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Business Challenge
Our customer produces a Web portal designed to generate reports and distribute them within and outside the
company. A number of reports from different data sources can be published on the portal. The Company's
employees obtain required information without the need to access various software systems.
Our customer made a decision to outsource web interface development, as there was a lack of .NET and Ajax
expertise in-house. The outsourcing partner should collaborate effectively with the customer's team, which
has been developing business logic. After thorough evaluation of suppliers, Axmor was hired to redesign an
existing web interface and to participate in development of a new software release with advanced functions.
Software Solution
Axmor's .NET developers have been working in close connection with the customer's software engineers to create
a modern and convenient web interface for the improved reporting portal.
Due to the distributed nature of this project, the customer's project manager assigns tasks to Axmor's team on
the fly. Our bug/change tracking system is used for operative task management: task statement, estimate, and
approval. All the tasks completed so far were delivered on time, which is very important for the collaborative
workflow. We share the actual version of the source code with the customer's team weekly, using Axmor's version
control system. The developers thoroughly comment on the programming code to track project history and simplify
interaction.
The customer provides our developers with instructions and specifications related specifically to the assigned
task, and our programmers effectively use this information to understand the case and to develop accurate and
logical forms.
While Axmor follows industry-standards in software development, there are also some specific requirements like
customer-defined format for SQL queries. Our developers adopted such requirements to support in-house development
processes of our customer.
Our goal within the project is to improve visual and navigational characteristics of the web user interface.
Axmor's .NET developers renewed the existing interface of the application and added web forms for new modules
and functions.
Improvement of existing interface
Microsoft controls were used to develop the first version of the reporting portal interface. They provided
unsatisfactory performance: a large amount of data, poor visual representation, and page reload after data
input. To address these issues, the customer decided to replace Microsoft controls with rich and robust
Ajax-based 'Component Art' controls.
Axmor's developers grasped the 'Component Art' software in a very short period of time and implemented a tree
view, a grid, tabs, a calendar, a menu, and other controls from this library. Some of the controls were missing
advanced functions required for this project, so we extended their functionality and improved their behavior
to produce distinctive navigation.
Development of new web forms
The developed portal version also introduced new advanced features to the market, and Axmor was busy with
interface development for the new modules and components. These included new web forms for scheduler component
support navigation within rich and flexible settings defining how to run and distribute reports on schedule.
The navigation control supplies an ability to browse files in a local network. Added support for Crystal
Reports demanded completely new forms for setting report parameters. These were also implemented by Axmor.
Although most of the technological decisions in this project are led by the customer, they often consult with
Axmor about certain implementation scenarios and follow our technical advice. The customer is extremely happy
with the competence of Axmor's software developers and the quality of deliverables we provide for the customer's
innovative report portal solution.
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