The road from Starter Sites to Products

Over the past 10 years, Click (Huron) has established a solid track record of providing software and services that enable research institutions to improve operational efficiency, capture critical data, achieve and sustain accreditation, and service the needs of the research community. Over that time, we’ve also learned a lot about what it takes to accomplish those goals. Our base Click Portal platform has evolved significantly over that time as we continue to identify ways to better meet demand and institutions have been able to benefit from these improvements by simply upgrading to the latest software. We also continually hone our best practices in application design and implementation patterns, but unfortunately these advancements have been significantly more difficult to realize for existing customers. This is due primarily to our reliance on what we’ve called “Starter Sites”. Starter Sites are fully configured solutions that serve as a point of departure for a custom implementation. Think of it as a head start on your custom site. The model works well but assumes that all future development is the responsibility of each institution in partnership with Click Professional Services. Advancements in the starter site can only be realized in your site through custom development. In December of 2011 we began to chart a new course that aims to change this reality through the introduction of products.

The road from Starter Sites to Products began with work on Click® IRB in January of 2012. The principles that drove this effort can be summarized as follows:

• Easy to use, streamlined processes
• Fully documented
• Integrated
• Extensible
• Fully enables a compliant process from day one
• Upgradeable
• Supportable

The inaugural release, Click® IRB 7.0, was released on July 1st, 2012 to great fanfare and the product philosophy it represents has resonated well with all those who have been exposed to it. We now have 6 months of history with the released product and several customers benefitting from all that it has to offer. Since July 1st, 2 major and 4 minor updates have been released that allowed customers to simply upgrade their current version via a simple install. These updates introduce new and improved features and I’m thrilled that all Click® IRB customers can benefit from our ongoing work with the product. This is such a huge leap ahead from the Starter Site approach.

Now, as we head into 2013, we ride the wave we created last year and plan to expand our offering through the development and release of additional products. We’re committed to the development and ongoing evolution of a fully integrated suite of products that, when combined with your ability to benefit from a stellar team of expert consultants, make me proud to do what I do.

Just as in years past, there’s a lot of hard work ahead of us to deliver on the grand vision, but momentum is only building. I look forward to providing additional details on our plans for 2013 and beyond at this year’s C3 Conference in May and hope to see all of you there. Between now and then, I’ll share what I can through this public forum and also encourage you to take a peek at the wealth of Click® IRB materials found on ClickCommerce.com.

Cheers!