The National Lotteries Board has developed an Oracle 8i database-based application to manage the thousands of requests for funding it receives each year.
As a consequence, it is able to fulfil its mandate of processing the lottery with full transparency, integrity and security, says Prof Vevek Ram, CEO of the board, which has more than R1 billion under administration.
"We receive up to 6 000 responses every time we issue a request for applications," says Prof Ram. "We expect this number to grow up to 14 000, twice a year, and each application has to be captured and processed from arrival to discharge. The applications are complex documents, averaging 200 pages, and embracing each applicant's financial statements, constitutions, assessments, board and committee minutes, structured and unstructured data, including Word documents and spreadsheets.
"Each application becomes a very sophisticated record, which has to be kept for up to five years," says Prof Ram. "In looking for a database that had the robustness, features and scalability to match our requirements, we chose Oracle over other alternatives."
To implement the database and the application running against it, the board turned to the Durban branch of Software Futures, the wholly owned software development company in the MGX group.
"We have a long-standing relationship with Software Futures," says Prof Ram, "and had a good insight into their Oracle development capabilities. We did the user requirements, handed over the design specifications and they delivered the database and application four months later."
The database has grown to 60GB in size, and Prof Ram expects it to more than double in size each year as the sheer volume of applications grows annually. Hosted on an HP Windows NT-based server, the Oracle database is layered with a workflow model to ensure consistent processing of the applications. The board outsourced the scanning of the documents to MGX; they are scanned in on receipt and routed according to type. The documents are embedded in the database as objects, and retrieved seamlessly. "Oracle can treat both relational data and objects with equal ease," notes Prof Ram.
"Software Futures' experience with medical aid administrators, which have similar requirements to ours, was key in its delivery of our application." Software Futures provides ongoing database administration and remote development and support, downloading requirements from the board's Pretoria office and uploading completed work.
"We have worked with Prof Ram for many years," says Dave Carson, GM of Software Futures Durban. "In his professorship at Natal University, Prof Ram supplied us with some of our most skilled developers. It is an honour to be able to apply the skills developed in academia and honed in business to a prestige project such as this."
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MGX is a JSE Securities Exchange-listed new economy company that represents world-class products and services and delivers measurable business outcomes for customers across business-critical areas of the information economy. Recognising that the strategic value of a company lies in its information, the company's focus is on information rich business solutions that transform each client's unique business information into competitive advantage. MGX comprises six business value domains: MGX Enterprise Solutions, MGX Storage Solutions, MGX Consulting, Software Futures, MGX Business Continuity Solutions and MGX Content Management. With strong operational and strategic synergies, the business units create and implement solutions for business users across all sectors and industries.
MGX has operations in SA, Botswana, Australia, the UK and the US. During its five-year history as a listed company it has delivered consistent growth to shareholders. For more information on the company, visit www.mgxgroup.com.
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