Job Management System Case Study

Our client had an existing software system that was error prone and struggling to handle the volume of data it was holding. This made for frustrated employees that were unable to perform their jobs efficiently.

The project

The legacy system held ten years of company data, half of which had been imported from a previous system. To achieve that import the previous supplier had turned off numerous database safe-guards, ultimately allowing the system to gradually work itself into a complete mess.

Our first task was to analyse that data, put safe-guards back in place and devise ways of improving the data quality to a sufficient level that we could reliably move the data into a new system. The client had been told it was impossible; Techware One proved otherwise.

With ninety staff members, some in the office and some on the road, the new system needed to be web-based and efficient enough to work on mobile devices via the mobile phone network.

We chose to create the system on the Microsoft dot net platform, using MVC, Entity Framework with Fluent API accessing a SQL Server database. This combination of mature technologies was perfect for an enterprise level solution. After several prototype iterations we delivered to the client a complete solution, migrated their legacy data across and supported them with incrememental enhancements going forwards.

The system included modules to support the following areas of their business, with all modules sharing the same data set and working together for useful insights:

• Client list, including multiple locations and contacts
• Employee records, with activity reports and annual reviews
• Calendar entries for work scheduling and human resource management
• Customer Jobs, including a time-line for each showing full job history
• Quotes, Invoices and Purchase Orders
• Employee equipment of varying types from consumable components to uniforms and servicable hardware
• Vehicle fleet management with reminders of when service, MOT and mileage reports are due
• Analytics displayed on graphs to highlight growth areas
• Automatically created PDF documents for customer consumption
• Email notifications from customisable templates to go to staff and engineers alike
• Customer-facing website with downloadable reports once a job is completed
• Version control to ensure accountability for data changes
• User role and permission based access to ensure granular control of who can see what
• Maps of job locations to ensure efficient allocation of engineers

The system manages around 90% of the business data, staff and customer interactions. Operations flow smoothly with clear communication at every step and a consistent high quality service delivered every time.