CASE STUDY:
EXCALIBUR
TECHNOLOGY USED
ABOUT EXCALIBUR
For over five decades, Excalibur has helped businesses and non-profit organizations thrive through effective direct marketing solutions. The company takes pride in not just being a marketing agency, but partners with their clients as they grow and remain focused on their vision.
THE SITUATION
Due to their longevity, Excalibur found themselves in a position where the software solution being used to manage all of their client accounts was outdated. Accordingly, they faced the following challenges:
- The individual who built their custom platform was no longer available to make updates. In addition, the employee who was working in the software the most was about to retire. This would leave the company with no one who could help support issues related to input of data.
- The inability to make updates to the platform made it difficult to create new reports that the company needed to send to clients.
- The software was installed on only a couple of computers which made accessing it and using it more difficult.
THE SOLUTION
In order to better understand their needs, a number of meetings were done both in-person and virtually to see the capabilities of the current software. Current reports and newly requested reports were gathered to help determine how the database needed to be developed. Once the infrastructure needs were understood, the Solutions Afoot team worked to map out the new table structure and flow of website pages. Since the new solution would be cloud-based, an updated look and feel was created to allow users to easily access the various website pages and information needed to perform their daily tasks. Below are a series of major tasks that were accomplished to create the new SaaS used by Excalibur:
- Relational Database Development: Created a series of tables where unique identifiers allow for the tables to be easily connected. The process included defining tables, relationships between tables, and enforcing data integrity constraints.
- Role-Based Authentication: Each role is assigned specific permissions that dictate what actions a user can perform. The admin users are able to access special reporting and data entry pages that employees working in the warehouse cannot access. By defining roles and permissions, Excalibur can enforce security policies and maintain strict control over who can view or modify client and project data.
- Complex Audit and Calculation Development: Since multiple people would be using the platform, and not all entries would be added live, a series of complex triggers and tasks were developed to ensure the audit trail accounts for all transactions down to the tenth of a cent ($X,XX.XXX). The ability for users to pre-date an entry and timestamp when the entry was submitted are just part of the ways a detailed audit trail was developed.
- Custom Front-End Development for Enhanced User Experience: Excalibur had a very specific look and feel. In addition, they wanted the various website pages to provide similar functionality to the current software being used. A special front end was built using HTML5 and CSS to make sure their branding was utilized while also ensuring the user experience matched their desired output.
THE RESULT
Excalibur was able to replace their outdated software with a new custom SaaS that is designed to grow with their organization. It meets all of their current needs and has a number of built in features that will allow the company to become paperless in the future as more tablets and points of entry are added to their facility.
"Solutions Afoot was very patient with us throughout the process. It was a very complex build and for someone who does not know much about technology, I appreciated their willingness to meet both in person and online so we could get an application that helps us ensure we can eaily manage our client and project data."
