Remote data access

"The internet, not the web"

Everyone thinks of the web and the internet as being the same thing. In fact they are different. As it happens about 60% of the traffic on the internet is web traffic, however the internet can empower your business without the web.

Think of the web and you think cheesy web site, people desperately trying to promote their business. You think of the big players selling records, videos and groceries.

Our client:

• Had a large amount of data in a paper based system.
• Has a remote work force, that is they are out of the office a lot.
• Needed to take the paper records with them.
• Needed to visit the office to type up reports and hand them in.
• Needed to visit the office to get client information if their schedule got changed.

The internet can solve a lot of these problems, but what has this to do with a web site? "Not a lot really".

All the paper based data was moved into an industry standard database. This database sits on a PC in the office. This PC runs some special software called an Internet Server, and has a telephone line connected to the outside world.

We wrote some special software (called server side software) which allowed the internet server to talk to the database. When this software reads the database it produces a report, not dissimilar to that produced by a secretary using a word processor. This report is in a special format called HTML.

So when the employee, remote worker, or potential business partner needs some data they connect to the internet using a standard web browser. The browser connects to the internet server and special pages are created (on demand) and transmitted to the browser.

This allows anyone with the correct security settings to access the company data as if they were in the office.

The next thing we needed was to be able to change the data without going back to the office. This involves almost the reverse process. We created a series of pages that, when received by the internet server, instruct it to update the company database.

Finally the remote user wanted to be able to write reports, that would be sent to clients. These reports are written using the word processor of choice and then transmitted to the internet server using the internet. These reports are deposited into a special folder, where they are checked, printed off and posted to the client, by the admin staff at the main office.

The same software can be used in the office as well as remotely, this saves on training as well.