Service: usability improvement, re-engineering
Solution type: web application
Business area: accounting, HRM (human resource management), Business process automation
Period: 07.2008-12.2008
Key problems
The Customer develops an international travel management solution allowing:
- Full support of national legislation and regulations;
- Languages: Finnish, English, Swedish, Norwegian;
- Travel management application controls entire travel management process;
- Travel planning, expense claiming, approvals, payments.
The old version of the Travel management system had two major problems:
- Deployment of obsolete technologies, creating problems for compatibility;
- Lack of usability: users needed special training to use the software.
The main goals of the project was to enhance usability for end users and to implement new, up-to-date, version of application based on modern technologies.
Solution
To enhance the product usability, Arcadia, Inc.’s team worked in close collaboration with the Customer. Reference team, composed of sale representatives from all Nordic countries, was involved in usability improvement decision making. Focus group discussions with end users of the system were also used to elaborate new user interface and business-logic. The new version of the Travel management system is a standalone ASP.NET application. Existing database structure with minor changes (the same as in the previous version of the product) is used for the new version of application.
Business logic of application requires complicated calculations, which were implemented in C++ for previous version. To reduce implementation and testing time, new version uses existing C++ implementation. To facilitate access to this functionality, appropriate additional integration methods are implemented in C++ and C# code.
Agile SCRUM methodology was used to handle development process. It allows to handle requirements changes in more flexible way.
Technologies used
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, .NET Framework 2.0
- ASP.NET AJAX 1.0
- 3rd party controls: Telerik Web Controls
- Database: SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2000, Oracle 10.1 and Oracle 10.2
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Mozilla Firefox 2
- Microsoft Visual Source Safe
- Test Track Pro is used as bug tracking system
Duration and scope
~ 1 year for a team of 7 persons