Development time
12 months
Team size
12 professionals
Team size

Modo is a paid UK data analytics platform for the alternative energy industry. With a paid subscription, Modo provides B2B customers with extensive metrics.

From various API sources and tracking systems, the platform collects everything businesses need to manage energy resources and assets, including news, benchmarks, and information on market leaders.

The Client

An energy industry expert
Team size second
Team size third
01/12

The Brief

Our client wants to enable energy businesses in the UK to get extensive expert information from a single convenient source.

Initially, our team was assigned the high-level task of developing a data intelligence platform. For the MVP, we needed to create a website with user registration, a home page with a news portal, and several sections with analytics, calculations, and charts. All these charts had to be beautiful and readable. We also needed to integrate with a third-party API that provides data about the energy market.

End Customers
Large energy-based companies in the United Kingdom
02/12

Key Features

  • k1
    Intuitive registration
    k2
    Industry articles
  • k3
    Stylish graphics
    k4
    Regular data updates (some every few seconds)
  • k5
    Integration with the Stripe payment gateway
    k6
    Dictionary of industry vocabulary
  • k7
    Ability to add and manage team members in the user profile
    k8
    Modo map: UK map with information on energy assets
  • k9
    Home page with a huge scope of analytical data
    k10
    Dashboard that shows all aspects of the energy market
  • k11
    Graphics previews (charts)
    k12
    Industry reports and updates
03/12
Preparation

Preparation

At the planning stage, our team included a business analyst (BA), project manager (PM), backend developer, solution architect, and designer, all of whom collected project requirements. We also held workshops with our client in our office to brainstorm ideas. During these meetings, Modo representatives sketched a concept to show us their vision of the functionality.

04/12

Team Performance

Since we had a project manager, business analyst, backend developer, solution architect, designer, and quality assurance engineer working with Modo since the planning stage, our team got to understand our clients well and was able to efficiently interact with them. Excellent communication and an atmosphere of mutual understanding ensured great results!

Team members who joined the project later noted that they were comfortable working on the project because the clients clearly understood what they wanted and the project was easy to understand due to high-quality code.

The Modo team is proactive — developers, designers, and business analysts offer ideas for the project’s development in addition to implementing what the clients want.

Team Performance
05/12

Project Management Methodologies

At different stages of development, we used different project management methodologies. We created the Modo MVP according to the waterfall methodology, implementing absolutely all functionality planned. For versions two through four, we worked with an Agile methodology. For version five, we are working in the format of daily interactions with the client.

The client has appreciated our speed and flexibility most of all, which is one of the reasons he gave us a maximum Net Promoter Score rating of 10.

Project Management Methodologies
06/12

Technologies and Integrations

Back end

tech1

Front end

tech2

Integrations

  • National Grid ESO

  • Twitter

  • BM Reports for the “Optics” insights

  • Google Maps integration for the ModoMap

  • Payment processor “Stripe”

  • Emails sender AWS SES

  • Energy Storage

  • LinkedIn

  • Customer support: Intercom

  • Epex Spot API

07/12

Services

Business analysis

Business analysis

Project management

Project management

Frontend development

Frontend development

Backend development

Backend development

Solution architecture

Solution architecture

DevOps

DevOps

Design

Design

Quality assurance

Quality assurance

Maintenance

Maintenance

08/12

Roadmap

Planning stage

Feb - May 2020

Development

of the first, second, and third versions of the platform

Feb - Oct 2020

Maintenance

Nov - Dec 2020

Development

of the fifth version of the platform

Jun - Sep 2021
09/12

Challenges

Front end

The nivo/bar, nivo/line, nivo/pie, and nivo/scatterplot libraries didn’t always allow us to implement graphics in accordance with the design. Our client showed understanding and allowed some leniency with the design to work around this limitation.

Back end

Modo performs many calculations that are technically and logically complex. Sometimes, it became obvious that a feature needed to be reworked only after the client had tested it.

Leaderboard

This is a complex feature that involves a lot of logic. We needed to make the Leaderboard dynamic so it’s possible to add columns and rows through the admin panel. But this made it impossible to process data in tables, since data processing requires data to be in the database in a strict structure. This cannot be done when data is added dynamically. To resolve this issue, we decided to store data for processing in a strict structure alongside dynamic data.
10/12

Results

The Modo data platform is focused on delivering actionable insights into the UK energy industry through user-centric interfaces, simplicity, and focus.

For the MVP version of Modo, we implemented all plans, met the deadlines and budget, and avoided major errors and bugs at launch.

We are now continuing to develop the product without any pauses or problems in our cooperation. Our client’s successful startup currently has around 10 regular customers in the United Kingdom.

The product includes

A landing page with product information

11/12

Future plans

New industry intelligence

In 2021, Modo is planning to increase the breadth of its offering and expand the depth of analysis provided. The team is aiming at bringing more B2B customers to the platform, engaging them, and delivering more value. The current phase of development aims to bring more data to the platform:

  • All key energy asset details on one page
  • New day-ahead short term operating reserve (STOR) insights
  • Improvements to the leaderboard for accuracy, datasets, etc.

Functionality

We are not only adding new features but also improving and expanding the current ones. Soon, we are going to give wider access to the Modo dataset via an API and via the platform interface to allow customers to access energy market insights more comfortably and more easily.

Interface plans:

  • White UI theme
  • Landing page animations
  • New subscription options
  • Additional payment system
  • Dashboard customization
  • Modo map updates
  • Platform availability for clients in Holland, Belgium, France, and Ireland
  • Mobile application that will make platform data available to users in any place at any time
12/12

Conclusion

Modo is one of the first startups of its kind in the UK, and we are pleased to be developing this product.
c1

Our clients are proactive participants in the development process, and it was important for them to have personal contact with the S-PRO team at the start. Before the pandemic, we spent a lot of time with them in our office discussing and planning the project. Our team is on fire with the project and is 100% involved in it.

c2

Such close interaction is ideal when working with technology startups. We appreciate that from the very start of this journey, we have been on the same page with our clients about how the work should be done. As soon as it’s safe to do so, we look forward to flying to our clients again and hosting them in our office.

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Simply fill out the form or email us at hi@s-pro.io

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