We had a great time at the User Group Seminar last week. In case you were unable to attend, here is a brief synopsis of what you missed. There were four presentations in addition to the Q & A session which closed the seminar. The talks included (in chronological order) Craig Dean’s Introduction, Steve Morgan on Tr@veller Enhancements, Steve Elliott on Br-ease and Andrew Fryer from Microsoft discussed SQL Server 2008.
Craig opened the seminar with a run-through of the Agenda, reminding everyone of all the great things we were demonstrating. He talked about the theme (and our theme tune) and how it was decided upon. He then presented the past, present and future of Web Applications UK; how we were working hard to: Deliver what our customers ask for; Achieve what we promise; and Anticipate future needs. Craig thanked our customers in their continuing faith in us, he illustrated some of our recent achievements and how we do everything we can to maintain our reputation as a capable customer focused business. There was a great demo of our new website which showcases our skills and products much better via the Mercury Registration System, cutting edge ASP.NET MVC (model view controller) framework, AJAX and jQuery (We’ve gone anagram mad!). We are implementing a whole new User Interface for core products making the most of our new in-house designer and, as always, continuing with our commitment to provide the best solutions to our customers.
Craig announced the new Web Applications 363 program, meaning the only days our office will be closed from now on are Christmas and New Year’s Day. The other 363 days a year our office will be open from 8am to 6pm, there is no additional charge for this service (meaning no increase in Licensing and Support fees) and our of hours support is still available for its fixed fee. What’s even better is this 7 day a week approach has already begun!
Craig discussed the new things that are happening in our Systems Department. The Systems division is supporting Travel and Non-Travel’s IT infrastructure, managing key partnerships and creating new solutions. Web Applications UK counts Microsoft, Cisco, Dell, HP and Gateway as valued partners and we work to maintain these relationships whilst building upon them. We currently have two Microsoft Apprentices who are trained through QA in addition to our involvement in our local community as evidenced in our cameo during GMTV on April 14. Web Applications is also working on finding new solutions to existing problems and are working to find a ‘Business in a Box’ solution to help support businesses.
Our upcoming news and events section was passed through very quickly because Craig was already a bit behind schedule (shocking I know). On June 15 two things are happening, Parkdean is hosting a Pro-Am Golf Tournament at the Belleisle course in Ayr to support Ayrshire hospice (we’ve previously mentioned this here) and Web Applications will be participating in Travolution’s Question Time. We are sponsoring both events and hope both of these events garner a lot of support. In regards to Travolution’s Question Time we are not only a sponsor but Craig will be sitting on the panel to answer questions on the Communication Revolution that is happening across UK businesses. Also on the panel are representatives from Microsoft, Facebook, Cruise.co.uk and Lastminute.com, we’re pretty excited about this discussion because of our passion for Unified Communications which we displayed during the live video Craig had with Vivienne, Allan, Robin and Jeff during this introduction – more on Travolution’s Question Time to come. In terms of our commitment to the community, Web Applications UK is involved in a number of local club sports including DUFFA Ultimate Frisbee, Inter Web F. C. (our sponsored football club, which incidentally won the Cup Final), we sit on the board for the IT Careers academy and offer a number of work placement and work experience opportunities for local members of the community who want to see what life in an IT company is like. We do our best not to put them off. To top it off we currently have our own Internal Squash club as well as an on-going Wii tournament which is in its final stages.
Many of the things Craig talked about in this introduction will be described in even more detail in the weeks to come. I know it’s all very exciting, please try to stay calm and keep an eye out for updates.
After this was a quick tea and coffee break.
Next on the docket was Steve Morgan’s presentation on some new Tr@veller enhancements and an introduction to Mercury. Some of the new Tr@veller features discussed were the New Menu, Availability Grid improvements, Moving Bookings, New Integrations and its use of SQL 2008 R2. After quickly outlining what he was going to be talking about in regards to Tr@veller, Steve introduced Mercury, a light-weight, fully hosted version of Tr@veller.
Mercury is a SaaS (Software as a Service) which means you only pay a transaction fee, other than that it is completely free. It will publish stock to market leading portals, there is a ‘Try before you buy’ process and will include community-led changes (giving YOU the power). Reports are created by a hosted version of Br-ease and will plug into the existing AcuWeb solution to provide a low cost website.
Steve moved on to talk about the new Tr@veller menu. One of the additions includes side panels which will allow for designs that break out of the typical Tr@veller header/details design and will accommodate phone wizards, recent bookings and CSR guides and notes. Steve illustrated many of the additions through a series of demonstrations.
