1. 2016
Spring
Newsletter
We bring the solutions
Since
2005
Three-one-two-two
Hill Street
Duluth, Georgia
Your Client Needs UX
[They just don’t realize it yet]
Most people know that UX stands for User Experience, but that is like saying IA means Innovative
Architects. What does that really mean for current and prospective clients? Why should your clients care
about UX when scoping a project? Here’s a hint…UX is not just drawing pretty pictures!
What is UX?
UX is total engagement of the customer. It encompasses not only the usability of a product, but the
overall feeling a specific user or users get when using a product. It requires understanding all of the
users and tailoring the experience to each individual user’s needs.
At IA, what is the creative process?
Our process is straight forward: Kick-Off Design Develop Deliver. During the kick-off, the key is
defining the users (their needs and wants) and understanding what the corporate brand stands for. Next,
during the design phase, the creative team not only sketches out ideas, but creates site-flow diagrams,
wireframes, and any other layout details. The design phase is very similar to the way a cartoonist will
create storyboards for each frame of a TV episode. During the development phase, code is written (yes,
even the creative team uses tools such as HTML, CSS, JS, and .NET). Once QA and testing have been
completed, the finished product is handed off to the client.
What is the business impact?
At a quick glance, you may think about creative as simply more billable hours. However, the true impact
of creative is additional breadth to a project. UX can be utilized in most every project IA takes part in.
From mobile apps to SharePoint, most projects will benefit and greatly increase by getting the Creative
team involved.

2. What are some common misconceptions about the team?
Many think that UX is a design and hand off type discipline, which is not true. Usually the creative team
are involved throughout the entirety of a project. They work closely with UI and development. From
kick-off to QA/UAT cycles, UX is involved.
It’s not just drawing pretty pictures. While the end result is pretty and polished, the key takeaway is a
direct interpretation and implementation of the clients’ goals.
How should I get UX involved in my project?
Every popular software product in use today has in benefited from a User Experience team. If users are
involved, a UX team should be utilized for everyone’s benefit. If you’d like to find out more about UX or
brainstorm ways to incorporate creative into your existing clients and projects, reach out to Jared (and if
you’re lucky, he’ll draw you a pretty picture)!
What are some projects the team has worked on?
Winshape Camps, NAMB Cooperative Donations (and other NAMB Projects), NIET, and many more!
How to keep Michelle from cussing when processing your expense reports
1. PUT YOUR NAME ON YOUR
#$@&%*! EXPENSE REPORT!!!!
2. Please put the Client name and
specific project if billable to the Client,
please don’t make me guess.
3. Turn your expense reports in on
time, this means within 7 days after
your trip.
4. Make sure the dates are correct and
remember to change the dates from the
expense report template or last report
you completed.
5. Make sure we have detailed receipts
and that they match the submitted
expense report.
6. If an item is for more than one
person (rental car, meals) please note
that on your expense report with who
is included.
7. If you have a rental car that is com-
pany paid please make note of this in
the Notes column (ie, Company paid
Enterprise Rental $124.57) but please
don’t enter the amount in the totals
column.
8. Mileage is $0.56 this year. This is the
IRS guidance.
9. When you submit your finished
expense report via the IA Portal, please
enter your First and Last Name and
submission date in the “Title” space
provided.
Andy Carmichael

3. If you had your human
body, but the head of an
animal, what animal
would you pick?
If you didn’t need a job,
were healthy, and had
plenty of time, what
would you do?
When meeting someone
for the first time, what is
the biggest misconception
they have about you?
MeetTheNewbies
Elephant. They are
intelligent, have great
hearing, an awesome trunk
and I think it would fit my body type!
Andy Carmichael
Samara Duncan
Michelle Gibbs
Eugenio Holgado
Mike Lawson
Stewart Southwell
Sriram
Swaminathan
Give my kids the best education money
could afford and travel with my family.
I definitely would go for a PhD in
computer science as a mental exercise
and as an example to my children.
That because I am initially quiet, I
am not a nice person. It takes me a
little while to warm up to people.
Penguin. I already waddle like a
penguin and squawk like a penguin,
might as well look like one too.
Honestly, I can't think of anything I'd
rather do than write code. I love
building things, and while I might be
writing games instead of business
tools, I'd still have to make some-
thing.
I definitely have a "quiet" mode and a
"social" mode. When I meet someone
and I'm in quiet mode it can be quite a
surprise when I start talking up a
storm.
A Dalmatian, so I’d fit in
with the pack at home.
Have a farm with horses,
dogs and cats.
Most people think I am younger
than I am.
A pink unicorn. Who wouldn’t
want a horn? The color pink best
represents my personality and
soul. Also, unicorns don’t forget
to answer questions in the
survey.
I would pick a dog – Pug specifically. I
think a pug’s face would look the best
with my body-type.
Probably an owl, because they are a
hoot.
If the choice is based on
behavioral attributes, my actual spirit
animal is a Raven as ‘Raven’ people tend
to be very introspective and savor time
spent alone. things less of a chore.
I would prefer to have the head of
the cow, because a cow is a gentle
animal and it is helpful to humans
in more than one way. I would like
to live by that standard throughout
my life.
TV, Netflix, Reading (a lot).
Pretty much what I do now!
Somehow I don’t think this is
the expected answer.
I would like to travel and
explore the world.
That I am shy and an
introvert
I apparently sometimes exhibit
rage face even though I am not
mad! I just hide my emotions
behind a cool façade. I am not
mad at you or unhappy. I just
don’t emote!
I would create a Pug
Rescue farm and rescue all
unwanted pugs in the
world.
People think I am a serious person,
too serious. I think it’s my facial
expression or something. In reality,
I try not to take myself too
seriously and appreciate a good
sense of humor, in myself and
others.
Ride around the world on my
motorcycle. Over 200 countries to
visit!
People sometimes assume I am not really
friendly because I like to keep it to
myself when I'm working in a difficult
project; I get absorbed by the task at
hand and I REALLYwant to deliver no
matter what, but I love being around
people.

