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In this column, BASIS publishes information we've gleaned on the road, from conferences, Customers and courses. In this issue,
BASIS Technical Product Manager Greg Grisham reports on the progress of a GUI migration project going on at Inter Access, a
Dutch software company.
Inter Access Revisited
A year ago, I first visited Inter Access, a Dutch company specializing in manufacturing software, which was at the outset of
upgrading its Prodin application, an ERP solution. The company had decided to normalize its data structure and build a fully
GUI version of Prodin after attending TechCon99. Just a few weeks ago, I went back to see how things were going. The plan was
to upgrade once, with a long-term approach that would allow for expansion and variation later. The plan was not limited to
graphical enhancements but included structural data alternatives as well. Here's a general breakdown of the Inter Access
project.
The project team evaluated the data structures and, with ODBC and potential data warehousing in the future, decided that
normalizing the data was imperative. BASIS has published a number of articles regarding normalization, but until you work
through your application, especially a mature application, the impact of such a change cannot be fully appreciated. Inter
Access finished the normalization last year and deployed the new format to a number of sites, which now can take full advantage of BASIS Solution Partner SW Tools' RAPGEN as a report writer.
Next, the project team needed to identify exactly what code would have to be changed to create GUI screens and add event
control. This required a great deal of analysis as well as the generation of several utility programs that gathered the "hot
points" needing attention.
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Determine GUI Application Standards
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As with any development project, user interface standards must be created at the start so as to maintain continuity and aid
multiple programmers working on the same project. Another consideration was the ability to have more data on a single screen
compared to the legacy character screen. The team at Inter Access created a GUI screen standard that utilizes most all the
features of Visual PRO/5®, including list boxes, tabs, child windows and grids. The team needed a standard layout that could
be applied to all of the different modules and one that Customers familiar with the legacy character version could pick up
easily.
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Figure 1. This shows Inter Access's scheme for migrating a character-based Prodin program to use graphical user interfaces and run in BBj, eventually in a Web browser. Prodin is the company's ERP solution for the Dutch manufacturing industry.
Probably one of the most sophisticated portions of the development was the utilization of programs to create screens. The
Inter Access legacy programs had all screens identified in a database. With the normalization project complete, the data were
defined as well. Therefore, the team had created a methodology that automatically joined the screen structures with the
related data structures and placed the fields into the defined resource screen.
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Evaluate BBj Considerations
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Inter Access intends to release the new version of Prodin in BBj®. As BBj is still in the release candidacy stage, the team is
performing the majority of the work in Visual PRO/5 and testing the results in BBj.
Here, you can take a look at a couple of examples of the team's success:
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Figure 2. This screen shot shows part of the Purchase Order program in Prodin-P3. Screens are created in Visual PRO/5. This
one in particular makes use of the Grid Management Library in Visual PRO/5. (Click to enlarge.)
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Figure 3. When you click on an item in the Figure 2 screen, details of the order are displayed. (Click to enlarge.)
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Figure 4. This screen shot shows one of Inter Access's first results in testing Visual PRO/5 screens in BBj. Works great! This
particular screen is part of a maintenance program called "Warehouses." (Click to enlarge.)
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It is always nice to visit Customers. It is especially nice to visit Customers with such professional planning and execution
as in this case. - Greg Grisham
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