FreshWorks Studio
1815 Blanshard Street V8T 5A4 Victoria, BC, Canada

This fall we worked with YourAlberta (Government of Alberta) to build the technology behind this pilot program. You may have seen it in the news already but COVID testing is now available at select entry points for travelers arriving into the province. We're very proud of our team that helped make this possible. https://hubs.ly/H0ztdpp0 #COVID19 #DigitalHealth #DigitalGovernment

Few things in life will be more exciting, and often more disorienting than your first few weeks at a new company. We grew from 2 founders to a team of over 70 in the last four years. So there has been someone here that just joined in the last couple of weeks nearly all the time. In this time, we've continuously improved our onboarding practices for new team members. Things really got a jump start though when our HR Manager, Shannon joined in late 2017.... We gather feedback on the onboarding experience every time someone joins, and we're very proud of how positive that feedback is. No one is probably more proud than Shannon though, which is why she prepared an article we think you'll love on "6 Tips to Creating an Onboarding Process from Scratch". Thanks Shannon! https://hubs.li/H0zcZ9w0

Conducting effective user research doesn’t require you to do different things from basic research. All you need to do is shift your focus around during your research so that you are looking at the research topic from multiple layers. Shifting your focus between user-centric view and their ecosystem will yield the following advantages over basic user research: Insights into true requirements, deep understanding of user ecosystem, clues for design elements that leads to market differentiators, and insights that drive pragmatic designs based on value proposition. Our design team takes a deep dive into conducting effective research for user experience design and the benefits of it. Read more here: https://hubs.ly/H0mvdkk0

If you’re reading this, we want to say thank you. Last year we were #20 on the list of Canada’s Top Growing Companies from Globe and Mail and this year we moved up to #15. This article intends to talk about the role of diversity and inclusion in our growth of 3,677% over the last 3 years. But first... To our clients - ... Thank you for giving us the opportunity to solve problems with you. To our partners - Thank you for helping us create new value through more diverse services. To our supporters - Thank you for believing in us and making the connections that led us to new relationships and new opportunities. And to our team - Thank you for bringing your enthusiasm, your energy, and your incredibly diverse skill sets with you every day. Every team member past and present has been an important part of the journey that brought us where we are today. https://hubs.ly/H0xrMZW0 #BCTech #Diversity #TopGrowing20 #Growth

A user story is the smallest unit of work in an agile framework. It’s not a feature, but an end goal that the user has when using the software. The user story will convey what the user wants to achieve and states it in a simple, non-technical way. There are 4 steps to creating good user stories, which require the collaboration of the client and the business analyst on the project: 1. Validate the Needs of the Users 2. Create Epics... 3. Write User Stories 4. Define Acceptance Criteria What exactly does that look like? Take a look here: https://hubs.ly/H0mv7kQ0

When COVID-19 first broke, so much useful information was being lost in a media storm. The First Nations Health Authority (FNHA) recognized this a major barrier to supporting their communities through the pandemic. They needed to be able to share critical information as quickly and effectively as possible with its community and find a solution that would ensure their key messages would be heard among a wave of communications. Due to the rapid spread of COVID-19, time was of ...the essence if this was going to be effective. Through great collaboration, our team was able to develop an app in a little over 6 weeks that would help them break through the noise. Read the full case study on our website - https://hubs.ly/H0tXyYW0

We are seeking an exceptional individual to help support and develop our Public Sector practise. This role is suited for someone who wants to bring a thoughtful and consultative approach to the job every day as they support digital transformation initiatives across a variety of public sector organizations. By building relationships across a diverse network, this individual will help gain buy-in and drive impact by improving citizen services. They will also be helping all of t...he teams that deliver those services as they lead and and manage a portfolio of our IT services engagements within BCs public sector. If this sounds like a fit for someone you know, find out more about the role here - https://hubs.ly/H0tXyVF0 #BCTech #DigitalGovernment #GovernmentModernization #GCDigital #GovTech

