Transforming Home-Grown Applications into Enterprise Solutions

Our Delivery Manager, Nick Rogers, talks about the pitfalls of developing home-grown applications and how Beacon has worked with clients to overcome the associated issues.

If I was given a pound for every home-grown application that our customers have asked us to help them with that have become mission-critical within their organisation, I would be a very rich man!

The Challenge
It is inevitable that, armed with a little bit of development knowledge and no sign of a budget or resources, some individuals will produce their own home-grown applications. These applications often perform quite simple tasks at first, but often evolve over time, becoming mission-critical to a user’s work. The result is an IT department’s nightmare – islands of information on an unsupported (often the current owner is not the author), undocumented, untested, irrecoverable beast that creatively extends the limits of both the language/application it was developed in and the often archaic hardware it is running on.

The intentions of the authors of these home-grown applications are entirely honourable, and show a genuine ability for end-users to demonstrate an understanding of how information technology can resolve their business problems. Where the business owners and IT departments are let down is in recognising those areas of their business that have outgrown these home-grown solutions and require investment in solutions that can better address the requirements of the enterprise.

Several companies that Beacon has worked with over recent years have sought to address these challenges by identifying key applications within their business that are in need of this transformation. Beacon has worked alongside them to carry out systems analysis and to identify solutions that address these critical issues and maximise the benefits to the business.

The Solution
Beacon’s initial engagement starts with the IT department, to understand their application strategy and how the business needs can be met. We provide software audit services to identify the isolated applications that exist within business units, assess their business impact, and review their quality and reliability. As a result of this analysis we can provide recommendations as to which applications, in terms of business benefit or risk mitigation, are most appropriate for migration.

Upon completion of the audit, Beacon works with the business managers to ascertain their vision for a new solution and validate the requirements. After this vision has been agreed with the Operations and IT departments, Beacon undertakes an analysis of the business requirements and a review of the existing application.

To ensure user buy-in, some of the techniques we use during this analysis include screen mock-ups and incorporation of elements from the existing application to provide synergy for the end-users. The business rules and underlying database schema are then defined and this phase culminates in the production of a functional specification for the new application.

Although the business requirements and business rules vary considerably between applications, the need for a simple and intuitive system for capturing data electronically, that is easily accessible to end-users, remains constant.

Our research has shown that web-based solutions using on-screen forms are often most successful and provide some of the following benefits:

  • Cross-platform compatibility
  • A familiar and consistent environment
  • Access from anywhere within specified network
  • Support for multiple concurrent users
  • Requires a smaller hardware footprint
  • Provides data security with server-side data storage and backup
  • Minimal deployment and support costs

Technology used
Beacon’s solutions are built on Microsoft .NET & SQL Server technology using an n-tier architecture that divides the application into three distinct layers; Presentation layer, Business layer and Data access layer.

ASP.Net is Microsoft’s web application framework for building dynamic web sites, web applications and XML web services. Part of Microsoft’s .NET platform, it provides a development toolset that offers:

  • An extensive set of controls and class libraries that enables the rapid development of rich user interfaces
  • User-defined controls that allow commonly-used templates, such as menus
  • A visual editor that makes the layout of controls on a page easier

Depending upon the data storage requirements, the back-end database is implemented in Microsoft SQL Server, providing a robust and highly scalable, industry-standard, enterprise database architecture.

Examples
We have developed forms-based applications to automate the following business requirements:

  • The process of authorisation for waste disposal that required the completion of several review and approval states before issuing of an authorisation certificate
  • The management of waste disposal
  • The booking of candidates and interviewers for interviews
  • The booking of authorised and unauthorised absences
  • Recording and tracking the submission of bids
  • Sales order processing