Dear All Freelancer,

I have a general questions to all freelancer.....based on your experience, do you think how much is the development cost for a help desk system. It is an online web portal....kindly give me some info...thanks!!!!

It depends on a lot of factors:

1. What are the requirements/scope for this Help Desk system?

2. What is the scale of the system? As in, how many users are you expecting to use it?

3. What programming language, web server implementation, operating system are you going to use.

4. What features are required for the system? E.g. Load balanced / failover capabilities

5. How customisable the system will be?

6. Does your cost include hardware, network infrastructure? Think about licensing issues too.

Back when I was a college student, I did a free lance mini payroll management system. Using Microsoft Access as the database and Visual Basic 6 as the front end (thin clients were not too affordable and popular yet back then), the system had to support only 5 users. There was no need for transaction control, and ODBC was fairly sufficient to do the trick.

The system consist of data entry forms, search and query functions, automated calculation and tabulation and reports.

All hardware and software licensing cost was footed by my client.

I billed my client around RM4,000, just for the custom solution. Well, that was like 5 years ago.

Woh~~The simple system u can charge RM4,000 alr?? 5 years before somemore....

This post has been edited by Jenn V: May 29 2006, 11:33 PM

Haha! Sounds simple. Wait till you study the rules and logic of calculating salaries!

Here's for a start:
- Your basic salary
- Overtime hours clocked (applies only if your basic is < 1,500)
- Overtime salary wages differ from normal work days, Sat, Sun and Public Holidays
- Some companies may offer various kinds of overtime reimbursements
- Add claims
- Minus deductions
- Minus employee EPF
- Minus PCB
- Minus SOCSO

Get the picture?

So what's your help desk system like anyway? What is it supposed to do?

I prefer and do charge by hour and I'd recommend you do the same for very obvious reasons. First, charging a flat rate is really not beneficial to the developer, especially in this country (ask any software developer in this country if they've ever worked within the hours specified by their employment contract). Even if you can iron out the requirements ahead, it will most likely change, in which case you are either stuck with the same rate or will have to negotiate new rates. If this happen often enough, relationship with your contract employer may turn sour. If you go by hourly rate, there is no negotiation, the rate is set and agreed up front, all it boils down to is you logging your hours. If the customer is unhappy about your throughput (functional units of work/hour) against your rate, then its up to you to improve your productivity. Secondly, when you charge per hour, it doesnt matter how much the customer change their requirements, you are charging by hour, if they throw away previously done functionality for change in requirements its their problem, they live with the cost.

The other tricky part is timeline. As with rates, I wouldnt recommend fixing and promising a fixed date. I'd break down the requirements and estimate the number of hours/days for each chunk of work and total that up and present to the customer. If the customer insist on a fixed date, which is quite reasonable, then show them what can be completed within the given timeframe, this is where you have to know your own abilities. I'd try to fit as much as possible, if not all the requirements, if not then negotiate. For me, if I cannot finish the project alone within the timeline I'd ask help from friends and make it clear to the customer that it will be more than a single resource on this project and will cost them that much if they insist on the fixed deadline.

The help desk system actually provide a kind of environment to link between expert and user. When user face any problem, they will log in to the system and type in their trouble ticket, then the system will automatic send out an email to d expert to inform them that like "there is a trouble, please solve it." After that, the expert will log in to the system, and leave their solution there. After problem have been solve, one email will generated by the system again and send to user. The system roughly is work like this. SO, expert...how much do you think for the development cost? Exclude all the licenses and hardware issue...

heh i'll have to charge you consultation fee , go figure out yourself, but I can say that requirement is too high level if you want to charge hourly rates. Also, the amount of time is dependent on each person, I may take longer/quicker than you depending on our programming experience and background. Also, the rates I normally charge also depends on the complexity of the system and whether or not I'm required to travel/work on weekends or its on/off site. If you want flat rate like someone else suggested, I can't help you as I've never done that kinda agreements before and will never do.

Jenn V, looks like your helpdesk system may not look as simple as it may sound. I would take darun's advice in hour-based charges.

At a high level, this system would be implemented in a web based "thin client" concept.

I forsee several key sub-systems you are required to develop:

1. Customer Support End - Where users log their troubles

2. Expert Resolution End - Where the designated 'expert' will read the support request and reply accordingly

3. Delivery Channel - Most likely to via email

4. Routing and Chanelling Logic - The engine where you handle the filtering of support requests, extracting certain key words and matching them with appropriate experts. Most likely, you will need to build some AI based inference engine. You may also need to build a layer to customise the routing rules.

What is the expected time-frame for your development?

Oh, remember, free-lance doesn't mean transparent agreements. Make sure you have proper legal contracts and documents to confirm the contract, requirements, scope, pricing etc.

Woh Woh Woh!!!

Really really thanks all for your advise!!! I very very appriciate it...so, LYN is the best!!!