We are currently seeking a Digital Marketing Specialist to join our growth team; do you know someone who would be a good fit? This person will oversee the production of digital sales collateral, content for our website and newsletter, and physical promotional items or media for our office and events. Our Digital Marketing Specialist also maintains our social media channels, communications and PR, and analytics to guide future marketing efforts. All of these practices are well defined at FreshWorks and they will have the support of designers, writers, analysts, developers and our sales team to achieve the ambitious objectives they help us create. https://hubs.ly/H0rVSVK0

Are you or someone you know currently looking for a new job? Do you know what you should expect? Our Talent Acquisition Specialist, Lexi Mills, is used to interviewing people who arent currently in the same location. Shes an absolute pro when it comes to remote interviews, which is why Lexi recently sat down and came up with the top 5 tips on preparing for a virtual interview in tech. 1. Take the home-court advantage.... 2. Test before the interview. 3. Lights? Camera? Action! 4. Avoid airplane arms. 5. Dress for success! You can read the full article here: https://hubs.ly/H0rSQFq0

Focusing on design thinking helps to focus problem solving by creating a set of processes that can help locate pain points, then work through to the best possible solutions in time-efficient ways. Think of design thinking as a sort-of scientific method. It helps teams get around biases to focus on root problems by creating a structure in order to systematically approach customer feedback and problem solving. The output of these processes can also provide user research artifac...ts that your entire team can refer to to help answer questions that arise throughout design and development. There are 6 stages of the design thinking process: 1. Empathize 2. Define 3. Ideate 4. Prototype 5. Test 6. Implement Why is it useful in tech? https://hubs.ly/H0mvdmB0

A user story is the smallest unit of work in an agile framework. Its not a feature, but an end goal that the user has when using the software. The user story will convey what the user wants to achieve and states it in a simple, non-technical way. There are 4 steps to creating good user stories, which require the collaboration of the client and the business analyst on the project: 1. Validate the Needs of the Users 2. Create Epics... 3. Write User Stories 4. Define Acceptance Criteria What exactly does that look like? Take a look here: https://hubs.ly/H0mv9lX0

Whether your project is for a large scale enterprise system or a startup app, it is important that you and your team include a discovery phase in your software development plan. This is because in all software development projects, miscommunication or misunderstandings can lead to missed deadlines and exceeded budgets, which no one wants. Small cross-functional teams may be able to quickly communicate and adapt to changes, but to better mitigate those risks it is crucial that... everyone involved in the project is able to provide their input early and understand both the vision and the restrictions (like cost and time). The discovery phase provides a time for all stakeholders of the project to come together and create a shared understanding of the project goals. This collaborative vision helps ensure that in each step of the project, the end goal remains the same: provide business value. A powerful outcome of this discovery process in software development is the relationships built between project members; these relationships bridge the gaps between the development team and the client or business development teams. https://hubs.ly/H0mv7kv0

Building your own #iOS #mobile app and want to include an offline map? Trying to find any sort of information on creating an offline map is near impossible. Especially when you want to do it in an open source environment and without a paid provider. So here are the 5 steps you need to do just that: 1. Add MapKit 2. Get map tiles 3. Determine points of interest... 4. Convert point of interest long/lat 5. Download/cache map tiles Get the code here: https://hubs.ly/H0mv6Yv0

Were growing quickly and are seeking an experienced Director of Software Development to lead, mentor and expand our web and mobile development team of 30+ team members of all levels. The new role, reporting directly to the CEO, will be responsible for co-developing the technical strategy while bringing additional structure to our development teams by establishing best practices in hands-on application development and DevOps, mentoring other tech department leads, and acting as the primary link between the development teams and the leadership team. More details here: https://hubs.ly/H0pW8fb0

Earlier in April, we took a swing at compiling our company diversity and inclusion stats to share with our crew internally. Our team loved the opportunity to celebrate the multiple ways that we are diverse here at FreshWorks, from dietary preferences to languages spoken. We thought it would also be fun to share this info with you all in the hopes of continuing to celebrate uniqueness within your own teams and to challenge you to set your own goals around Diversity and Inclus...ion as we do the same. Weve appreciated the occasion to reflect on our current stats and to zero in on the areas that well be focusing on growing moving forward. Wed love your help and input! In the comments below, we invite you to share the D&I initiative that youre most excited about of within your team or your favorite discussion topic around D&I. Lets continue the conversation! #diversity #diversityandinclusion #inclusion #diversityintheworkplace #inclusiveculture #inclusiveworkplace

