Case Study

50% Lower Development Costs – Rebuilding a FileMaker App for Property Lifecycle Management

Eversfield Consultants needed a mobile-ready FileMaker application to support property lifecycle management, asset condition surveying, life-cycle scheduling, and cost management. When internal development became too time-consuming and the application performance did not meet expectations, Multishoring stepped in to rebuild the system and help Eversfield return focus to its core business.

50%

Lower Development Costs

Scope Areas Delivered

2→1

Scalable FileMaker Team

The Client

Strategic Interim Management for Long-Term Asset Management

Eversfield provides strategic interim management services to PFI, construction, and property management organizations. The company also offers asset condition surveying, life-cycle scheduling, and cost management for businesses involved in long-term asset management.

Eversfield’s approach is based on using elemental data to build a bespoke profile of every building based on its asset condition. To support this process, the company needed a system that would allow employees to evaluate individual asset condition across sectors such as Health, Education, and Student Accommodation.

The Operational Challenge

Eversfield began developing the FileMaker system internally because mobile data entry was essential for field work. However, the project took much more time than expected, proved more difficult than planned, and the team was not satisfied with application performance. The internal effort started to pull attention away from the company’s core business.

“As we haven’t got a lot of experience with FileMaker, it was very time-consuming for us to prepare our application. For this reason we couldn’t focus on our core business. What’s worse, we weren’t happy with the performance of the app we created.”

Nick Woolcot

Director at Eversfield Consultants

The Solution

A Remote FileMaker Delivery Team with Clear Cooperation Terms

Eversfield turned to FileMaker for support and was redirected to Multishoring, a Polish near-shore development provider offering custom business solutions built on the FileMaker platform. The cooperation was organized fully remotely through Skype meetings with screen sharing and email communication.

1. Analyze the Existing App

The first phase focused on retrograde analysis of the existing solution, including the FileMaker project structure, database relationships, and application behavior.

2. Rebuild the System

Multishoring rewrote the application, redesigned the database and relationships, improved the interface, and added missing lifecycle-management functionality.

3. Scale the Team to Project Needs

The project started with two FileMaker developers and later moved to one core developer, supported by a graphic designer and a project manager as needed.

4. Keep Work Transparent

Project work was managed in Redmine and settled through Multishoring’s internal time tracking system, making task progress and time usage easy to control.

Delivery Setup

The project combined a detailed requirements specification from Eversfield with Multishoring’s FileMaker development expertise, remote collaboration, and transparent task management.

Application Platform

FileMaker-based custom business application for mobile and desktop use

Data Model

Redesigned database structure and relationships for projects, buildings, floors, rooms, and components

Reporting

Graphs, reports, budget calculations, and PDF/Excel export capabilities

Collaboration

Remote communication through Skype, screen sharing, email, Redmine, and time tracking

“The hardest part of the project was the first few weeks when we needed a retrograde analysis of the existing solution. The project and the FileMaker database relationships had to be analyzed and we had to make appropriate modifications and tests to verify the proper operation of the app.”

Andrzej Biesiekirski

CEO of Multishoring

Scope of Work

What Multishoring Delivered

The development work covered the full rebuild of the application, from database relationships and user interface to reporting, budgeting, and export functionality.

Rewriting the entire system

Redesigning the database and database relationships

Redesigning the user interface and creating new interfaces

Enabling editing and copying of projects, buildings, floors, and rooms at different levels

Allowing base components to be modified from the desktop application

Generating graphs and reports in the system

Calculating budgets by project, building, parameters, and annual or quarterly periods

Generating reports as PDF and Excel files

Developing a refreshed graphic interface, including colors and buttons

Project Outcomes

Business Benefits for Eversfield Consultants

By outsourcing the FileMaker development work to Multishoring, Eversfield accelerated delivery, reduced costs, and freed internal resources to focus on its core consulting business.

Fast App Creation

Entrusting the system development to Multishoring resulted in fast delivery of an application that satisfied Eversfield’s needs and expectations.

50% Lower Development Costs

Eversfield reduced development costs by half compared with building the system through UK-based FileMaker programmers.

Clear Cooperation Terms

Hourly work reporting and time tracking made it easy to control how much time specific tasks required.

Focus on Core Business

Outsourcing the project freed internal resources previously involved in development and allowed the company to focus on its core services.

Summary

A Practical FileMaker Rebuild with Measurable Cost Benefits

Eversfield Consultants needed a reliable property lifecycle management system but internal FileMaker development was consuming too much time and was not delivering the expected performance. Multishoring took over the project, analyzed the existing solution, redesigned the database and interface, and delivered the required functionality under clear remote cooperation terms.

The project helped Eversfield create the application faster, reduce development costs by half compared with UK-based FileMaker programmers, and refocus internal resources on strategic interim management, asset condition surveying, life-cycle scheduling, and cost management.

contact

Thank you for your interest in Multishoring.

We’d like to ask you a few questions to better understand your IT needs.

Justyna PMO Manager

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