We recently spoke with the #StreamTeam 2021 cohort of developers who are all looking forward to getting started with further development of Stream and supporting our continued growth.
So, where will they be in a years’ time?
To find out, we caught up with the 2020 cohort to learn how they’ve enjoyed their first year on the #StreamTeam.
The #StreamTeam 2020 cohort: 1 year on
Sam Parry, Transport Solutions Advisor
“I like working with new people and businesses to improve the efficiency of their logistics operation. I enjoy the process of learning and understanding their pain points and then showing how Stream can resolve the issues they might be facing.”
Since joining the #StreamTeam, Sam has learned a lot more about how different businesses operate. From retailers to 3PLs, working with different types of operations has given him a better understanding of how logistics works.
Each business has its own challenges, and Sam has been able to problem-solve and work out how Stream can helm in various operations and in different circumstances.
Sam has managed to solve those challenges 100% remotely since joining the team in April 2020.
The ability to give business partners access to their orders in Stream is one of the features that Sam finds especially helpful for so many Stream users because it saves so much of the manual work.
He’s also enjoyed showing businesses the Stream Walkaround Checks App and how it has been designed to be as user friendly as possible – making it easy for users to transition away from paper-based checks to a fully digital system.
Sam has seen the introduction of many new features over the past 12-months – plus a number of new integrations, most recently Unleashed and Zapier. He’s excited to see the further development of Stream’s new Forms add-on which enables driver’s and operators to collect extra information during the proof of delivery or collection process, which can recorded against the order and then output as a PDF.
Izzy Anne Massey, Customer Success Specialist
“This whole year has been absolutely nuts for so many reasons, but everything with Stream has been new and exciting. I’ve loved building a working relationship with both new and existing subscribers and supporting them through their Stream journey.”
Since graduating from her developer training, Izzy’s role has evolved and been increasingly more customer support focused. Her time is spent conducting a lot of handovers sessions with new subscribers; checking in with users post handover to ensure they’re getting the most from their Stream account; and providing ongoing support to Stream subscribers.
Izzy has enjoyed the challenge of not only learning out Stream as a product, but also getting a deeper understanding of the logistics sector, and how Stream can help and support those businesses to grow.
Over the month’s Izzy has identified a number of features that always excite users during their handover, including:
“As someone who used to be a fleet manager, the feature that tells you how long a driver has taken to do a vehicle check in the Driver Walkaround Check App, is just ‘brilliant’. You can see whether they’re actually doing the checks properly and you can make sure that everything is getting done to the right standard.
“Also, the ability to pinpoint the exact location where the driver actually delivered the goods, again means that you can ensure that the delivery was made at exactly the right location because you have that data and can see it in real-time”.
As with Sam, Izzy is also looking forward to working with subscribers to take full advantage of Stream Forms:
“I like the ability to record extra bits of information in the Stream proof of delivery workflow will help a lot of users with complex delivery requirements, or with compliance, or with specific customer requirements will make their lives a lot easier and move more companies we work with to a truly paperless operation”.
And finally, how has starting a new role been during the pandemic?
Despite the challenges of remote working, Izzy has been able to get to know people and make friends on the team.
“Because so much of the support role is based on solving problems, the team’s communication and record-keeping has been a real asset”.
Andrew Shackleton, Software Developer
“Learning how to actually be a software developer far beyond my computer science degree has just been the best learning curve”
Andrew has been able to practically apply his degree within the Stream team over the past year, and has enjoyed the opportunity to learn new programming skills throughout the process. He’s found that remote working has gone “pretty smoothly” as the team are always friendly and very supportive.
Andrew has especially enjoyed working on a resource schedule project within Stream’s Advanced Planning module which enables you to see an overview of drivers, vehicles and runs.
In this expanded function, you can assign drivers and vehicles to a run directly plus giving you a more graphical view of what’s coming up in your schedule, enabling planners to plan many weeks in advance.
Grace Nixon, Software Developer
“It’s always hard to pin point one when you get asked: what’s your favourite feature? Because there’s so many to choose from”
When Grace joined, software development was new to her having completed a maths degree at Manchester University. Now she can design and develop entirely new functionality within Stream.
She’s worked on new features within the Stream Mobile App covering depot scanning and a message preferences menu.
Grace is also working on adding validation to the CSV order upload, which enables customers to know which fields are invalid before they upload the CSV, which saves both time and wasted effort.