Case Study #1

Facility Management firm located in Baltimore Metro area is responsible for facility inspections at customer campuses across the United States. Inspection results are needed at corporate for complex reporting, while facility detail on items to be inspected are needed in the field, before each series of inspections begins. Often accomplished with paper reports and telephone calls. Limited implementation budget.

Using DOS extender, dBASE tables, commercial communication software, commercial fax software, Clipper, C++, and Assembler to allow palmtop to send inspections and receive account data from corporate server. We utilized re-entrant modules allowing the table maintenance routines to perform double-duty as pick lists. System security allows corporate to maintain the underlying account tables, which are automatically downloaded to the palmtop, ensuring data integrity. The same executable runs on both the palmtop and the Windows32 corporate workstation, providing easier code maintenance. Corporate performs complex computations and creates a WordPerfect merge file for formal report presentation to the customer.
The GUI reporting portion of this client/server system runs at corporate only and provides an MDI interface using an intantiated report window and run-time assigned data objects to present complex statistical data as addendum to the formal report. The GUI is written in PowerBuilder (with future plans to move to a SQL server) using ODBC connectivity.

Our client has realized a productivity gain of approximately 50%, and staffing resources have been adjusted accordingly.
Customers' reactions to the more detailed reports have been extremely positive.
This system was developed in 1995/96, a time when handheld PCs ran mostly DOS and desktop systems mostly ran Windows 95. The software system's only requirement is extended memory. As newer hardware has become available, the system has ported, with minimal code changes, to palmtops running Windows32, up to and including Windows XP. The system has had feature enhancements over the years (although the move to an SQL Server has not yet materialized), and is still in use today.