PLANR

Codeto had me on as a contractor to build the front-end for their product from scratch and get it to market in less than 6 months. This is how it turned out.

Planr is like a Swiss Army Knife for deployment and resource planning. It brings together all the different aspects of deployment so you can plan and create schedules with ease. Employees can view their upcoming plans from their smartphones, and update their plans in real-time as changes occur.

In the beginning, Codeto worked with a leading Swiss construction company Baumann Koelliker AG to design a solution suitable for this sector. When all the requirements were ready, they developed graphic designs and a data model.

One of the founders was a back-end developer, and they were looking for an experienced front-end developer to help them lift the project from the ground.

The key was that the software should not only be functional but also last the test of time. That meant scalable, flexible, and resistant to frequent changes in requirements and rapid development.

I joined Codeto in August 2019 as a freelance software engineer. We all know that beginnings are sometimes hectic. Back then, it was no different. The workload was intense. We had to make a lot of important decisions in a short period of time. My top priority was to design a scalable software architecture. I wanted to make sure the code was easy to read, write, and maintain. It was important to me that the software I created could grow and change quickly.

As Planr was intended to be a Progressive Web App, the logical choice was React. There was also no doubt that we had to use TypeScript; I couldn't imagine working on a project of this scale without it. One of the other proven libraries that I have successfully used on previous projects was Material UI. MUI is not only a very flexible and customizable library but also developer-friendly because it has a massive community behind it. The back-end was supposed to use GraphQL (GQL), so I decided to give Apollo GQL a try. It had great community support, it looked like it would scale well and its flexibility allowed us to move quickly.

Over the next few months, we worked hard to get our SaaS product to market. We experienced setbacks, last-minute changes, and sweating during the presentations, but after a lot of hard work and commitment, we got it finished!

I am proud to say that our launch has been a smashing success. We have attracted several companies to try our software for free. They were so impressed by what we offer that they converted into paying customers, and we've been able to retain their business ever since. We even learned that these customers had shared their positive experience with certain colleagues from other companies—and not only did these colleagues want to learn more about Planr, but even made the switch themselves!

It's been a year since we started selling this service on the market, and in that time, our company's grown by leaps and bounds. The past year has seen the client base grow from one to almost sixty construction companies all over Switzerland. So in that time, we've worked with these clients on new features and functionalities which are producing good results for them every single day. It gives me a sense of accomplishment to know that my work has contributed to Codeto's success, and I am proud to say that the new implementations are actively being used by thousands of people across Switzerland.