Working with Jay Nath, first CIO of San Francisco, helping the US government with procurement
City Innovate is a gov tech startup speeding up digital transformation and innovation by streamlining procurement through enterprise software.
“Not only are they reliable and talented developers, but they are eager to come to the table as thought partners, sincerely invested in the success of our product. Simply put, we could not have accomplished all that we have without our Eagerworks team members.”
Jay Nath, co-CEO
Challenge
The main challenge was to unify 4 different Ruby on Rails products into a single platform that brings challenge-based procurement to governments.
When we first started working together, City Innovate had already launched a successful product built with RoR. The software product consisted in automating the building of procurement documents, which can often span up to 400 pages.
The main goal of the partnership was to enhance and unify the other 3 software products before merging them into one main web application altogether, having it ready to scale within other US governmental organizations. Those three smaller products had the functionalities of receiving, evaluating, and selecting vendors.
We were responsible for the strategic architectural decisions, and we had the challenge of implementing a software solution on a tight schedule.
With the integration of the products, the challenge was to bring the 2 development processes together and start working in a coupled way with our team and the technical team from City Innovate
Solution
When we first started with City Innovate, they couldn't keep up with the demand and needs of their customers. This is what we call a “good problem” for a startup to have, which indicates you’re solving a real problem and adding real value to users.
For a complex project in a specific and technical field such as the US government regulations, we built a team in Ruby on Rails that could have a full vision of the product in order to add long-term technical value. This team was guided and advised by our CEO, and led by our RoR Technical Leader.
City Innovate enables remote work and collaboration between the CIO, Agency Leaders, and Procurement Managers to build complex solicitations in less time, with compliance, and with the rigorous requirements of your purchasing organization.
This web product enables users to easily create documents and forms specially made for their local government. We implemented a flexible way to adapt this service to every request.
We created a solid process where governments can show their solicitations to suppliers, allow suppliers to register their information, and then evaluate that application on that same platform. Government evaluators are able to navigate through all the forms and assign points easily.
Outcome
A single digital platform on Ruby on Rails that brings challenge-based procurement to governments at scale.
As a result, we obtained a solid software product with the potential to bring multi-million solicitations through this innovative and efficient platform.
Toolbox
Solution
Unifying 3 platforms into 1
Tech
Ruby on Rails
Team
7 developers
“They go above and beyond in terms of thought partnership and really demonstrate their investment in the product or what they’re assigned to do”
Madeleine Chone,
Product Manager, City Innovate
