VisualWebGui RIA Developer Journal

"For many years we looked at ASP.NET and other web technologies, but none of them allowed us the flexibility, speed of development and ease of maintenance that we could deliver with a desktop application. Visual WebGui changed that."

Overview

WorksLink was founded in 1998 out of a strong desire by the people working on complex construction and engineering projects to have an integrated system to better coordinate the information used by those working there. During the past 11 years the company has created systems for many construction and engineering sites, initially using Microsoft Access and more recently .NET WinForms, and always with a SQL Server back end.

WorksLink is a Visual WebGui based system employed to simplify the information flow between functional silos within and between units in several construction companies working as a joint venture to deliver the construction of an underground diamond mine in remote North West Australia.

Business needs

The development of a solution such as WorksLink arose from the need to maximize accuracy, information efficiency and minimize employee stress in the construction business where companies used to running large construction jobs on a plethora of spreadsheets which meant only one person could modify a document at a time. Each week the project must report its status against 1500 line items. Trying to keep track of that across multiple spreadsheets managed by a couple of dozen staff was very stressful and inefficient.

As a result, WorksLink brings functional silos (Commercial, Engineering, Cost Engineering, Field Staff and Management) within the business closer. Until now, the design behind WorksLink has evolved initially from Microsoft Access and eventually to .NET WinForms, always running via a Remote Desktop session to the end-user's desktop. Since having the data and application on the same server allows for maximum functionality at minimal development cost it was important to keep it that way.

It is also important that businesses can choose to either run WorksLink on an internal server or to access it directly from the WorksLink website, thus reducing the IT overhead for the project. There is also a need to allow the client access to some parts of the system. Configuring user permissions would have been much more difficult in the pre-internet era.

The Solution

After evaluating Visual WebGui on a few small projects the plunge was taken to employ it on a major project. "Not only were we learning how to use Visual WebGui, but we were learning how to write web applications for the first time" Said Andrew McGrath. The WorksLink team took the previous .NET WinForms framework and with minimal changes brought it across to Visual WebGui with the VWG toolset.

It typically takes one developer approximately 3 months to put together a system consisting of 100 to 150 tables and the corresponding user interface modules whilst gradually formulating the system design along the way. Ideally, such systems should be nimble, consistent in design, and widely accessible.

Visual WebGui was as fast to develop with as standard desktop .NET and it only took a week for the team to get to know Visual WebGui and to find the best strategy for converting our framework. "For many years we looked at ASP.NET and other web technologies, but none of them allowed us the flexibility, speed of development and ease of maintenance that we could deliver with a desktop application. Visual WebGui changed that" Said Andrew McGrath.

Benefits

Visual WebGui enabled WorksLink to take the existing .NET WinForms framework and with minimal architectural change adapt it to run over the web and replace the unwieldy spreadsheets with accessible, user friendly interface over the web. Basing on Visual WebGui, WorksLink now provides the ability for team members around the country to start using the software by typing a URL into a browser without the need to install any software on the client.

Visual WebGui also provides simple centralized deployment process and easy maintenance that does not require a lot of resources. In order to get a new user operational with the Visual WebGui based solution, users only had to click a URL sent to them and they were up and running. Previously, with Remote Desktop it was a case of telling the user to follow a half-dozen step process to get up and running. Each time a user moved PC they would have to repeat the setup process.

Visual WebGui enables WorksLink to rapidly and cost effectively get the different functional silos within a company (eg HR, Engineering, Cost Engineering, Accounting, Field Staff, Safety, Management) working in harmony. In addition, it allows companies to be much more aligned with each other. "Visual WebGui has changed the game both inside and outside the walls of business" Said Andrew McGrath and added that "Using VWG instead the desktop framework, put us in a good position to exploit this promising market."

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