Does anyone have a software developer they can recommend?

Question

I have been running in circles for about a year now, working with different freelancers from Upwork, all who ultimately were unable to complete the project.

I am seeking an online scheduling/booking calendar, and have been offering $2,000 for it. When I ask companies, they quote $20,000 - $40,000. I am hoping to find an individual who would charge in between the two so if anyone knows someone that works independently who you have had success with, please do divulge!

David Robertson · Answer

Software development is expensive.  Just speaking generally, $2,000 is not nearly a big enough budget to build anything useful.

I find it hard to believe there isn't already a well developed scheduling/calendar SaaS product that someone else has already developed that you could pay an affordable monthly subscription.

Here's 3 I found just doing a google search ranging from $8 to $50 per month.

https://calendly.com/

https://simplybook.me/en/

https://acuityscheduling.com/s...

Sometimes it's easier (and cheaper) to just pay someone else a monthly subscription instead of trying to re-create the wheel.

Account Closed · Answer

I am going to explain a few more advantages to this scheduling software.

The bottom of the image below indicates there are 26,921 records in this software. Every morning, the very first thing I do after putting my coffee on my desk is I click on the 'Active' button. There are currently 24 active records (or tasks that need to be completed. Sometimes, the task may be something like I need to call my mother, or make a doctor appointment, call my attorney, etc.

The next best thing about MS Access and this type of software is the ability to find and retrieve old records based on all sorts of filters. You can search for a customer by only portions of their address, a portion of their first or last name, their phone number, a series of dates, their city and the list of potential filters is huge. I don't think you will every find a calendar software that gives you the ability to search for records like MS Access and sometimes finding an old record is super critical, or just being able cross-reference data can be critical.

This software can be customized within minutes and I would take out 50% or more of the buttons on the data entry screen to keep it simple.

Account Closed · Answer

There has to be a lot of canned software that does what you described. I develop all my own software with MS Access 2003 and I develop separate applications for every task. I don't believe in integrating multiple things in one piece of software. Especially, since you can open multiple applications at the same time. I don't believe in using phone apps since it is too easy to log onto your desktop computer with Teamviewer and run your computer from your cell phone or tablet.

As for the cost for what you are describing, the average developers ear earning $2,400 to $3,000 per week, or $60 to $75 per hour. That is what the employee gets paid and if he works for himself, or works for a company then he has to charge you no less than $200 per hour and it can easily take 100 to 200 hours to develop, test and debug a very simple piece of software.

What exactly do you expect your software to do and that is probably the most-difficult question to answer because people who don't know how to develop software don't exactly know how to describe what they want. You need to start with a main screen, put the fields you want on the screen and put pictures of buttons you click with descriptions explaining how you want to sort records, what you want on reports, etc.

Starting when the first personal computers were invented, I spend more than $150,000 trying to find the right computer for my company and trying to find the right software and I always had to develop my own from scratch. I purhcased Quickbook 3 times and threw all three in the trash, literally, because the software was bogged down with too many screens. Working with Quickbooks was cumbersome and the way it worked resulted in too many errors. I like software to be so simple you can teach a novice everything they need to know about it is less than 5 minutes. Not a joke!

Explain exactly what you want your software to do, why you want it to work that way and maybe I can come up with something that will work. Maybe, not! Why would a piece of scheduling software be worth paying $10,000 to $20,000 for.

For my company, I developed a super simple piece of software I call my dispatching software. Every telephone call of any importance gets entered into the software. Then, every day, I (or my secretary, or workers) print a report showing the jobs and tasks they have to take care of for that day. The software contains tasks and jobs for many days in advance and we quickly scan through all those, every day, but to keep life simple we print only the tasks that need to be completed for the one day.

Attached, is a copy of the main screen and a report for one employee. If interested, the software works on MS Access 2003, will work on newer versions and I can furnish what is called a Runtime software that will allow you to run the software without MS access, but you will not be able to modify the software without the full version. You can purchase MS Access 2003 on ebay for less than $100.

You can't get more simple than this and you don't have to transfer data from a phone app to a desktop because you can run your desktop from a phone, but when I travel I prefer to bring a Samsung tablet with a keyboard and a mouse. When I go to my house in the desert near Las Vegas my tablet uses an A T & T phone sim card and when I set my tablet up on a table it is exactly the same as if I was using my desktop while in my office.

It the report image. The '2' on the right side of the 'Time and Day' field means we dispatched the two calls to Alex, today, on the 2nd day of November. It is possible that Alex has another 10 tasks, but we hold back from printing those 10 tasks by not putting Alex's name in the 'Employee Field' on the main data entry screen. Very simple, fast, accurate and effective for scheduling.

I tried developing several applications with actual calendars, but the tiny squares with the Day Numbers was too small for data entry and to see exactly what your task (or multiple tasks) for any specific day required the used to click on each date. That method is cumbersome, time-consuming and bogggles my mind. For my software, we click on the 'ACTIVE' button and it filters and retrieves only active records (tasks that are NOT COMPLETE. This way, we easily scroll through all the active records and we don't have to click on multiple calendar dates.

Daniel Y. · Answer

Jack did a great job of breaking down and explaining everything, including the cost. With me working at a FinTech company and work with many devs, I can tell you that those numbers for outsourced devs and in-house devs are pretty spot on for the average.

There's a lack of information in your request, but from you mentioned so far. The requirements for your project is a bigger lift than you thought, and you realized that with all of the attempts through Upwork.

It sounds like you are looking for a tool for personal-use or for your own PM company, but not for commercial resale. What are the current tools out there that is not offering what you are looking for? Can you name some software that you have looked at and point out what is lacking for you? Maybe we can help you from there.

Does anyone have a software developer they can recommend?

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