[Korea Contact-free Leading Service Company] "Effi" Draws Attention with a SaaS Specialized for Image and Video Bug Reporting

    LOS ANGELES, CA, December 24, 2022 /24-7PressRelease/ -- "Our goal is to remove the repetitive labor in the QU (Quality Assurancec) process of apps and to improve the inefficient parts of work communication to make it more efficient.
Effi (CEO Jong-ho Ryu) is a company that was established in 2014 and is a part of the 'Close-To-Life Contact-Free Leading Service Project' implemented by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (Chairman Seong-wook Huh, hereafter referred to as NIPA).

The 'Close-To-Life Contact-Free Leading Service Project' was started to develop, verify, supply and expand contact-free leading services that is closely linked with the everyday life of citizens. On an industrial level, the Ministry of Science and ICT and NIPA plans to use this project to foster globally oriented contact free service companies, while they plan to improve the competitiveness of Korea's service and software industry on a national level. Following from the previous year, this is now the 2nd year. This year it was conducted in 2 parts, with one being centered around advancing contact-free services, and the other being centered around new service development. The development of new services was then further divided between designated tasks and free tasks.

Selected for designated tasks for contact-free collaboration, Effi undertook the task of advancing instant voice messaging systems for remote collaboration between developers when developing apps.

The first service Effi developed after its founding was a 'Bug Reporting Tool'. They then released 'Effi', a tool specialized for bug reporting in mobile apps, in 2018. In 2019, they established a company-affiliated research center and an overseas corporation in the US. Last year, they were able to accomplish the securing of over 200 references, including Red Hat and Money Today.

The service category that 'Effi' is a part of is 'Issue Tracker Collaboration Tool Specialized for Bug Reporting'. Regarding the development background of 'Effi', CEO Jong-ho Ryu explained that, "Despite the fact that it has been over 10 years since IoT devices and smartphones have hit the scene, there are still 'Issue Tracker Tools' that are from the era of PCs being used in work sites. As such, there is much repetitive labor taking place in the process of registering app issues for things like IoT devices and smartphones. We wanted to improve upon this." They judged that there was an issue with the amount of time used in the QA process of app development in companies around the world and developed 'Effi' to fix this.

Usually, web testers have to inspect 500~1000 bugs and UI errors and record discovery and edits every month before launching a single app. However, as communication is difficult with just text and images, 40% of web testers record videos to send. Thus, conventional technology requires videos to be recorded when app errors are discovered and hundreds of errors all require a video replicating each of them, using up a lot of time and labor. When it is difficult to replicate, all employees sometimes get involved for 2~3 days. Even if the video is made after recording, explaining the problem once again requires much communication and labor costs.

Effi developed 'effi.io', a solution that solves these problems. 'effi.io' is a 'Real-Time App Screen and Log Recording SDK' that reduces over 90% of the labor that goes into the process of replicating bugs, filming videos, and collecting logs in the app QA process. The company emphasized that 'effi.io' was the first product of this type.

CEO Ryu said that, "effi.io is a SaaS (Software as a Service) that is specialized for image and video bug reporting," and revealed that, "Many game app and non-game app developers use our service." He then went on to say, "The number of cases of publishers or academies using our service as a regular collaboration tool is also increasing, and we are in the process of advancing the functions of regular collaboration tools."

Effi expected a rise in sales from participating in the 'Close-to-Life Contact-Free Leading Service Project' and expanding their contact-free functions. CEO Ryu said that, "In the case of existing video QA, the use of media is inconvenient and is poor in delivery," and emphasized that, "However, 'effi.io', which we are developing, has no issues in contact-free collaboration due to the point indication function in units of seconds. In addition, a history of communication builds up by unit to reduce communication errors and ultimately helps improve work capability." He then went on to say, "We improved the contact-free collaboration tool's functions so that it can be used not only in web development companies, but in regular companies as well."

The company revealed that 'effi.io' is more competitive than other companies in 5 aspects. First, you are able to upload documents, pictures, and videos that require feedback and can directly place a point on the documents, pictures, or videos to leave feedbacks. Second, unlike other companies, it has functions that can derive a common log for the same error, automatically crop relevant logs from the corresponding section of a video, and automatically record the test app screen. Third, unlike other companies, in terms of SDK functions, all videos and logs can be seen in real-time on effi.io. Fourth, it inserts location tags in the video timeline when leaving feedbacks on attached videos, and enables smooth communication, such as displaying location points on the screen for a specific cut. Fifth, it automatically indicates the OS version and device information of the video.

The company registered the 'effi.io' technology (task management system and method) as a patent in April 2019. They are also looking forward to the meeting with overseas export buyers supported by NIPA. CEO Ryu said that, "While introducing our continuous test app recording SDK service by collaborating with game app developers in Korea and abroad, we also want to introduce out regular work collaboration tool service by collaborating with non-game app developers in Korea and abroad." He then went on to explain, "We are in negotiations to include our product in the Dev-Ops consulting process through our app developer sales partner in the North American market."

Effi revealed that participating in the 'Close-to-Life Contact-Free Leading Service Project' has been a big help in the growth of the company. More than anything, with the hiring of talent, it accelerated development of ther service and made it more complete. Based on these developed functions, they have also attended trade fairs to introduce their service to potential clients and were able to check the demand as well. CEO Ryu said that, "We saw a positive signal for the monetization of effi.io." He then went on to say, "Our company's vision is to make collaboration in the world more efficient," and said that, "We hope this can help the IT industry develop further."

Korea Contact-Free News Room

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