4. If you had your human
body, but the head of an
animal, what animal
would you pick?
If you didn’t need a job,
were healthy, and had
plenty of time, what
would you do?
When meeting someone
for the first time, what is
the biggest misconception
they have about you?
MeetTheNewbies: Part2
A Penguin.
John Catalano
Dale Edmonson
Jeremy Collier
Take photos, play music and help
people.
Not sure...
Corgi. They’re the best dogs. I would start my own game design
company
People usually think that I’m really
quiet when they first meet me.
Chimpanzee Build customized cars and write
code for charity organizations.
I don’t recall a specific misconception
when meeting someone for the first time.
Should that happen, I would want to
clear it up directly with the person as
soon as possible so I wold not make the
same mistake again.
Eagle or Hawk Powerlift all day, every day
Joseph Chism
THIS IS NOT A GLITCH
Brandon Seda
Keith Beindorf
A sphinx.
I would still want to be
developing software, but I’d probably
spend my efforts creating
applications for charity
organizations. I’d also spend much
more time travelling and
woodworking.
Most likely, the biggest misconception is
that I’m very reserved, when I really
only tend to seem that way under new
situations.
I would say a lion—as long
as it includes the cool growl
I would travel and eat like Guy
Fieri
For some reason people think that I
am intimidating, particularly new
staff or friends of my kids
Probably that I’m a lot more
serious than I really am.

5. Braves Night
Friday, May 27, The company had a family
night out to a Braves baseball game! 250
Folks showed up, there were hugs to be had
and peanuts to be shared.
Thanks to everyone who came out! IA loves
and enjoys getting to treat the employees
and their families in this way, that’s why
we’re the best!

