flat on my own (including fixing the walls).

What (else) do you like to do outside of work? Family takes 97% of my personal time. I have a 6-year-old and a 6-month-old son. We, along with our dog, hike in the forest by our home and love to play table games (Carcassonne, fuzzball).

According to my wife, I can talk for a half hour with one breath!

In the last 3%: I love cooking/baking. And I am very happy, when once in a month I can meet my friends from high school and again once in a month I can play some video games. Oh, and I hate it, but I read loads of news…

Share something exciting you did in the last 12 months. We have a newborn baby (actually, he is 6 months old).

Do you have a favorite movie, artist and/or book?

Movie: Odds and Evens; Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; Serial (Bad) Weddings; Star Wars (1-6).

TV: Friends, Modern Family, Brooklyn 99, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Life in Pieces. New ones (for me): The Mandalorian, GLOW, Last Man on Earth, The Witcher, Resident Alien.

Musical or Other Artists: Scooter, Ozzy Osbourne, Parov Stelar, Beshodrom and anything from the 80’s.

Book or Author: Harry Potter, any book from Rejtő Jenő (P. Howard)

Please share a favorite quote. “What do you do up there?” “I can’t come down.” “That’s not a reason to climb up!” – The Blond Hurricane, P. Howard