I thought it was about time to update the Consoltis website. It hasn't represented the business for some time and I felt it was losing its identity.

The site has been built using neatComponents. This time I wanted to add a blog and create some technical pages showing how we have solved business issues. I've added a search facility for the technical posts.

I intend to develop the site over a period to continue to demonstrate is capability and value.

The way we work today continues to change. Technology is getting smarter and empowering people to do more.

You can see further acceleration and behaviour change taking place. I think businesses are able to gain competitive advantage by embracing modern technology if they chose to work smart. We have noticed that many of the organisations we work with are embracing smarter ways of working. Maybe its to do with the down turn, but the bottom line is that we want our time to be effective and need to plan more carefully.

Whilst there are a many products around that help people work smarter, for me Skype is one of those products that really has changed the way we work. Most of our customers use it and work with us to solve issues on-line. We use all its features to fit in with how we work and our lifestyles. We love the video conferencing facilities and think the messaging service is very effective. Working on-line to review issues is both effective in terms of time management and helps to keep everyone focused without getting sidetracked. I think Skype has helped with our customer relationships too.

The extension of Skype to Pocket PC is also reaching further to change the way that we work still further ... perhaps a bit too bleeding edge for most.

Requirements

Using neatComponents development platform to integrate news feeds working inconjunction with constantcontact.com emails.

What we did

Acquisita decided to subscribe to constantcontact.com to produce and maintain news with its customer base. After producing the mailshots we wanted to extend the use of the news feature and make the information available via the website.

We addded a new database and embedded the HTML produced within constantcontact.com

1. News Database

2. Creating a query to view the news on the homepage

We were able to add a simple query that produced a summary listing of the news item and we added it to the homepage based on a flag. If the Public? flag is set to TRUE the news item is displayed to any user browsing the page.

When the user clicks on the news link the news article that was originally created in constantcontact.com is viewable. The HTML however resides within the Acquisita website.

News

Alternative Strategy

What we could have done to solve this problem instead was to create the news and HTML within the neatcomponents platform. The additional task would of required us to create a CRM type database of client information. It was feasible to do this, but we decided on this occasion that is was better to use a combination of both technologies. One of the key advantages of using constantcontact.com was the application is tried and tested and we wanted to produce the solution quickly. By combining the output with the website we created additional value with little extra effort.

Requirements

• To build a candidate registration process for Acquisita LLP
• Integrate process into www.acquisita.com

What we did

We used neatComponents development platform to build the process and focused on 5 key areas to build the feature. They are summarised below:

1. Security Permissions Model
2. Database Structure (Form)
3. Automated email - Event trigger
4. Candidate and team view
5. Search Mechanism (Query By Example - QBE)

1. Security Permissions Model

Within the site there is a security model used to control different roles as shown in the table below:

2. Database Structure (Form)

Using the 'Forms' feature we added the following database structure:

3. Automated email (Event trigger)

When a Candidate enters information into the system an automatic trigger is produced and sends an email to the Acquisita team highlighting when the candidate has registered their details.

4. Candidate and team view

When a team member logs into the system, features normally hidden to most users become available:

There is a menu tab called 'Team' and the candidates search can be selected. From here the user is able to enter various search criteria to find the candidate.

5. Search mechanism (Query)

The search is constructed through a query. The example shown below is an extract from a query that will show a list of candidates - it is the combination of account information and the candidate's informations entered on-line.

This query is used as a basis for the search. Within neatComponents there is an option to create a customised Search By Example (SBE) query.

The screen shown below is a customised view, highlighting all the customised fields, and what is actually shown in the text editor.