<h2>Overview: integrating new systems into the current product roadmap</h2><p>Chrono came to Assemble with a team, an ambitious product roadmap, and a passion for inspiring smokers to quit. Seeking iOS technical leadership, we became an extension of Chrono’s team, process, and culture. Team integration was fundamental in a successful collaboration; while Chrono focused on existing infrastructure and domain expertise (research and marketing around regulated drug delivery), Assemble delivered technical direction, implementation, and support.</p><h2>Challenge: finding a way to connect an existing app with multiple tools and frameworks</h2><p>Assemble worked with Chrono in creating an architecture plan to support integration-heavy iOS product requirements. While the app needed to talk to multiple back ends, analytics packages, and a Bluetooth framework, a service-agnostic architecture was prototyped and used throughout the app. Early planning and iterating were essential in refining the high-level architecture which relied on communicating across multiple dev teams.<br/>Chrono came to the table with an operational back end and team but a need for a CMS to drive localized app content. Assemble stepped in to create the CMS schema to integrate with Chrono’s back end, eventually influencing architecture to be more mobile-friendly.</p><h2>Approach: advising on infrastructure, aesthetic, compliance, and development process</h2><p>Assemble advised on several product concerns. An Internet of Things background influenced technical decisions behind Bluetooth integration and back-end infrastructure. An app store experience was necessary in balancing Apple’s human interface guidelines with a custom branding aesthetic. Diligence was needed in merging FDA approval with a traditional agile product development process. And proficiency with iOS best practices became an integral part of UX and design reviews.</p><h2>Solution: build a fully integrated iOS app with input from in-house designers and provide ongoing maintenance</h2><p>An iOS app was the keystone of Chrono’s strategy, and Assemble was there to put it together. In the early discovery stages, Assemble tackled multiple integrations—Bluetooth, back-end, and CMS—collaborating with several teams. Later development emphasized user experience and visual polish, integrating with Chrono’s in-house designers to advise and implement a style guide. While each stage had a unique purpose, Assemble and Chrono worked together to drive consistently strong engineering efforts.<br/>Chrono retained Assemble to provide technical guidance with the development of an Internet of Things platform and, ultimately, to implement key pieces of the system. After a multi-year engagement, the end results of this partnership were a highly-integrated iOS app ready for FDA clinical trials, a CMS to support content delivery, and a number of process improvements to guide Chrono’s future roadmap.</p>

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Chrono came to Assemble with a team, an ambitious product roadmap, and a passion for inspiring smokers to quit. Seeking iOS technical leadership, we became an extension of Chrono’s team, process, and culture.

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Integrating new systems into current product roadmap

Chrono Therapeutics + Assemble Case Study

<h2>Overview: Create a startup-sized, scalable MarTech and Sales Solution</h2><p>Stori Coffee, a new startup with several wholesale accounts, wanted to create a direct-to-consumer channel via an e-commerce store, with the ability to scale and expand to Amazon.</p><h2>Challenge: Implement the necessary tools and architect for the future.</h2><p>As a small startup, Stori only needed a small subset of tools to use today, but like most companies, desired a scalable solution that would grow with the company to support both their direct-to-consumer and wholesale accounts.&nbsp;</p><h3><em>“Assemble has been a great technology partner. Helping us optimize the tools we have while planning for the technology we need in the future. As a small team, they help us operate as a big team”</em></h3><h3>- Arthur, Co-Founder of Stori Coffee</h3><h2>Approach: Build a scalable solution</h2><p>Assemble worked alongside the Stori Coffee team to help architect a unique sitemap. It was very important to find and connect the right apps for the tech stack to optimize sales and marketing channels. Assemble connected HubSpot to Shopify, which allowed Stori to upload their current email and customer lists and send out segmented marketing emails. The team also connected Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager so it was easy for Stori to add and manage marketing pixels, both now and in the future. And lastly, upgraded their universal analytics account to the new GA4.</p><h2>Solution: A scalable MarTech and Sales Solution</h2><p>Assemble helped the Stori Coffee team create a Shopify for e-commerce with HubSpot for CDP, email automation, blog content, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager for data and marketing tags.</p><p></p>

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As a small start-up, Stori didn’t need a robust set of tools today, but like all companies they needed a scalable solution that will grow with the company, supporting both their direct-to-consumer and wholesale accounts. 

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Start selling online and grow with marketing automation.

