Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures
IT services in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures: an application built around your process
A spreadsheet three people edit at once. An invoice typed in by hand. Two programs that refuse to talk to each other. OKTO Solutions builds the missing tool and puts artificial intelligence inside it where it takes work off someone’s desk, from Trois-Rivières, about 109 km from Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures.
In Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, OKTO Solutions offers custom application development and the automation of a process with artificial intelligence. A project starts from one specific task, is scoped with the people who do it, then ships in usable slices. The code and the data stay in the client’s name. OKTO works from Trois-Rivières, about 109 km away.
Who builds a custom application for an SMB in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures?
OKTO Solutions offers its services to SMBs in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures. Its one office sits in Trois-Rivières, about 109 km away. It keeps no premises in the city and stations nobody there: development is done remotely, as it is everywhere else in Quebec. A custom application is software written for a single business, with its own vocabulary, steps and rules. It earns its place when an important process no longer fits the tools on hand, for instance a shared spreadsheet where nobody knows which version is the real one. The work opens with a scoping session with the people who do the task, moves on to a mock-up of the screens, then advances in slices the team tries out with real data. Where artificial intelligence helps, it lives inside the tool and is applied to one specific task, such as reading an invoice and preparing the accounting entry. The code, the database and the hosting accounts are in the client’s name.
How it runs
How does an application project move from the first call to go-live?
It does not start with code. It starts with a meeting where we watch how the work gets done today, alongside the people doing it. We write down what the application will cover, what it will leave out and what it connects to: accounting, Microsoft 365, an ERP or a CRM already in place. You leave with a scope and a schedule before signing anything.
Screens come next, as a mock-up. Moving a field on a drawing takes minutes. Moving it in finished software takes days. This is when your staff recognize their day in the tool, or tell us we got it wrong.
Development happens in slices. Each one goes into a test environment, your team uses it with real data, and what they say changes what comes after. Priorities can shift as long as they stay inside the agreed scope.
At cutover, your existing data is brought across and the users are trained. The old way stays available until the new one has proven itself. From then on the application is hosted, backed up, monitored and patched. It is not delivered and then forgotten.
Roof inspectionsToitures Bérubé Wireframe first, delivered screen second: a form is filled in, saved and added to the list.
Before you spend
Should you have it built, or buy software off the shelf?
We always check which of the two applies, and we say so, even when the answer costs us the job. Five situations come up again and again.
| Your situation | The sensible route | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A critical process lives in a spreadsheet several people edit | Build | A spreadsheet has no access control, no history and no structured backup |
| Accounting, payroll, tax filings | Buy | The function is standard and follows rules set somewhere other than your office |
| Two systems do not talk and someone bridges them by hand | Build the bridge | Information is entered once and flows the right way |
| An urgent need a subscription solves this week | Buy | Speed matters more than a perfect fit |
| Your customers want to see their files without phoning | Build a portal | The answers already sit in your systems and only need to be shown |
The right call is often a mix: the off-the-shelf accounting package stays, and the missing piece is built around it and plugged in. To weigh that kind of decision with management, there is the vCIO module.
A custom portal: the invoice that came in by email is read and filed, and the document counter ticks up by one.
One process at a time
What is artificial intelligence for inside an application?
Taking a task out of someone’s hands. Not adding one more tab. Inside a custom tool, artificial intelligence takes over a repeated, well-bounded action: reading a document, pulling out the right fields, sorting a request, drafting a reply.
Take a supplier invoice. It comes in by email. The tool reads it, extracts the number, the date, the amount and the taxes, then prepares the entry in the accounting system. Anything out of the ordinary is set aside for a person to look at.
One decision is made with you before go-live, on a prototype fed with real cases: does the tool act by itself, or does it propose and wait for approval? Once in production, every run leaves a record that can be consulted. An automation nobody can verify has no place there.
That leaves the data. Pasting a client file into a public artificial intelligence service sends that information outside the business. If it holds personal information, Law 25 treats the act as a disclosure to a third party. So we look at where the data goes before picking the tool.
Ownership
What do you walk away with if the engagement ends?
Put that question to any developer before signing. Our answer has four parts, written into the agreement before the first day of work.
- The source code. All of it, in a repository in your name, with the change history. Permanent access, not a file emailed at the end.
- The data. The database is yours. It exports in a standard format whenever you want, with no exit fee and no explanation required.
- The hosting. Hosting and domain name accounts are opened in your name. We administer them, you own them.
- The documentation. The data schema, the deployment procedures and the user guide. Enough for another team to carry on without starting over.
The ground
Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, about 109 km from our office
The city is part of the Capitale-Nationale region. Together with Quebec City and L’Ancienne-Lorette, it is one of the three cities of the Quebec City agglomeration.
For a development project, distance matters little. Scoping, mock-ups and trials happen over video calls, and each slice is tested online. OKTO has neither an address nor a technician stationed in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, and no travel time is promised there.
To have the fleet looked after day to day as well, see managed IT services and our plans. Quebec City, just to the east, has a page of its own: IT services in Quebec City. The rest of the territory is under service areas, and a process you want to describe goes through the contact page.
Questions and answers
Your questions about an application project in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures
Do you have an office in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures?
What does a custom application cost for a small business?
Can artificial intelligence be added to software we already use?
How soon will we have a first version we can use?
What happens to the application if we change providers?
Who looks after the application once it is live?
Which process eats the most hours?
Describe it in a few lines: who does what, in which software, how many times a week. We will tell you whether an application is the right answer, whether off-the-shelf software would do, or whether a simple automation is enough.
Reviewed by Antonio Pazzi, president of OKTO Solutions · updated