Associate Member of the Month

UCANE Member Tapple, Inc.’s Technology Speeds up Jobsite Entry and Simplifies Record Keeping

Daily health screener using cell phone and a QR code meets CDC and state COVID-19 guidelines for selfcertification, reporting, and tracing.

Tapple, Inc’s co-founders James Gray (CEO) and Dean Hantzis (Chief Technology Officer) are no strangers to technology or to start-up ventures. Both local entrepreneurs have over 20 years of proven success in that arena before they teamed up to create Tapple. James and Dean are both Massachusetts natives, attended Boston area colleges, and have spent most of their working careers in the local area.

CEO James Gray, CTO Dean Hantzis, and CMO Karen Kelly

Attention Complete Daily Health Attestation Prior To Entering

NO APP REQUIRED

1. Point smartphone camera at QR code. 2.Tap notification to get started.

Tapple is part of a growing sector within the Massachusetts economy that emphasizes technology, entrepreneurship, and innovation. The start-up was launched in January 2019 and quickly recognized within its peer group, winning several awards for their product development that expanded creative uses for physical to digital smartphone experiences, including the ability to intelligently engage with consumers through QR codes.

While QR codes initially had their debut in the 2000s, there were early hiccups in adoption by businesses and consumers.

According to James Gray, “QR codes are not a new technology, but they were not widely popular until Apple integrated a QR code reader into its phone camera in 2017. The Android operating system quickly followed. The big breakthrough was that a special QR app is no longer required to access content. The user can now scan a QR code using their smart phone camera and be directed immediately to a specific website or to mobile content of any kind.”

“With this new and user-friendly access to QR codes, we knew we would see a wide range of use cases that would benefit not only businesses, but consumers as well,” said Dean Hantzis. “Our platform makes it easy to create mobile content that can intelligently change based on the user’s input or their physical location. This allows brands to drive more personalized, relevant experiences, while gathering critical first party data.”

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted normal operations for virtually every private and public workplace in the United States and throughout the world. Keeping customers and employees safe from COVID became the first order of business for every industry.

Almost overnight, CDC and state guidelines were issued that required businesses to collect health self-certifications from employees and customers every time before they entered the building, office, airplane, or jobsite.

The Tapple Health Screener in use for commercial businesses at 3 Burlington Woods, Burlington, MA Social distancing and “contactless” became the rule of the day and even passing papers and pens between persons was suddenly a potential for spreading the disease.

Businesses faced the problem of how to effectively collect the daily barrage of health self-certifications in a contact-free manner. Companies also needed to be able to provide this information on a moment’s notice if required to by insurance companies or contact tracers. That is where Tapple’s Touchless Health Screener came into play.

“Our Touchless Health Screener became a solution for construction groups to ease the pain of data collection, reporting, and safe entry,” said Hantzis. “By providing the ability to instantly approve or deny entry based on answers to health screening questions, we streamline the process of getting back to building faster.”

Heading up the promotion of Tapple and what it offers to customers is Chief Marketing Officer, and UCANE representative, Karen Kelly. A New Jersey native, Karen has a Master’s Degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Emerson College and has extensive marketing experience working for some of the largest advertising agencies in the area. Like Dean and James, she is an entrepreneur herself having started up one of the most profitable photography studios in Boston.

“When COVID-19 hit there was an instant need for contactless data collection across all types of industries,” explained Karen. “The data needed to be easy to access and include the highest levels of security. Tapple’s capabilities meshed perfectly with those needs.”

The Touchless Health Screener works rapidly and efficiently. With a QR code at the admitting desk, the person entering is first instructed to point his/her smartphone camera at the code. Their phone launches a customizable series of questions about their personal health as it relates to COVID-19. The worker provides the requested continued on page 53

The Touchless Health Screener ensures contact information is accurate and data is captured securely in under 20 seconds.

Tapple, Inc. continued from page 51 information and immediately receives an “Approved” or “Denied” badge visible on the phone’s screen, which can be displayed to the on-site COVID Officers.

“Not only is the process paperless and contactless, there is no need to transmit paperwork back to the main office for filing,” says Kelly. “Our personalized program will record and store your requested information and make it retrievable by any data point you want including name, date, jobsite, or specific responses. A timestamp is used to determine date, time, and location automatically for every transaction and securely store it on each user’s account.”

When it comes to price tag, Tapple’s Touchless Health Screener is a low-cost alternative to manually recording and reporting the data on a daily basis.

“Tapple is saving contractors significant manhours and money, while also giving them peace of mind. Compared to a manual process, we save each worksite an average of $2,300 per month. That’s over $16,000 over six months for a single jobsite,” notes Kelly.

According to CEO Gray, Tapple is developing an increasing presence in the Boston marketplace and is currently working with many prestigious firms in the real estate, property management, and construction industries. “We are extremely excited to be a member of UCANE,” says Kelly. “Tapple’s contactless technology can be applied to contractors and to almost any other type of business that is looking to collect data from workers or consumers. I’m happy to show fellow UCANE members what our system offers and how it can help their company’s bottom line. We can have you up and running the same day.”

UCANE is proud to count Tapple, Inc. as a member and we wish them great success as they roll out the latest in business and smartphone technology.

Tapple, Inc.

396 Washington St. #282 Wellesley, MA. 02482 Cell: 917-886-3173 Tel: 617-249- 3848 Email: Karen@ tapple.io UCANE Rep: Karen Kelly