Intuit Partner Platform team blog

ViewMyPayCheck built on the Intuit Partner Platform (IPP)

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with some of the team who have developed a brand new Flex application “ViewMyPayCheck”, built on the Intuit Partner Platform (IPP) and now available as a beta product at WorkPlace.

We’re always excited when new applications go live on IPP, but what makes ViewMyPayCheck particularly interesting is the fact that it is an Intuit Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product built by the internal Intuit Payroll product group using the same platform as external IPP partners are using today. More on this in a second…First, a bit more about ViewMyPayCheck…

ViewMyPayCheck enables small businesses to provide their employees the same easy and protected access to their payroll information that employees at large companies enjoy.  Employees log in to the application (entering their WorkPlace credentials) and can view and print their paystubs and, in the future, other payroll-related information.

The team began development on the ViewMyPayCheck project in October after winning an Intuit “IdeaJam”, a regular internal competition that encourages “whitespace” project time for internal teams to collaborate on innovative ideas for potential products. Once the team had the go-ahead to go from idea to productization, they began rapid development on IPP, allowing the team to develop and deploy the SaaS solution in less than three month, without them having to do themselves the custom work normally associated with authentication/authorization system integration, permission model development and hosting & billing infrastructure that scales – all the stuff that comes for “free” on IPP.

The interesting thing for external IPP developers to take note of here is since WorkPlace now hosts this ViewMyPayCheck product (built by Intuit), the small businesses and their employees who use ViewMyPayCheck will find it easy to find, try and buy other WorkPlace solutions that can help solve other business problems – solutions developed by not only by Intuit but also external IPP developers. This is the small business ecosystem at work!

Here’s the video interview I did with the ViewMyPayCheck: the team members are Lalit Shahani, Deepa Viswanathan, Michael Dehlwes and David Leary (who unfortunately couldn’t join us for the interview itself).

You can try ViewMyPayCheck at WorkPlace here and find out more including demo videos here.

Now Available: IPP V1.2

IPP version 1.2 is now available. It contains several significant developer productivity enhancements. We’ve made additional changes to address known issues.

DEVELOPMENT PRODUCTIVITY ENHANCEMENTS

Deploy application updates that include schema changes
Developers can now publish application updates that include database schema changes, including new tables, fields, relationships, roles, etc. as long as the change preserves existing user data. The Intuit Partner Platform Flex SDK Plug-in Tools have also been updated to include enhancements that help development teams manage different database schema versions, test application upgrades that involve schema changes, and automatically publish application updates to all subscribers.

Learn more about these schema update capabilities.

Support for application-specific beta programs
Developers who want to market test their applications before commercially releasing them may now create “beta plans.” Beta plans are application entitlements that allow users to use applications for free for a fixed period of time. Beta plans allow developers to specify the number of users who can share a particular beta program subscription and a specific target date when the Beta period will end. Once the beta program ends, application subscribers are prompted to select a pricing plan so they can continue to use the application.

Follow this link for more information on defining application-specific beta programs.

Additional reports: settlement failures and beta plan tracking
The Settlement Failures Report presents a list of application subscribers (and their contact info) for whom the IPP Billing service could not collect the monthly subscription fee. This information helps developers work through collection issues with their subscribers.

The Developer Free Trial Usage report has been extended to list subscribers who have signed up for beta programs as well as free trials. The report includes user contact information along with the dates upon which each subscriber‘s beta plan or free trial will expire.

Click here for more information on these additional developer reporting capabilities.

SOFTWARE UPDATES / FIXES
For the complete list of software updates and fixes included in IPP v1.2, please review the release notes located here.

Thanks,
—The Intuit Partner Platform Team

Upcoming Intuit Partner Platform Webinars

Intuit Partner Platform Roadmap Update

During the Beta of Intuit Partner Platform (IPP), the IPP team received a tremendous amount of high quality feedback about what you’d like available as part of the platform. We want to share with you the plans we have for the Intuit Partner Platform – this is your chance to review those plans, give us feedback and ask questions directly to the IPP product development team.

Register for the Intuit Partner Platform Roadmap Update webinar today!
(You must be part of the Intuit Developer Network to attend these webinars.)

Intuit Partner Platform v1.2 Updates

Stay informed of the changes that have been made to the Intuit Partner Platform with this webinar that will address schema change capabilities, setting up and managing beta programs, new reporting capabilities and items fixed in v1.2.

Register now:
Wed, Feb 11, 2009 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM PST

Intuit Partner Platform Overview and Q&A

Learn about how you can build your SaaS business on the Intuit Partner Platform where you can build & sell engaging and powerful Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) without the hassle of building your own server, database, and billing infrastructure. We’ll also have a Q&A session where you have the opportunity to have your questions answered directly by the team.

Topics covered include
· The business opportunity
· Technical summary
· Fee and pricing
· Billing
· Support
· Technical resources for developers

Register now:
Thu, Feb 12, 2009 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PST
Wed, Mar 11, 2009 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM PDT
Wed, Apr 8, 2009 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM PDT

Intuit Partner Platform Architect's View + Technical Q/A

Understand the technology behind the Intuit Partner Platform, and how Intuit’s cloud platform, data and the Adobe Flex Framework and tools can be leveraged to create useful and practical applications for Small Businesses and deployed to the Intuit WorkPlace. Take a look under the hood at the various components and services that are available to the developer and understand the relationship between Intuit’s platform services, QuickBooks and QuickBase.

Register now:
Wed, Feb 18, 2009 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PST
Wed, Mar 18, 2009 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT
Wed, Apr 15, 2009 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PDT