The discussion turned to Babel and third party integrations, picking out a number of situations that are optimised by Babel, then Steve used an example of a Packaging System to illustrate his point. This was an example of a packaging system where stock is pulled from various third party sources in real-time; price is created from commission rules and supplier prices in real-time. In this case Tr@veller is used as a bookings repository and a stock provider.
Steve provided tons of demonstrations to illustrate what he was discussing; watching little pictures move definitely saved the day.
After Steve was finished we had lunch. Excellent food was provided by Albert’s Shed, though, I don’t think the Castlefield Rooms has an in-house Engineer. Craig’s table managed to spontaneously collapse on itself, giving everyone in the room a little chuckle. After lunch I tried to start cornering people talk to the camera for a minute, just stare into the lens…
Steve Elliott was next in line and gave his talk on ‘The Wonder of Br-ease’.
Br-ease is a completely new reporting engine that takes all the positives from Tr@veller and adds some great new features. It’s a modern platform that uses the latest Microsoft technologies and its modular design allows for lots of future growth.
In addition to the wonder of Br-ease, there was also an element of the wonder of Steve. I have never seen anyone use a floating mouse like that in my life.
Br-ease reports are easy to use and configure; they combine reports from different sources to create intelligent reports. Deliverables ensure you can choose the right report for the right time. Deliverables are made up of one or more Detail Reports (Quick Reports or Reporting Services Reports), they support a wide range of delivery methods and are intelligent – meaning it will choose the best deliverable based on the circumstances.
Reporting Services Reports (SSRS) are built into most versions of Microsoft SQL Server, individual reports can be imported into Br-ease as required, there are multiple rendering options (PDF, Excel, Word, HTML, etc.) and there is a wide range of support and documentation. Quick Reports are a new addition to Br-ease and are available in Br-ease version 2. Quick Reports are built with simplicity and ease of use in mind, and allow report authors to leverage existing data structures within the data source. Are you still with me? Good.
Br-ease Standard Reports are great for sending reports to one recipient. They are good for MIS reports and use deliverables, but only one deliverable is sent when executed.
Br-ease Batch Reports are extremely powerful. They can output multiple reports to different destinations. Deliverables are split into groups. A Selector Report chooses who gets which report, and then the first valid deliverable from each group is sent per Selector row. Valid deliverables are determined by Selector output and Data Protection information. Selector is not related to Skynet or the Decepticons, though it is a distant cousin to Number 5 in Short Circuit – we checked.
There is a sophisticated security system within Br-ease that allows granular security controls, allowing for varying levels of user access. In the Schema Admin you can modify what database objects are available when authoring Quick Reports. The Schema Admin also provides huge flexibility for optimising Quick reports without having to delve into SQL Management Studio.
Finally, Br-ease integrates seamlessly into Tr@veller and Mercury, and can also stand alone as a separate report engine, integrating into any SQL Server Database. There are many plans for Br-ease at Web Applications, and soon we hope to add even more functionality by enabling Cloud Printing Services. Best of all, Br-ease is free! Almost. The license for Br-ease is free, but there is an integration cost. Contact your Project Manager for more details.
Last on the structured presentations was Microsoft’s Andrew Fryer, technical evangelist, discussion SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services.
Andrew focused on two new version of SQL Server, SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Azure. The focus of this discussion was the massive potential in SQL Server for optimising Business Intelligence and its massive power to deliver the right information at the right time and in the right format.
Andrew’s presentation had a lot of information in it. He addressed many of the current reporting challenges that businesses have to deal with, and then went through all the functionality of the new SQL Server to illustrate how much easier it is to use. He discussed author compelling reports and how to manage enterprise-wide workloads with its enterprise-scale platform, central deployment and strong manageability. You can also deliver personalised reports, which means these reports can be delivered to whatever location you choose, it includes interactive reports and can come in whatever format you want. I think it took a special sort of person to follow Andrew’s presentation, which is why this review is based on the slides from his talk which I happen to have squirreled away.
Andrew demonstrated the power of Excel and PivotTables, looking at how quickly data can be analysed (lots of data). He also talked about the new location services, namely map analytics. His example was a pretty crazy one, dealing with how many birds collided with American planes, breaking down the data by breed of bird and US State the, er, unfortunate events happened in.
After Andrew’s presentation was another quick break and then came Question Time. If you watch the video you’ll see me with a classic deer in headlights look on my face as I ferry the microphone around the room. The video for the seminar should be available sometime this week. Once again we’d like to thank everyone who participated in the event, and we’ll begin working soon to make next year’s even better.