Stori Coffee + Assemble Case Study

<h2>Overview: A Healthcare app that helps fight cancer using unified data</h2><p>Taproot Health, a startup company, had a vision to create a specialized tool to collect and share data with patients, clinics, researchers, and businesses to advance new oncology therapies. The current solutions did not offer a clear way to share data with patient consent, resulting in a lack of unified data. The app needed to provide an onboarding process for clients to opt into sharing their data, a secure platform to store that information, and a way for clinics and researchers to access data with records of patient consent.</p><h2>Challenge: A switch in scope resulted in a new framework</h2><p>The client originally approached Assemble to build a simple MVP (minimum viable product) solution; however soon after starting, it became clear that the demands of the backend would quickly outgrow our chosen MVP solution. Shifting from the original scope meant rethinking how we built this tool. We pivoted from our original serverless architecture (AWS Lambda and headless React) to a full stack Rails application.</p><blockquote><p>"Our experience with the team at Assemble has been an absolute joy. Our projects have required expertise, ingenuity, and outside-the-box thinking, and Assemble has been willing to tackle any challenge and present cost-effect solutions that we would not have considered without their expertise and direction. Although we are a small start-up with a big vision, they have treated us like a partner as valuable as a corporation with the deepest of pockets."<br/><br/>-Dane Dickson, CEO</p></blockquote><h2>Approach: Creating a HIPPA-compliant app to collect and share Google data with patient consent</h2><p>The original solution of a serverless architecture was too barebones for the additional backend architecture/requirements, so we made the decision to port the whole thing into a Ruby on Rails application. Knowing this was a possibility, the Lambda was initially implemented in Ruby, meaning we could more or less slot what we'd already written into Rails. With Rails, there is a lot of options to grow. While the client might not need all of those today, as they expand they will, so we chose a framework with growth in mind.<br/>Trackable patient consent is one of the most important features of this app. It gives the data power because consent enables researchers to take action without fear of breaching patient confidentiality. Assemble chose to go with a purpose-built solution, the third-party platform Auth0 as our identity provider. The tool handles user authentication, identity resolution, tokens, photography, and all the user information.<br/>During the project, we made the switch from serverless to a Rails app when it became clear that the complexity of the backend had outgrown our simple DynamoDB store and would require a more robust database. Switching to Rails also allowed us to integrate the frontend and backend into a single application since prior to Rails we were doing two deployments: one for the backend portion and one for the frontend portion. This made development a lot easier for everybody involved.<br/>From the beginning, we knew the content on the site would need to be editable. Knowing some form of CMS or self-serve content management was down the line, we defined the frontend form fields to be driven by a schema. The data structure modeled all the content and content could easily be added by staff. This solution created a frontend that is easily configurable and will allow an easy transition to self-service content management with no developer intervention required.<br/>Taproot Health is a healthcare company that handles lots of patient data, so the app needed to be HIPPA compliant. Assemble partnered with Cloud303 to create a HIPPA-compliant app. Cloud303 created an AWS, HIPAA-compliant infrastructure into which we deploy our application, so that patient data could be stored and accessed securely.</p><h2>Solution: A Healthcare app that helps fight cancer using unified data</h2><p>Taproot Health, a startup company, had the vision to create a specialized tool to collect and share data with patients, clinics, researchers, and businesses to advance new oncology therapies. Working alongside the Taproot Health Team, Assemble was able to build a privacy-protected app that gathered and stored patient consent, gathered patient data and tracked patient consent, and stored all this information in a HIPAA-compliant AWS environment.</p>

Assemble worked alongside Taproot Health, a small startup, to create a tool that collects and shares data to advance new oncology therapies.

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A healthcare app that helps fight cancer using unified data

Taproot + Assemble Case Study

<h2>Overview: automating the back office</h2><p>If you are in the business of creating online communities, you have faced the hurdle of finding the right CRM to help manage that community. From coordinating events to sending timely emails and segmenting your audience, it feels easier to just use analog manual processes. The idea of switching to automation can seem daunting, but it does not have to be.&nbsp;</p><p>MESA came to Assemble with an antiquated MarTech stack that relied heavily on manual processes. As a platform, they serve a huge audience, sending out daily emails to a variety of communities, and hosting large industry events. They wanted to automate their back office, give time back to their staff through those automations, and improve their overall customer experience.</p><h2>Challenge: analog systems prevented growth</h2>MESA’s team was frustrated with their broken, manually intensive processes. Their marketing lived between various manual and semi-automated systems, creating a lot of redundant data and, ultimately, preventing the team from serving their audience.<p><em>Assemble helped our team transition from a set of manual processes to an automated tech stack. With their guidance, our sales and operations teams can focus on serving our clients, instead of manually maintaining data across multiple systems and platforms.&nbsp;</em></p><p>- Guy Finley, President&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><h2>Approach: a technical roadmap from analog to automation</h2><p>The Assemble Success Model is our four-phased approach to delivering consistent excellence to our clients. The Advise phase helps us clearly define our client’s vision. Next, the Architect phase turns that vision into functional requirements and wireframes for development. From there, we enter the Build phase, where our team uses the agile process to develop, test, and deploy the product or service in multiple sprints until the project is delivered. Finally, during the Maintenance phase of our success model, we work with our client to maintain their technology for as long as needed.&nbsp;</p><p>We began with an Advise Phase and performed a Technical Assessment. Through a series of interviews with MESA staff, we uncovered the pain points in how they were using existing systems. During the Architect phase, we created a technical roadmap, showing them how to move from their current state to a more automated, integrated future. In the Build phase, we worked alongside the MESA team to make these technical integrations and ensure that their team could use and maintain their new technology. And we continue to provide ongoing maintenance, ensuring that their technology works for them.&nbsp;</p><h2>Solution: an integrated CRM</h2><p>We were able to consolidate their disparate systems into a modern CRM that integrated with their other core platforms, including both their financial and event management systems.&nbsp; This enabled MESA to build custom forms, segment emails, see their engaged audience, and find better ways to serve that audience.</p><p></p>