6. SharePoint
SharePoint infrastructure with cloud makes the most of Office 365
products and has become a popular and successful computing
model. Organizations use it to reduce their capital and operational
expenditures and to gain the advantage of rapid software delivery
to meet their business needs. SharePoint can be used for many
things: storing documents, collaborating with colleagues on
projects, publishing departmental information, and even managing
common processes like time off requests and expense reports. It is
hard to define since it offers many capabilities, but generally it
provides a flexible platform to enable you and your colleagues to
get work done. The great part is that all you need is a web browser
and you can begin.
There are two types of SharePoint: one that is run on your compa-
ny’s servers, and one that is hosted by Microsoft through Office
365. From the user’s perspective, there is little difference between
SharePoint Server and SharePoint Online in Office 365-- they both
offer great ways to collaborate and are accessed through a web
browser. Features within Delve and Yammer give more flexibility
for dashboard, management, and statistics. Users can make use of
collaboration features within Skype for Business, and explore
federation with external users through integration with Outlook,
OWA, web access, client options, and mobile access.
Training Link : https://mva.microsoft.com/product-train-
ing/sharepoint#!lang=1033
BizTalk
BizTalk is an industry initiative headed by Microsoft to
promote Extensible Markup Language (XML) as the
common data exchange language for e-commerce and
application integration on the Internet. While not a
standards body per se, the group is fostering a common
XML message-passing architecture to tie systems
together. BizTalk says that the growth of e-commerce requires
businesses using different computer technologies to have a means
to share data. BizTalk Server 2013 provides capabilities to transfer
messages using different relay endpoints hosted on Azure,
consume and expose restful services, and sending and receiving
messages from an SFTP server. It removed the need for dependency
on SharePoint farms, while still providing backward compatibility.
Since ESB Toolkit is now fully integrated with BizTalk Server,
dependencies between artifacts can now be viewed and navigated
in the Admin console and it provides the ability to set host handler
per adapter, instead of always using the default.
BizTalk is currently moving in the direction of Infrastructure as a
Service (IaaS). The current version will let you run your production
BizTalk environment completely in Azure without relying on a
third party hosting service. This provides a great opportunity to
setup your development and QA environments without the pain of
a long procurement processes within your organization to
provision such environments.
Training Link:
Http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/arti-
cles/14598.training-resources-for-biztalk-developers.aspx#q
MicrosoftTricks
By: Sriram Swaminathan
Azure for Data Pros
Data recovery is a major consideration for IT Pros in any
organization. Azure SQL Database provides full-scale,
high-availability disaster recovery options that can support a
variety of business needs. Since these options are built into
the product from the ground up, and they require no
administrative overhead or complexity. Azure is based on
Windows, so you can write applications in the same
programming languages you've used for Windows apps:
Visual Basic, C++, C#, etc.
Applications running on Azure run in virtual machines, with
each instance of the app running in its own VM on the 64-bit
Windows Server 2008 operating system. The cost of creating,
testing, debugging, and distributing Web-based applications
goes down because you only have to pay for the computer
processing time and storage space you need at a given time.
You get high availability and reliability with redundant copies
of your data and automatic failover. No more worries about
backing up data yourself.
You can take advantage of the well-established support
structure within Microsoft and company-provided resources,
such as TechNet and MSDN, along with the huge ecosystem
of Windows developers outside the company. With Azure,
you can develop hybrid applications that allow your
on-premises applications to use cloud services, such as the
cloud database and storage services. Communications
services work between on-premises applications and the
cloud, as well as mobile devices. Custom software developers
can create software solutions for customers who can't afford
the costs of in-house development, including hardware costs,
and they can deliver their applications to customers as
services without building and maintaining an expensive data
center.
Training Link: https://mva.microsoft.com/product-train-
ing/microsoft-azure#!lang=1033

7. Technology Practices Are Coming to IA in 2016
By: Samara Duncan
What Is a Technology Practice? IA offers a large variety of technical solutions to clients. Practices will help the IA team work
together to stay on top of new technologies and best practices within each area. Initially, we will establish 8 practices.
1) Data Services & Integration: How do I manage information coming from or going to multiple sources and formats? If this
question fascinates you, you might want to join this focus.
2) Infrastructure & Cloud Platform: Great software is useless without the right hardware to run it on. If you love the nuts and
bolts of technology, then you may want to look into this practice.
3) UI & Mobile: The best software in the world will remain untouched if users can’t understand how to make it work. Creating a
great UI on any size is a challenge that most of us face at some point.
4) Enterprise Architecture: It is easy to get caught up in the details. Enterprise Architecture is all about learning to maintain the
big picture guidelines for the future of client’s business.
5) BI & Data Architecture: Business’s live and die on their ability to organize and make use of their data. This practice is devoted
to learning how to do this efficiently and effectively.
6) Strategy & Roadmap: Sometimes the problem isn’t specific, but needing an overall operational plan. If you beat all your friends
at Risk when you were a kid, this practice might be the place for you.
7) Application Development: Businesses need great tools to operate effectively. If you enjoy building things that people will use
on a daily basis, this may be your new home.
8) Collaboration: In order for a business to be effective people need to be able to communicate effectively. This practice is a great
place for people who love to help others find ways work together.
How Do I Join a Practice?
If you would like to get involved with one of these practices, either in leadership or as a participate, email Rich.
Meet
The
Interns:
What did you
learn your first
week at IA?
The biggest thing I learned in my
first week is that this environment
is perfect for hitting the ground
running. Nobody is afraid to
throw me into something
completely overwhelming, and
everyone is glad to answer
questions that I have. With this,
it’s easy for me to get the work
done that I need to, while also
learning things on my own (such
as databases and visual studio)
without having to worry about
getting stuck on a problem.
I learned that client relations play
a big role in this business. By
listening and watching people
here talk to their clients, I found
that they respect them and care
about what they are doing in their
life. This as I have seen, plays a
big role in client relations here at
IA.
My first week at IA, Dan invited
me onto a conference call, the
whole company wore their PJs
to the quarterly meeting, tattoo
day was mentione and I photo-
shopped Scott’s head next to a
giant blizzard. So out of that
entire compilation, I learned to
always be ready for anything.
Work Hard, Play Hard as Alan
would say.And to always have
headphones handy in IASouth.
During my first week at IA, I’ve
learned a lot of things. IA isn’t a
company with cubicles nor is it a
company where you sit in the
corner and code all day. This is an
environment where you meet and
talk with people- if you don’t do
that you are actually hindering
yourself. I’ve also learned that the
only thing everyone cares about is
taking the interns to lunch.

