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The Beginnings: To take it all the way back to the beginning we built a very simple tower inventory program for our WISP in the early 2000s. It was very basic and really only consisted of tower locations, access points and other tower devices. We were a WISP that ran primarily Canopy radios and would live in the session pages of the access points. We were using spreadsheets to track CPE and we were using an open source ticketing system, an open source calendar, and just replying to emails as they came into an inbox. None of these systems were integrated in any way. This all worked and we grew to a couple thousand customers but it was far from ideal.
The Portal:
In my WISP we were using another billing system, which was a solid billing system, but in my opinion that is all it really did. So, when we decided we needed something more comprehensive, we looked at the market. I had some kind of an issue with everything out there. Basically, I wanted to do it my way and I also thought we could do it for less. With that “The Portal” was born. We kept the same billing platform but built ticketing, email response, tower inventory, CPE inventory, scheduling etc and went through 16 releases. It was a major day to day improvement for life as a CSR and field technician to use the new software. We got it off the ground pretty quickly and have been very successful with it growing by another couple thousand subscribers. It was affordable to build as an internal tool but was still very much an internal tool.
Nucleo Is Born:
We wanted to add some additional features to the portal but writing code to reference the 3rd party system wasn’t something we wanted to keep doing. We decided if we wanted to take this to the next level we would need to house all the data under one system and write our own billing component.
We didn’t want to lose any features we had and we knew we wanted to do a few things in specific ways. So we proceeded with these topics in mind.
A development system of CI/CD and unit testing, Laravel, an API, and Docker
A data structure that acknowledged the importance of locations and not just customers
A clear way to track how payments were applied
Data Structure:
Since the portal relied on a 3rd party billing system, all data was organized under an account. On the surface that makes sense but not in practice. A lot of systems were born out of the dial up Internet days or at least concepts of thinking. In fixed wireless and fiber to the home networks you are installing equipment that needs to live through home sales and account cancellations and activations.
Knowing this we decided to go with a very separate but relatable data structure in Nucleo. The new system would consist of Sites, Contacts, Devices, Customers, and Services. This type of a structure allows us to be flexible as time progresses without losing data like installation photos or other documentation. That information should be associated with a site but gets associated with a customer in other systems. When someone would cancel service in The Portal, the installation photos are never to be seen again for the new customer that establishes service in the home. This situation doesn’t happen in Nucleo.
Applying Payments:
We also wanted to have a very clear user interface to show a CSR how payments were applied. In our previous system all the data was there but it took a good bit of detective work and time to figure out and then explain how payments were applied. This is really only an issue when the customer’s payments went off the rails due to “life” but it seemed to happen often enough. With Nucleo we can clearly track payments down to what invoice and line items they were applied to.
Product Launch:
A contributing factor to bringing Nucleo to market is that as of January 2023 I exited my WISP/FISP. The sale of that business closes a 26 year chapter of my life that started in 1997 when I was starting high school. With a product like this I think you are choosing the people behind it as much as the code itself. I’ve run servers, written code, taken technical support calls, climbed towers, and run heavy equipment such as directional drills, plows, and mini excavators. I fully understand the life of a WISP and FISP.
I look forward to continue my professional life around this industry. I couldn’t be happier to apply my industry experience to the role of curator of Nucleo. If you have wanted something more out of the vendor that provides the software that runs your business, we should talk.