Throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been a variety of unique challenges stemming from the pandemic that have required creative solutions to overcome those daunting issues.
In fact, one of the challenges that Canadian companies faced was the growing need to implement COVID-19 screening programs at their places of work, as recommended by the Government of Canada website.
trakrSuite, a software development company based out of Sault Ste. Marie, invented their own solution to the screening program issue when they created their smartphone app, trakr Safety.
trakr Safety is a digital health screening and contact tracing tool that trakrSuite created for businesses to ensure safer work environments.
Brenda Saunders, the Chief Operating Officer of trakrSuite, says that the COVID-19 pandemic definitely inspired the creation of trakr Safety, although she also says that the app is for far more than COVID-19 alone.
“It was definitely a product of the pandemic. There was somebody who was looking for help with their screening questions and how they could do this without paper,” Brenda said. “COVID brought out our new solution that was called saniTrakr (the original name of the app prior to trakr Safety), and we’ve made the switch to trakr Safety because it is a safety tool within your organization and not just something to use temporarily while we are in the middle of this global pandemic.”
And so, how does trakr Safety work?
Well, trakr Safety operates as an easy-to-use smartphone app that allows companies to customize their own unique set of health screening questions for their employees to answer before coming into work.
trakr Safety also utilizes QR codes to provide effective contact tracing by registering any potentially sick employees/guests by the potential areas of a company where they may have been, as well as notifying others in the area who may be potentially at-risk because of contact.
“We learned from trakr Counting (trakrSuite’s other digital solution product) that we could create areas within our solution that would help to better pinpoint who was coming into contact with others,” Brenda said. “We realized early on that if you want to control the spread of something, it’s all about contact tracing and how quickly you can contact the people that may have been at risk.”
While starting their company, trakrSuite, Brenda and Robbie Saunders (co-owner of trakrSuite and Brenda’s husband) also own and run the Canadian division of an American company (in Sault Ste Marie) that sells barcode scanners that integrate with iPods, iPhones and iPads.
Yearning for a different business calling, Brenda and Robbie decided to add applications to the hardware products, creating complete solutions instead.
“Robbie had always said that we could create our own software for people who do not have a dev company or a dev department where they make their own solutions,” Brenda said.
“So that’s where trakrSuite came from. We decided on the name because we were going to offer a suite of products that specialize in counting and reporting. And our plan was to offer, say, three-to-five different solutions that companies could come back to us and say ‘hey, do you have something like this?’ and we would have another solution for them.”
The first digital solution that trakrSuite created was trakr Counting, which is a smartphone app that provides companies with the ability to count products by area/category, directly scan barcodes located on product shelves, as well as sending the count information directly to a spreadsheet for reporting purposes.
“With trakr Counting, we offer the ability to capture and deliver a snapshot of your current inventory status. So, for instance, we’ve been doing a pilot within some local Tim Hortons franchises, because we saw an opportunity there because managers would be doing the counting and it would take three or four hours at a time,” Brenda said.
“So that’s where we came in. The app allows you to create areas, categories, really customize your product catalog to whatever business that you have. And once the inventory is counted, you can either print the count information or email it right away to whoever needs that information within your organization.”
At the time, trakr Counting was the main focus of Brenda and Robbie. But, when the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, this inspired them to expand their digital solution catalogue by creating the aforementioned trakr Safety, an app that needed some external assistance along the way to help it launch smoothly.
Brenda said that a big reason why trakr Safety was able to successfully launch was because of the funding and support of the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre, a non-profit organization that expertise’s in business development and growth.
“We got introduced to the Innovation Centre early on, when we were coming up with the ideas for saniTrakr and trying to find ways to get our name and information out there,” Brenda said. “The big way that they’ve helped us is by taking care of some of the expenses that I think early on in startups, you wish you had the money to do this because I want to do it right now, instead of waiting until you get to a certain size as a company.”
And thanks to the generous support that the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre provided—in the form of the IAP (Innovation Accelerator Program) and BTIF (Business Technology Improvement Fund) funding programs that were funded by FedNor (Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario) and administered by the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre—Brenda says that the support helped saniTrakr in a number of ways.
“With the IAP, it helped us with some of our legal documentation, which was really important for us to have a really good privacy policy, especially coming out of the gate with a COVID app and everybody’s first thought would be how secure is their information? So, being able to have funding that allowed us to get the proper kind of legal documents right away was important, because otherwise we would have left that and maybe not have done it right away,” Brenda said.”
“The BTIF helped us set up our support through Zendesk. So now we have in-app support and articles that are similar to what bigger companies, like Rogers, have. We set it all up right from the beginning, so that we would know what our problems are, how we can change our solutions, and that way we can reduce future support calls. And so, without the funding for them (which covered 50 per cent of the costs) those would have been crucial things we might have just left.”
With all of the help and support the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre has provided to trakrSuite and its innovative strides as a growing company, Brenda says that trakrSuite will not hesitate in consulting with the Innovation Centre for future projects.
“Now whenever I think we need to invest in something, I’m definitely reaching out to the Innovation Centre first. Whether to see if there’s funding that I’ve missed or something important that I should do? They’ve been really helpful and that’s why we always go back to the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre. They tell me what I need and if there is anything that I’ve missed. They have been really great that way.”
And so, with everything the company has accomplished already, what’s next for trakrSuite?
Brenda says that the company’s focus will be on growing their current products, while also looking to inspire people out there who may have business aspirations, but are not residing in large, metropolitan cities.
“We are focused right now on just trying to get as much traction as we can with trakr Safety, and to get trakr Counting into a place where it can be ready for rapid growth, which is what we are hoping for,” Brenda said.
“I would like people to know that it is possible to come here to Sault Ste. Marie and you can have a very successful business that goes way beyond the area that we are in. It would be great to be able to help build Sault Ste. Marie up with this idea of being a great tech center and a great place to come to live and work.”
To learn more about trakrSuite, you can visit their website at trakrsuite.com. For inquiries about trakr Safety and trakr Counting, you can contact one of their sales associates at trakrsuite.com/contact.