Whats the difference between a native and hybrid apps? Which will work best for you? First, to be clear, theres no black and white answer to which direction you should go. Its really dependant on a variety of factors, including how your users plan to use the finished product. But there are clear differences between the two that may guide you in your choice. The main difference: Native apps are built for a specific operating system - either iOS or Android. Hybrid apps, how...ever, are built to work across any operating system and share the same codebase. In short, if you want a Native App, your developers will need to write separate code for both the iOS app and the Android app. Continue reading: https://hubs.ly/H0mv9k_0

The emergence of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has placed a strain on healthcare systems worldwide. Consumers are following the self isolation recommendations and avoiding walk in clinics, hospitals and doctors offices in an effort to flatten the curve. COVID-19 has sparked what seems like a sudden need for virtual care so that citizens can receive healthcare from the safety of their own home. Based on our experience at FreshWorks, weve found that any person or organiz...ation that is looking to develop a #telehealth application that can provide virtual care services should be mindful of 4 major areas: - UX Design - Security - Compliance - Privacy These are areas where problems - but also opportunities to stand out - are most common to arise. In the first part of an intended four part series, our Business Analyst, Stephanie Dacre, dives into UX Design. A great user experience for your virtual care application starts with understanding users - including patients, care providers, and the apps administrators. Read on here: https://hubs.ly/H0pkh940 #ConnectedHealth #CanadianHealthcare #COVID19 #telemedicine #mHealth #mobilehealth #VirtualCare #ConnectedHealth #virtualhealthcare

In a time where some people may be experiencing remote work for the first time, we wanted to share some tools that we have found helpful while working remotely. The core functions of your business may be different, and the actual software or tools your team uses to perform their job will vary. However, a couple of considerations are pretty universal. - How does your team communicate and how is that conversation record stored? - Is there a shared etiquette for when and how you...r team will arrange to have impromptu or scheduled meetings/conversations? - Does everyone have access to up to date versions of business documents that they can work on simultaneously? - Is your business software cloud-based? If not, is there a cloud-based version available? Read on to find out some of the things weve learned and some of the tools weve used over the past years while enabling our team to work remotely. https://hubs.ly/H0p1RdJ0

How does a company that prides itself on collaboration and its culture stay connected during COVID 19? Like lots of other companies, FreshWorks pivoted to 100% of team members working remotely almost overnight last week. Despite having been remote-friendly for a while we still required some adaptation to move forward effectively. What did we do? - Created dedicated channels for communication on COVID-19 - Prepared helpful resources for working effectively while having fun in ...isolation - Created virtual social spaces and quickly adapted in person rituals to work remotely Read more on what were doing as a team here: https://hubs.ly/H0p1BwW0

With everything evolving so quickly these days, we wanted to take a moment to address what were doing as a company in light of COVID-19 to support everyone we can including our team, our clients, our partners, the BC Government, and members of our community during these challenging times. The most important message we want to share is that we are actively seeking ways to redeploy our team members to work that will help our communities. FreshWorks has recently been engaged by a number of health groups to further the development of tele-health and patient intake applications in BC to accelerate these organizations ability to support the community as things evolve. If youre interested, heres more on what were doing https://hubs.ly/H0nTF1_0

With everything going on in the world, we still made sure to keep our tradition of demo day and lunch going today Once a month we all get together at demo day to learn about what is happening at the company and what some of the different teams are currently working on. Every team member received a DoorDash gift card so that we could all order lunch together while learning about some of the projects people are working on, a presentation on stress, anxiety, and you with so...me helpful tools, as well as some company announcements. Heres what our first remote demo day looked like today #victoria #yyjtech #yyj #tectoria #vancouver #vancouvertech #yvr #bctech #appdeveloper #developer #techladies #codinglife #devlife #userexperience #userinterface #web #ios #android #iosappps #androidapps

Were all ready for you. Doors are now open for #discovertectoria. The event is on at Crystal Garden from 11am - 6pm. See you there

Are you in Vancouver on February 3rd? Sam is part of the February instalment of TechVancouver at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre from 6:00 - 9:00pm.

