Following the recent launch of the Salesforce and Google Apps offerings, we have prototyped our own CODA 2go-specific Google Apps integration! This has been built using a Google Gadget, Apex code and Visualforce and the result has got us and everyone we demonstrated it to at Dreamforce very excited about the possibilities this proof of concept opens up.

Our experience of producing finance software over decades is that accountants love manipulating transactions in spreadsheets! The success of our on-premise CODA-XL product (which extends Microsoft Excel) has been outstanding, with virtually all customer organisations adopting it enthusiastically. Now in the on-demand world we have produced an equivalent solution that uses Google Spreadsheets and Force.com.

The initial prototype can be used to perform a Cost Allocation over extracted transaction details from the CODA 2go product. The user can then apportion new values by editing the cells used by formulas in the spreadsheet; we then post back the results in the form of a journal back into CODA 2go from within the Google Spreadsheet user interface via a Visualforce-powered Google Gadget!

The feedback from prospects, analysts and the guys at Salesforce has proved that this is yet another feature we can offer with CODA 2go that will keep the accountants smiling…

Nearly a week after the official launch of CODA 2go and we’ve been furiously processing the piles of enquiries that we got from Dreamforce in London. If you were one of those who spoke to us you should have had some sort of response from us by now, but if you haven’t please bear with us… we really were inundated…

Meanwhile, we’ve also been enjoying widespread press coverage after the event. It’s been overwhelming, in particular the positive nature of the feedback from analysts and journalists alike is something I’ve certainly never experienced before. Seems most commentators think we’ve made a smart move building on Force.com, and the salesforce.com user community seems to agree.

Highlights include some great pieces by well-known industry bloggers Dennis Howlett (here and here) and and Phil Wainwright, who penned an fairly meaty analysis of the financial implications of Platform as a service…

Other coverage included this, this and this.

We even rattled the ‘gorilla’ in the SMB accounting market, Sage, who responded to a query about CODA 2go from Accountancy Age that CODA ‘didn’t have any brand presence in the SMB space’. All we can say is, ‘keep up the complacency, Sage’!

Its not often you’d get branded a pig or a chicken without taking offence, but in Agile terms you’re either one or the other.  You’re either in the Scrum team getting your hands dirty, in which case you’re a pig, or looking in on the periphery keeping a close eye in which case you’re a chicken.

CODA 2go is the first project CODA has run using the Agile methodology Scrum.  It’s a very different approach to the more traditional Waterfall model of software development often adopted at CODA.

The Scrum team itself is a multi-disciplinary team made up of designers, developers, testers, automated testers and documenters all working in close proximity.  We have some very skilled people and a strong sense of ownership and team-working which really helps to drive the construction forward.  The team as a whole, headed up by the Scrum master, make decisions on a day to day basis to make sure we can deliver what we’ve signed up to do.

It’s been quite a learning curve and a big adjustment to the way we work but I think the benefits really show.  We were able to show off the end to end process of invoice generation through to printing at the end of the third sprint without the use of smoke and mirrors!  The process somewhat de-risks a project by providing software early and iteratively.  By giving it almost immediate visibility to the product owners the direction of the project can be continually reviewed and altered to meet the business needs.

We’re now 12 sprints in and we’ve designed, written, tested and documented some first class software and I think we can be proud of what we’ve achieved.

Tony Scott, Software Developer, CODA 2go. 8^th May 2008.

Well, we did it… CODA’s first totally new finance system for around 15 years was unveiled at salesforce.com’s Dreamforce event in London on Wednesday. Jeremy Roche from CODA joined salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff on stage during the keynote to talk about CODA 2go, the first accounting system to be developed on the Force.com platform, and demo the new application.

Demonstrating software live in front of 2500 people is always a risk, and sure enough the first click of a button produced an error message none of us had seen before. Our development team, watching back in Harrogate via the web, told us later their collective hearts stopped for a moment when that happened! However, turns out that that a glitch in the internet connection had taken the web browser off-line momentarily… so Steve Fisher on keyboards just had to refresh the browser and we were off and running.

The audience was certainly ‘wowed’ by the new offering - the CODA stand was mobbed for the rest of the two-day event. As we’d predicted, the salesforce.com community is hungry for a finance system that works seamlessly with their CRM.

We are currently working with beta partners, but when the solution goes on general release in the coming weeks we’re expecting a considerable amount of uptake. Watch this space, as they say!

Just one day now to the official unveiling of CODA 2go, at salesforce.com’s Dreamforce Europe event in London. Apparently registration broke the 2000 barrier some days ago so there will literally be standing room only when CODA’s CEO Jeremy Roche joins salesforce.com’s boss Marc Benioff on stage.

Jeremy will show some highlights of the ‘opportunity to cash’ process of CODA 2go, and discuss the product strategy and detail of pricing and availability. Shortly afterwards there will be a breakout where delegates can see the product in more detail.

We are briefing press all day today and tomorrow, so watch out for coverage around the world. Well know tech blogger Dennis Howlett got a preview last week and was highly positive - see his commentary on US site ZDnet or his own site, Accman pro.

We’ll blog more news over the next few days…