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Request for advice about contracting out some work

Former Member
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I tried posting this in the PB LinkedIn group and got no responses - maybe my question is too vague - but thought I would try it here too.

We have a fairly complex program and a fairly complex spec for a significant feature to add. My guess is it might take a week of concentrated work to add the feature, and I'm tempted to try contracting it out. However, I'm worried about how much extra time would be required to get all the required pieces to the contractor, get them up to speed on the bits of the program they would be changing, review their code when it came back etc.

I'm definitely competent to do the work myself, but because I'm running a 2-person software business with thousands of users, I have a lot of other demands on my time and am having a heck of a time carving out enough time to concentrate on this.

Does anyone have any thoughts about the merits of contracting out this sort of piecework for one complex feature of a program? I'm also open to offers from people who would consider taking something like this on, with details of how you see something like this working! And/or, is this something you think could be farmed out on a site like UpWork, which seems to have a number of PowerBuilder programmers on it?


If anyone wants to see the spec that describes this feature, it's at http://www.software4nonprofits.com/files/AlternateDONATIONCloudSolution.pdf. The only parts that remain to be done are everything in the last section, "Use Cases". I'm afraid the doc is 10 pages. What makes it a bigger job than it looks is all of the error handling that must be done at each stage.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member
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I have accepted a bid for this work.

Former Member
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Hi Dan;

FYI: I found my NDA document template that I have used before in the past. If you would like a copy, please send me a direct email at  cpollach.at.travel-net.dot.com  (edit accordingly) and I can send it to you if you are still interested.  

Good luck with the out sourcing!  

Regards ... Chris

Answers (2)

Answers (2)

Former Member
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Hi Dan,

I'd recommend just letting the contractor work remotely on one of your computers. If you want to lock things down you can do that through Windows policies. Latency issues may be noticeable but nowadays should be tolerable, especially for such a limited-duration project. If you get a serious bid from someone that you trust they may have another suggestion, but I'd keep things simple to start.

Good luck!

Former Member
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Hi Dan;

  One of specialties that I tackle on a regular basis for many PB & Appeon customers. I'll have a look at your specifications and give you my thoughts. What I find though on these type of assignments is that setting up the infrastructure to properly do justice to unit & system test can be more effort than the actual code changes. Also, not to mention the design / approach to use.

Regards ... Chris

Former Member
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Thanks Chris. The design work is (IMHO) 100% done, it's all about implementation at this point. The outstanding questions would be about wordings of error messages etc., but that would be something someone could draft and I could revise to be the way I write them, after delivery. But you are right, one of my worries is about how hard the setup would be for someone to work on it.

I'd also like to ask whoever worked on it to sign some sort of NDA about our security mechanisms - I don't suppose you'd have a sample I can use? (Never came up before for us!)

If you're really interested in this after reading the spec please contact us directly, info@software4nonprofits.com. Obviously this forum is not a place for negotiating jobs. Thanks.

Former Member
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I believe that I have an NDA agreement draft that you could use with maybe some small modifications. Now the key would be to find it again. I'll dig around my office and let you know. 

As far as as security - you might want to consider hiring someone that already has some type of credible security clearance. For example with myself, I hold a Government of Canada Secret security clearance that you can verify with the RCMP or PWGSC. You could ask potential candidates if they hold a similar US/Canada and/or State/Province clearance certification. It adds a little more credibility to the NDA you sign between you and the contractor.  

Former Member
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Chris, if you do want to bid on this, please let me know. I have another bid coming in on Monday. I'm also, of course, open to any questions you have prior to preparing such a bid. Feel free to contact me directly at info@software4nonprofits.com.

One suggestion the other bidder had was to perhaps work remotely on one of our computers that is already set up for development. That would be an option, if you think the speed loss of working that way would be offset by the advantage of not having to figure out what is needed to set up to work on your computer.

Former Member
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Hi Dan;

  I looked at your specifications and I will not be bidding on this.

   If you really want to webify, cloudify and mobilize your PB applications in the future (I see that you discarded that option) - I am very confident that I can help you do that like I did for the Airman System.

FYI:  Airman goes Mobile with Appeon! - Articles - Appeon - PowerBuilder Tools, Native Mobile & Web De...

Regards ... Chris