Critical Issue:

A large restaurant franchise operator needed to implement workflow based on messaging infrastructure for hundreds of restaurants to communicate with corporate office. These restaurants were outside of the corporate network and did not have much infrastructure for new technology.

Project Roles Provided:

Project Management, Software Architect, Software Development, Testing and Training

Technologies used:

Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Outlook, CDO and VBA.

Services Provided:

A custom workflow application that provided restaurants with custom Outlook forms for human resources, order entry, and facility management.  Microsoft Exchange Collaboration Data Objects was used at corporate to read the custom Outlook forms arriving as incoming e-mail message. Data was then extracted for integration with AS400 systems or to route the custom Outlook form for content approval.

Results:

This system is in production at the client site. The implementation costs were greatly reduced by replacing the legacy system with existing technologies (Microsoft Exchange and Outlook) in the external locations.  Easier deployment since updated forms where deployed during Outlook/Exchange synchronization. Ease of use for restaurant users.  Since composing and sending custom forms is the same as composing and sending an e-mail message.