We have effectively developed and rolled out many of our own Windows applications,
including the MindBuilder Student and Curriculum Construction Kit, which
our educational teams use to develop and publish on-line training courses.
In addition, we have developed many custom applications for our clients.
A client with hundreds of employees found that many of their traveling
employees were unable to access the company's website for entry of data
because they spent many hours sitting in airports or on airplanes. The result was that employees were working long hours on the weekends to enter
data needed the following week, creating an understanble amount of employee
frustration and low morale.
We met with senior executives to discuss how we could create a Windows
application that could be used off-line, but once an active Internet connection
could be made would synchronize the locally-entered data.
To accomplish this objective, we created a local MSDE database house on
employee laptops that mirrored that Master database kept on the company's
servers. We then built a Windows |
application that through the use of Web services synchronized data between
the local and Master database. And in order to secure and speed the transmission
of
data, we
both encrypted and compressed it.
In addition, we created a rich client interface through the Windows application,
which allows a much more satisfying user experience than they were used
to with the company's website. Employees are now able to enter data during
normal work hours and morale has dramatically improved.
An interesting consequence is that our client now knows that while Internet
applications have brought many benefits to the work-force, they
are not always the right solution. Windows applications, especially when
connected to the database servers through Web Services, permit a much
more satisfying user experience because of the speed at which the User
Interface performs. |