If you would like more information about any of these products, please contact us.

• FlowManager
• Data Object Generator (DOG)
• Report Writer

We are currently working on a Workflow Engine that, like the Report Writer below, will use the best attributes of XML and Java. This engine will allow specifications to be written in XML, describing the paths and actions that an instance of a workflow must take. The Java portion of the engine will process each step of the flow as it is used and record the progress in a database for status reports and analysis.

We are currently looking for development partners and test cases for this product. If you would like more info. please contact us.

Please take a look at some of our research on this topic in the resources section.

The WarpDrive product is a powerhouse web-application that provides wholesale distributor franchises a sales force automation, point of sale, inventory, accounting and financial management system. Currently the WarpDrive product supports the following features:

Track Customers Track Orders Tack Deliveries Invoice Customers Track Inventory Create Purchase Orders Write, Record and Print Checks Sales Tax reporting Sales Commission Tracking Product Management Create Daily Deposits

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This is managed in a corporate framework allowing individual stores in multiple geographic locations to use the same database. This offers the following immediate advantages:

1. Product Cost changes are entered by corporate and are seen at each store immediately
2. Real-time reporting of store sales
3. Easy analysis and transfer of inventory from one store to another
4. Store owners can view and manager their store from any location with an Internet Connection
5. Data management, storage, security and backups are handled by professionals rather than leaving it to each individual store owner to maintain their own data

Since WarpDrive uses the FlowManager, store owners can add users themselves and offer them access to only those individual processes that they wish for them to see or do.

The WarpDrive is designed to provide a web-based backend for customers of each store to be able to login themselves. Thus they could place orders, view orders and account information anywhere, anytime day or night without the need to call the store directly.

The BOSS is a web-based application that serves as a change control, trouble ticket and software development request tool. Customers can login and place system enhancement requests or report problems themselves. As problems are fixed or changes are made the BOSS provides real-time updates as to the status of these changes. In addition, it tracks how much time was spent in working on each request. The BOSS allows each request to be prioritized and for requirements to complete them to be tracked and assigned. The time-tracking features of the BOSS provide a time and materials billing system for billing customers for the work completed. With support for multiple accounts and multiple projects within each account, the BOSS allows different tasks to be billed at different rates based on the project, account or difficulty of the task. The BOSS also tracks expenses incurred allowing for direct billing of such expenses to the end-customer or simply tracking such expenses for tax purposes.

Over time, we have deveped tools that help us decrease development time while increasing product reliability. Our Rapid Web Application Development Tools include the:

The FlowManager is the process management framework for all of our web-based applications. The FlowManager is a programmable framework that allows IWS to create a blank working web-application with complete support for user-levels and permissions as well as individual screen and process security. The FlowManager allows us to create screens for customer use in their application either by drawing from our extensive library of pre-built screens or by creating custom application screens. We can use the DOG to pull the correct data for the screen. We then program a “process” in the flowmanager for using this screen to accomplish some information management task. This process can be granted to one or more user based on user roles. In addition, once in operation it provides detailed information of user logins and process utilization allowing you to see what people or doing on the system. Even more important, the FlowManager provides bug-reporting directly to IWS. Any exception generated by the system will be reported immediately to our support staff.

The FlowManager allows us to reprogram the order, permission, use and objects based on desired usage with no coding. Screens are managed inside the framework allowing for us to make rapid changes in response to changes in system requirements or to rapidly correct usability issues. The FlowManager is the plumbing behind all our web-based applications. By having the DOG (data plumbing) and the FlowManager (business logic plumbing), we can begin work on the real purpose of your web-based application with as little as 5 hours of application setup. This means that your aren’t spending money or time on basic framework and system decisions and setup resulting in an application that is customized to your needs at easily half the cost of our competitors.

The FlowManager is the “process” management module for the IWS Workflow Engine.

The Data Object Generator is a code generation tool that allows us to generate Java access objects directly from our design model. The tool works by taking advantage of the xml capabilities of the majority of today’s database design tools. Currently we use CaseStudio. When we save our data model to xml we can then run an ANT script which will generate the necessary Java code. The basic reason for doing this is to prevent SQL exceptions during runtime. The JAVA code generated will have named methods for each field in the database. This process has the following benefits:

• Changes to the database can be updated into the code with little or no manual coding
• Field name changes create compile time errors that can be corrected before sending to the production machine
• The DO Objects create foreign key connections for the developer allowing access of related data from an object
• Documentation must be kept up to date since it is the basis for the code generated
• DataObject code has inherent support for XML allowing for simple query and transport of data to the presentation layer

The DOG allows IWS to create sophisticated web applications with a minimum of bugs in a fraction of the time of other companies. It is our commitment to development process improvements that will continue to keep us at the forefront of rapid web application development.

The report writer is a tool that allows us to create and modify reports quickly without having to recompile a project. We use XML to query a database and set established variable values. The Report Writer Java classes use the XML as a specification to query the database and return a result that is then translated throught an XSL stylesheet to produce the final output of the report. The Report Writer currently supports the following output formats:

• XML
• HTML
• Adobe PDF files

The Report Writer is the ultimate mixture of XML and Java, creating a fast and flexible framework for report generation.