Oakwell Solutions has developed a quotation solution for the new healthcare offering from Momentum.
Pulzrate is one of the first locally developed packages to be built on the Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1 using Visual Studio 2003.
According to Shane Coetser, Director of Technology at Oakwell: "The South African software development market is definitely not stagnating. There are solutions and applications being built and customised locally."
Anthon Swart, MD of Momentum Health, says: "The implementation of this solution has simplified our communication structures with brokers in the field. It was also rolled out with the minimum disruption to our business efficiency."
As Coetser explains: "We chose Visual Studio 2003 for the Momentum solution because converting it to an online Web application would be easiest in this environment and this is a plan we have for the future of this application."
One of the benefits of this choice is the new and enhanced Visual Studio Deployment Wizard. "One installation executable installs everything needed for the solution to work, including the .NET Framework and MSDE 2000 which we used as our data store," he says.
With the solution running across an uncontrolled environment with 5 000 broker systems in the field, simplicity became crucial to the success of this project.
The Pulzrate solution uses components from Microsoft Excel for doing group analysis with PDF format reports being created by leveraging Crystal Reports. "Using these components reduced our development time, and we were able to complete this solution in 12 days," adds Coetser.
The new software was sent out on a CD to all 5 000 brokers with consultants to do the installation and within two weeks detailed reports and quotations were being generated.
Oakwell has plans in place for the next version of Pulzrate. "We will be enhancing some key components that will greatly improve productivity and usability based on customer feedback," adds Coetser.
Oakwell was started in February 2000 and began as a Microsoft-focused custom development shop with the primary aim of delivering customer-required solutions.
"Our clients come to us with a problem that they have and we then design a solution. By leveraging off existing systems we can reduce development time, thereby saving the customer time and money and where necessary we can also develop totally new solutions.
"Our vision is to become the centre of excellence for MS development skills in SA. We have 20 highly skilled developers working at Oakwell, and are certified Microsoft Gold Partners for collaborative solutions," says Coetser.
According to Anton Jacobz, Manager OEM and Small & Medium Business Channel: "The solution Oakwell has delivered for Momentum Health is another great example of how Microsoft`s partners add value to our technology using our toolset."
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