Case Study for COWI (Denmark)
The Brief
COWI have an application called Caretaker which is developed in Powerbuilder (PB). This application was being developed and maintained using version 7 and had not been successfully migrated to a later version of PB.
There had been a number of issues that prevented the migration to newer version of Powerbuilder and stopped COWI making the most of the newer technologies available in these later versions of PB.
Some of these issues were:
- Access to MS SQL server causes errors on some of the data retrieval.
- Access to MS SQL Server has to be via ODBC and not a native driver.
- The existing translation software does not work.
In addition to the need to migrate to the latest version of PB the application needed to be brought up-to-date and COWI wanted to have the user interface updated to look more like a modern windows application and to also support the modern Windows platforms including 'Vista'.
Powersoft's Proposal
We proposed a multi phased approach to this project, with clearly defined deliverables and direct business benefits to COWI. This approach reduced the time that Powersoft had to hold the Caretaker source and therefore allowed COWI to continue to develop the application with minimal interruption.
The first phase was a migration to Powerbuilder 11.5 as the latest version of PB available.
The second phase was a bespoke development of a piece of software that would translate the application dynamically into any language.
The third and final phase was to enhance the GUI and user experience and to bring the application right up to date with a modern look and feel.
Phase 1: The Migration
Powersoft took the Caretaker source, quickly migrated it to PB 11.5 and returned the tested, working solution to COWI.
Phase 2: Dynamic translation software development
COWI wanted a bespoke solution that they could have full control of, so we developed a brand new piece of software to be embedded into their existing application. This is able to dynamically translate all of the text objects in the application at runtime. We then took the latest Caretaker source code back from COWI and made the changes to embed the translation software into their application. The new source was once again quickly returned, tested and working, back to COWI for user acceptance.
Phase 3: Enhance the GUI
As part of the final phase we propose to migrate the application source to Powerbuilder 12 and convert the application to use Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). This will enable us to apply style changes to the application whilst keeping the existing code and business logic. We have already started work on the R&D required to develop standard styles that can be applied to existing PB applications to take full advantage of the WPF presentation layer and flexibility allowed in XAML.
Once we have a good proof of concept we will be going back to COWI with a firm proposal for phase 3.
Powersoft's Technical Support
We believe that ongoing support is the most important part of any project and we offer technical & user support that is second to none with guaranteed rapid response times.
COWI are enjoying having our technical support team on tap when they need them for any issues that arise.