"Reorganizing the work of government around a network of shared APIs and components, open-standards and canonical datasets, so that civil servants, businesses and others can deliver radically better services to the public, more safely, efficiently and accountability." - Richard Pope Read what the unexpected benefits of government platforms can be and whats next for #digitalgovernment: https://hubs.ly/H0mvhHf0

User research helps you make design decisions based on real-world observations. It helps the team stay focused on what design elements are higher priority than others and why. More importantly, it helps you make those decisions in ways that will add to your organizations competitive edge in the marketplace. Our design team takes a deep dive into conducting effective research for user experience design and the benefits of it. Read more here: https://hubs.ly/H0mvnwR0

If you are near SFU Surrey on 01/21 make sure to join us at the SFUs Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection presented event on collaboration in healthcare. Our very own Samarth Mod will be one of the panelists among other entrepreneur, industry leaders, and researchers to share how FreshWorks has been collaborating to advance innovation in healthcare. Theres not just one, but many players in the healthcare system. When making changes to healthcare delivery and introducing new technologies/therapies into the system, all players need to be engaged and working together to advance innovation. This panel will explore who the various players are that need to be involved, the challenges and opportunities of working together and lessons learned along the way.

Our People Ops Manager, Shannon Parker, was on hand at the JABC Techworks Women in Technology Event earlier this month. Its always exciting for us to connect with young people interested in getting involved with Victorias ever expanding tech industry (YYJTech - Technology in Victoria, BC) Thank you to YYJ Tech Ladies for their generous sponsorship and all their work on community driven initiatives for women in tech!

Have you ever used a mobile application that claimed to solve your problems, but was bogged down with other unhelpful features? Did it feel like whoever made the app didnt even consider what the user would need or want? User stories help with that. Learn more about how we use them at FreshWorks, and how they are a key building block of agile #development on the blog: https://hubs.ly/H0mbm8H0

Were excited to share that we made the Clutch.co Global Top 1000 #ClutchGlobal A big thank you to our clients and partners who continue to place their trust in us and then take the time to leave us a review. An equally big thank you to our dedicated team who go above and beyond every day to create the remarkable digital experiences that earn us a spot in this list. Thank you! It truly is incredible what a team of dedicated and passionate people can accomplish within a year.... Weve had some great projects, including assisting parts of the Government of British Columbia with creating a digital government and working with some well-known private organizations such as the David Foster Foundation and Hootsuite. Over the past year we worked our way up from #166 to #78. What a great way to end the year Happy Holidays!

Couldnt get the whole team back together for a group photo in time but here are the results of FreshWorks very first #Movember campaign in 2019. $580 raised for mens health 8 mos grown total 3 first time mos... 50+ complaints from concerned spouses 1 lifetime achievement award in moustache growing (@bsateeshk). Seriously - Hes in a league of his own. If anyone recalls when we started, Sateesh shaved a moustache he had for over 25 years at the beginning of the month. We werent sure he was serious when he said hed join. His wife had never seen him without the iconic accessory but fortunately he says she only bugged him a little bit over the first week. After that there wasnt much to make fun of, his superior abilities were evident and his mo sprinted ahead like a Ferrari that snuck a into soap box derby. The bar has been set, and well be back next year. Thanks everyone! #commitment #yyj #yyjtech #meettheteam #bctech #webdevelopment @ Downtown Victoria See more

Weve partnered with the City of Coquitlam - Municipality to develop the CoquitlamConnect app. The app lets you swipe, tap, and connect directly with the city. Notifications will keep you in the loop about the latest news, events, job postings, facility hours and pet adoptions in the city. The app is available now on iOS and Android.... iOS: https://hubs.ly/H0l_5fL0 Android: https://hubs.ly/H0l_5Zg0 See more