8. Azure :the new playground for developers
Infrastructure guys love the cloud. Recently, it's becoming clear that developers love it too! Mic-
rosoft's cloud services are the future of the company and Microsoft is doing all it can to bring
developers to Azure -- not just the existing crowd of .Net folks but developers from all walks of
life (Interesting side note, they are installing datacenters underwater…).
Microsoft's next step is to make Azure into something developers can directly leverage, and not
just by renting a slice of Microsoft's data center, as everyone else does.
The next big attraction is Azure Service Fabric, which are the same tools used to build the Azure
applications in use today. The plan is to allow devs to deploy those bits on their own local
instances of Windows Server and run Windows Server Containers and Hyper-V Containers on
that fabric to create their own hybrid cloud for PaaS micro services. The maintenance ops people
would normally be expected to figure out (features like updating, rolling back, health monitor-
ing, auto-scaling and load balancing in the field) are now built into the product. Developers will
spend less time architecting and more time developing.
If the industry is leaving VMs for container technology for apps that scale, Microsoft wants to be
part of that -- not just by offering container technologies of its own or interoperating with existing
ones, but by making the move to containers as easy and pre-packaged as possible. The less
people have flashbacks to their last OpenStack experience, the better.
Microsoft might well offer Azure Service Fabric under an open license. Combine that with the
freshly open sourced language and development tools also under Microsoft's realm, and it's
possible the Fabric might end up swaddling more than just Windows and Microsoft developers.
One thing Microsoft's not giving away are cloud services like Visual Studio Online. Those are
guaranteed to remain for-pay resources, even as many of the pieces (like .Net) become commodi-
ties.
The latest wave of Azure improvements is aimed at satisfying core Microsoft developers. Azure
App Services, for instance, takes a group of Azure and Microsoft services (the two are becoming
interchangeable) and makes them available to app developers in a friendly way.
Microsoft's cloud plans are broader than any one glance might hint at. By the company's own
definition, its cloud doesn't just include Azure, but everything from Office 365 to Power BI as
well. Azure underpins it all and ties it all together. As developers are empowered to make use of
it, Azure will seem like a genuinely transformative offering.
Eugenio Holgado

9. Microsoft’s Roadmap for Reporting: Power BI and Beyond!
For close to a decade, Microsoft has been recognized as a leader in the area of BI and reporting and for
nearly just as long, Reporting Services has not changed. That is, until now. With the release of SQL Server
2016, we are set to see some amazing changes in this venerable component of the BI-stack, and as Micro-
soft’s own Patrick LeBlanc puts it, “Reporting is sexy again!” Microsoft’s stated objective is to, “…put the
power of data in the hands of every business and person on the planet. It is our objective to serve over a
billion users with the Microsoft business intelligence (BI) platform”. And how do they intend to get such
market share? By offering the most comprehensive and alluring suite of tools at the most competitive price
point.
First, there’s what MS is now calling “Paginated Reporting”. This is SSRS. But it’s not your daddy’s SSRS.
SSRS 2016 is HTML5 and CSS3 compliant. It’s got the fresh look and feel of a modern web application, but
with the same great functionality that allows for allow for exact placement of elements on a page and com-
plex display logic. Paginated reports are meant for on premise reporting. Next, there is “Interactive Report-
ing”, otherwise known as Power BI. Power-BI is both cloud-based as well as on premise and in terms of
capabilities, think Tableau, but with a MS twist and price-point (Tableau is a notoriously expensive dash-
boarding tool).
Then we have “Mobile Reporting”. Built on a recent acquisition, DataZen, this technology is truly
mobile-first. It has its own report-authoring client tool and is integrated with SSRS Report Manager for a
single admin interface. Furthermore, all your content created in SSRS (Paginated and Mobile) is available
for your Power BI dashboards (additional configuration is required but it can be done). Last but not least,
we still have Excel for all those Excel people out there who just can’t live without it. IA’s own Jason Russell
has this to say about Power BI: “Power BI allows users to easily create powerful, interactive data visualiza-
tions from multiple data sources. The dashboard functionality allows relatively untrained users to put a
“Wow” factor in reports that can’t be replicated with other BI tools. This ease of use allows IA to quickly
create demos to users to showcase possibilities of data reporting.”
I’ve been working with Microsoft’s BI Stack since the beginning (SQL Server 2005). I found the tools so great
and so much fun to work with, I left the cold, harsh world of Oracle behind and have not looked back. But
for quite some time, it’s been clear that while other areas of MS BI and SQL Server itself have enjoyed a
steady pace of evolution, SSRS was always left behind. Until now. It’s back and it is cool. Watch out Tableau!
Microsoft is gunning for you and Power BI has just the right mix of features and cost that you should be
nervous. And that’s not all, because Power BI is just one component of this broad offering that is well poised
to get to that goal of 1 billion users.
- Mike Lawson-
P o w e r b i