Visual WebGui Case Studies

"The ease of development of the UI with Visual WebGui is just amazing! During the project execution, we have seen desktop developers who never worked in web applications learn the framework and be productive in record time. The hassles of JavaScript, Ajax, and HTML are absent which increases productivity many folds". Vijay Phulwadhawa  

Overview
Infospectrum is a global software engineering, product development and management consulting services enterprise. Infospectrum provides consulting services related to advanced technology, software engineering and technical products to customers in the complex manufacturing, aerospace & defense, maritime logistics, asset management, communications, and geographical information system industries as well as the independent software vendors (ISVs) that serve them. 

As a leading company in off-shore product development, Infospectrum is regularly expanding its centre of excellence and the Human Resource department is constantly on toes to fulfill the manpower requirements. The existing process involved printing the predefined documents and templates (created in MS Excel or MS Word) after filling in the required information and circulating them as per the different recruitment and interview process. This consumed significant time and efforts, caused re-entry of data on paper, and often made it difficult to locate a specific file due to inefficient search facilities.

Business needs
Each phase of recruitment and interview process needed an approver who had to make decisions based on the available data. This often led to exchange of numerous e-mails with bulky attachments. The data was locked away in files which hindered use of any decent search functions. Thus, Infospectrum needed a system that would free them from maintaining hard copies, use digital search to find necessary details at the touch of a key and to generate automatic reminders to each stakeholder about the tasks to be performed.

Infospectrum decided to “Go Green” by developing a workflow-based application to automate the process. The users preferred to have a web-based system without any need to install software on their desktop machines. The solution needed to provide automated workflow to route tasks to the relevant performers and notify them by e-mail. It also needed to capture the important data in the process so that some intelligent reports could be generated from it.

Last but not least, an appealing user interface goes a long way towards application acceptability. The users needed a user interface which was intuitive and easy to use.

The Solution
Infospectrum already had had a positive experience using Visual WebGui (VWG) to successfully develop an Open Feedback System. "The rich user interface, powerful features and high performance of the tool impressed us and it was an easy decision to use VWG as a development framework instead of the traditional ASP.NET approach," said Project Manager Vijay Phulwadhawa.

The team available for development consisted mostly of desktop application experts and as such the learning curve for VWG was minimal.  "The ease of development of the UI wit¬¬h Visual WebGui is just amazing! During the project execution, we have seen desktop developers who never worked in web applications learn the framework and be productive in record time. The hassles of JavaScript, Ajax, and HTML are absent which increases productivity many folds," added Phulwadhawa.

Benefits
The development process of IRIS (Integrated Recruitment & Interview System) turned out to be pretty fast and easy with Visual WebGui. "The set of UI tools is so comprehensive that even the traditional web developers envied the time we needed to develop the user interface from scratch," said Project Manager Vijay Phulwadhawa. The solution based on Visual WebGui delivered a rich user experience that provided a robust performance accessible via a standard web browser.

Resumes, Requirements and other related data that was locked away in printed documents are now easily available online. A visual presentation of Workflow enables the managers to see exactly where the process is heading or is stuck. This allows HR managers to track process in real-time, at the same time allowing them to generate instant reports, instead of having to compile them manually. The workflow approach ensures that users are presented with a set of easy to use functions that fit the way they work.  Information and functions are presented in context and are always relevant.  Unnecessary things are moved out of the way, enabling them to concentrate only on the aspects of process that are directly related to them.

With this application in place, Infospectrum now has a central e-Repository of resumes which is searchable and available online to the users. The implementation of a standard and process-oriented automated system has resulted in significant savings in time and money. "On an average, we have seen reduction in cost by almost 64% in first three months alone," concluded Phulwadhawa.
 
Screenshots
Home Screen: The Home page lists all the workflow items assigned to the user. Selecting an item opens the relevant workflow details in the panel below it.

Resume Bank: The Resume Bank provides a central e-Repository for all the resumes received by the Human Resource department. It provides basic as well as advanced search functions based on complex conditions.

Requirements: Project Managers can log resource requirements using the Requirements page.

 
 
Workflows: The Workflow page lists all the open workflows with a graphical presentation of their workflow stages.

Reports: The Reports module enables users to quickly generate reports on the interview process and referrals status.