Meet the Team: Tushar Agarwal, iOS Developer II, FreshWorks Studio Tushar moved to Canada from India in February, 2018 and became a permanent resident of Canada in July of 2019! Tushar was FreshWorks first international hire. What is your best memory at FreshWorks? ... The day that the Harbour Air app was launched, because I was working on that project for more than a year and there were lots of hurdles. Going through user experience interviews, going back and forth and making changes It was an agile project with lots of iterations. Finally, when people started using the app, I overheard strangers chatting on the ferry about how good the app was. That was an awesome feeling. Whats your favourite thing about working here? I really like that leadership is not just focused on company success, they also really believe in the importance of employee success. We have FreshLabs, OKRs, Lunch and Learns, team meetings and mentorship... Thats something that I really like and something that is unique to FreshWorks. Not a lot of companies that are at this stage are able to spend that amount of time and resources on employee growth because they are so focused on company growth. #meettheteam #softwaredeveloper #appdeveloper #iosdeveloper #yyjtech #bctech #lifeatfreshworks

We are very proud that Vivek Chanddru - Android Developer here at FreshWorks - is speaking at Droidcon San Francisco next week. Droidcon is where the industrys leading Android experts converge to support the Android platform and create a strong network for developers and companies. If you happen to be attending the conference please join him for his talk on "Navigating Android Like A Pro" on Tuesday (11/26) at 3pm in Robertson B. You will learn what new features are introd...uced in the Navigation 2.1 alpha and how to use them effectively in your apps. You will also learn about designing a single activity app and how to use Nested graphs. On the whole, when you leave the session, you will start loving fragments again and be ready to navigate your app like a Pro! #DCSF19 #Android #AndroidDeveloper https://hubs.ly/H0lV2tp0

This was before the weekend, so about halfway there in our #movember campaign. Some are showing more progress than others but thats why were a team, the collective moustache is what matters. Also you can swipe right to the last photo to see @bsateeshk who we learned shaved his face for the first time in 25 YEARS just for us. What a guy. His wife had never even seen what was underneath. More on that breaking story later. #relationshipgoals #halfwaythere #livingonaprayer #yyjtech @movember #teamwork #teamworkmakesthedreamwork @ Victoria, British Columbia

What is DevOps? What are the benefits, and how can we do it? The main goal of an #operations team is to ensure everything is stable, sustainable, and efficient. This is true for all operations teams. #Developers build the products, and their work requires planning and organization, along with an operations team, to ensure things go smoothly. #DevOps is a methodology to achieve stable, sustainable, and efficient development through best practices. FreshWorks is always looking to improve our #development processes. Dive deeper on this topic with DevOps #Engineer at Bambora, Mike Poirier, as he gives us a rundown on the methodology on the blog: https://hubs.ly/H0kPJwx0

Meet the Team: Cameron Bowler, Full Stack Developer I, FreshWorks Studio Hometown: South Surrey, BC What do you like to do outside of work hours? I paint models as a hobby. Models of cars, planes, tanks, dudes Usually theyre pretty small, but some are pretty big. The coolest model I painted was probably a robot that was about a foot tall. It took me around 20 hours. I also like baseball, and have a motorbike. Honestly, theres not much that I dont like.... Whats something your coworkers might not know about you? My son, Quinten, was actually born with a rare defect where his liver was outside of his body. There was his little baby tummy, and then his liver on top of it. It looked like a snowman because the liver is massive. We knew about it at around 18 weeks in it was stressful, and it was a long road, but hes just the perfect little dude. Hes just awesome. We also have a Boston Terrier named Olive. Shes pretty cute, as long as she doesnt smile Shes got gnarly teeth. She looks like a little shark. #meettheteam #softwaredeveloper #appdeveloper #fullstackdeveloper #yyjtech #bctech #lifeatfreshworks

Thank you to everyone who came and joined us in our office on Wednesday night for the ProductTank Victoria Fall Meetup. We had some great conversations and always love bringing the Victoria tech community in to share our space. We heard some great presentations from Tyler Black (CSO of KIXEYE) and Sachen Macdonald & Kim Murray from Workday and connected with a bunch of ProductTankers. Special thanks to Stephanie Thiel from ReferralSaaSquatch for bringing us the opportunity to host the event for this great community of product people! https://hubs.ly/H0lBM_G0