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Measuresoft
Development
5
. The Project
5.1 The eBusiness Solution – business requirements
The business requirements for the eBusiness project fell into
four key areas:
1. Delivery of Licenses
Measuresoft had migrated from a hardware-based key system
to a software-based one. The original software-based system was
quite unwieldy in that it required someone at the end of the phone
to distribute the key. The new web-based system allowed them to
pull the keys down online.
2. Support
In addition, the system used for customer support was targeted
for an upgrade to take advantage of the efficiencies offered by
web-based technologies. Measuresoft wanted to have full metrics
and full cost of maintenance online. They wanted to be able to
quickly access all records pertaining to maintenance, the changes
that were made and the calls to the help desk. This enabled them
to get a handle on the costs very quickly. Support services can
be an intangible. A client might think that they hardly ever request
assistance so it’s important to have the records, to be able
to let them know the level of service they’re getting and
how quickly they are responded to. This provides a basis for negotiation.
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Definitions
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1-
SQL (Structured Query Language) is a standard interactive
and programming language for getting information from and
updating a database. 2 - A digital dashboard
is a customized solution for knowledge workers that consolidates
personal, team, corporate, and external information and provides
single-click access to analytical and collaborative tools.
3 - Visual Studio .NET is a tool set for
building and integrating XML Web services, Microsoft Windows–based
applications, and Web solutions.
4 - An Active Server Page (ASP) is an HTML
page that includes one or more scripts (small embedded programs)
that are processed on a Microsoft Web server before the page
is sent to the user.
5 - HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language) is
the set of mark-up symbols or codes inserted in a file intended
for display on a World Wide Web browser page.
6- VBScript is an interpreted script language
from Microsoft that is a subset of its Visual Basic programming
language designed for interpretation by Web browsers. |
3.
Project Management
The system used for project management was also targeted
for an upgrade. The motivation was to provide more transparency
for the customer of project progress. It was also important to
enable the customer to understand that they were on the critical
path too in many cases. Fergal expressed his desire to move the
business model away from a focus on man-hours that is often associated
with traditional project management methodologies and on to a
focus on results. The new technology would show that Measuresoft
was on top of their targets and had the project under control.
This provided peace of mind for the customer and increased the
value of Measuresoft’s offering.
4. Requirements and Quality Management
A well-designed system is critical to managing the various
changes and versions of the documents at the requirements stage.
Whilst Measuresoft had a good document-based online system it
had limitations. The process was often cumbersome and involved
extensive emailing back and forth and lots of downtime.
5.2
The eBusiness Solution – technical details
Measuresoft used the following technologies to implement the solution
(See Definitions Sidebar)
- Windows
2000, SQL(1) Server 2000 and Exchange Server
- Microsoft
Project 2000 and Project Central
- Digital
Dashboard Technology(2 )
- Visual
Studio 6.0(3 )
- ASP4,
HTML5, VBScript(6 )
Microsoft
Project Central
This product is a web-enabled front-end for Microsoft Project.  Fergal
described the choice as follows, “for project management, we began
looking at the Microsoft Project tool and what the web capability of that
was. We wanted to automate metrics collection and presentation. Prior
to this, the system had been a document-based system. It was a bit clumsy
but okay for smaller projects. So we looked at Microsoft Project Central,
the web version of Microsoft Project, and looked at the database behind
it to see if we could integrate with it and we found we could. It was
a highly flexible tool and with the database behind it, we could tweak
it to our own requirements. So it passed the test.”
Visual SourceSafe
The next area for investigation was the configuration management
system, which is essentially a document management system. Measuresoft
was keen to make that system web-enabled. There are about three
types of documents in the system– quality management documents,
project documents and then project deliverables such as source code.
Measuresoft had been using Visual SourceSafe to manage this in the
original quality control system. Visual SourceSafe is a Microsoft
software package and it had been used in such a way that the quality
management system could be completely online rather than paper based.
For example there is an electronic tool for recording that someone
has signed off on a document. Having examined other packages available
on the market, Measuresoft again went with SourceSafe. They decided
not to bring the full configuration management facility out to the
web. Clients would have read-only versions of the documents on the
web. They would also be able to make comments on the documents.
This way ensured that they still had a lot of control internally.
From a security point of view it is prudent. Clients had visibility
but not the control.
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