MESA came to Assemble with an antiquated martech stack that relied heavily on manual processes. They wanted to automate their back office, give time back to their staff through those automations, and improve their overall customer experience.

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Automating the back office

MESA + Assemble Case Study

<h2>Overview: iOS app to connect to Bluetooth-enabled hearing aid</h2><p>Earlens is a new type of Bluetooth-enabled hearing aid that converts sound to light, creating a wide bandwidth of sound and eliminating the major source of whistling that troubles conventional hearing aid.<span></span></p><h2>Challenge: integrating sophisticated features while adhering to FDA guidelines</h2><p>When Earlens approached Assemble to write a companion app for their new smart hearing aid product, we saw it as an amazing opportunity to marry a cutting-edge medical device with growing accessibility features built into iOS. We realized this could be a hardware-integrated application truly useful to humans, not only by improving fuller-spectrum hearing but by making use of Apple’s Made for iPhone proprietary program to add sophisticated microphone and configuration features.<br/>Earlens is classified, grouped, and regulated by the FDA to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the device. Earlens hearing aids are classified as a Class II, which means that they must use the controls put forth by the FDA when it comes to labeling, marketing, design, and development. Class II also requires beta testing or clinical trials with actual customers. Safety and efficacy were paramount in this process and we worked within the guidelines to deliver a product in line with the FDA approval processes that also met the end-users needs.<br/>We partnered with Earlens to architect and develop an iOS app that allows patients, audiologists, and ENTs to communicate with ease—making adjustments to ensure the most optimal and personalized experience for Earlens users.</p><h2>Approach: coordinate with Apple throughout development and leverage agile development principles to allow frequent feedback from Earlens</h2><p>Bluetooth/iOS integrators will attest to the struggles of Apple’s Made for iPhone program: a complex technology that allows third-party devices to become part of Apple’s ecosystem. This process requires careful coordination with and approval from Apple, as well as integration with their process.&nbsp;</p><p>Navigating both FDA approval and MFi programs, we leveraged agile development principles, establishing a regular cadence of check-ins with stakeholders. With Earlens specifically, we worked in two-week sprints. This gave Earlens a direct line of sight into our processes, leaving ample time and space for feedback and revisions. This kind of transparency not only builds trust with our clients but also ensures that we are being the most efficient with our time and resources—creating cost savings, which means that we can do more with less.&nbsp;</p><p>Our engagement with Earlens was over the course of three years. A lot can change with a single app in the span of a year. But the agile process allows for swift changes.</p><h2>Solution: use Apple’s Made for iPhone program to deliver a Bluetooth-integrated app with UX as the priority</h2><p>The Earlens iOS companion app is about marrying simplicity with functionality. Assemble worked with Earlens to create a product that meets iOS Bluetooth standards yet is completely intuitive to use.</p><p>Whether it’s changing the volume, treble, or bass, the Earlens app allows users to quickly and easily adapt to their surroundings, from a crowded movie theater to their grandkids' living room. There’s also an option to switch seamlessly between presets for everyday conversations, phone calls, and even video streaming. These features are all made possible with the help of Apple’s Made for iPhone proprietary program.</p><p>The Earlens UI was designed to meet certain specifications, but, most importantly, it was designed with the audience in mind. We implemented an iOS app with strategically simple user controls to fit Earlens’s target demographic. The buttons are big. The equalizer is easy to use. The app also shows battery levels, so users know when it’s time to recharge. The Earlens app proves that form and function are not mutually exclusive.</p>

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Assemble partnered with Earlens to architect and develop an iOS app that allows patients, audiologists, and ENTs to communicate with ease—making adjustments to ensure the most optimal and personalized experience for Earlens users.

Explore our projects

Case Studies

Chrono Therapeutics

Stori Coffee

Taproot Health

Media & Entertainment Services Alliance

Earlens

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