projects & clients | medium projects

Following are examples of medium sized projects using custom solutions developed by Delta Computer Solutions.

Prudential Absolute Realtors (PruAR): Web Application for Staff and Internal Use

Background: Prudential Absolute Realtors is a real estate company based in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, with multiple locations in Southeastern Wisconsin. They need a way to manage articles, documents, property listings, closings, and staff information, so that agents can easily find properties listed by PruAR agents, update information about closings, store documents required for closings, send pictures of a property to a prospective buyer, read articles about the industry, contact another agent, schedule a showing for a property, alert specific agents when changes are made to listings/closings, etc.

Solutions: A web application available only to authorized users, with ASP.NET front end, and SQL Server back end.

Features

  • Login required for access. Security levels include administrative users, who can add new users and view/edit/delete any information on the site, and general users, who can only edit their own information, listings, closings.
  • Property Listings: All properties listed for sale with PruAR are maintained in the application. Staff can search for listings, add listings, change their listings, schedule a showing, or record a floor call. Staff can indicate they should be notified when changes to the listing are made, showings are scheduled, or when floor calls are received about the listing. Staff can email photos or documents related to the listing with the click of a button.
  • Property Closings: All properties sold by PruAR agents are maintained in the application. Staff can enter information for closings, schedule closings, keep documents. Agents can also enter all applicable contingencies, due dates, date met, etc. Reports can be generated for agents and supervisors to see what contingencies are overdue, pending, or coming due soon, to facilitate getting contingencies met in a timely fashion.
  • Documents: Application serves as a shared online library for all the various documents used in the real estate business. Users can also maintain their own documents.
  • Calendar: Application has a calendar for all office related events. Scheduled property showings and closings are automatically added to the calendar. Admin users can add other office events such as meetings, outings, etc.
  • Articles/News: Administrative users can write or post new articles. New articles are displayed on the home page. Past articles are maintained and can be viewed.
  • Staff Directory: Application includes a directory of all staff with contact info.

Wisconsin Department of Transportation: Driver Safety Plan Program

Background: Wisconsin state law mandates that people convicted of drunk driving must receive an OWI assessment. The assessment involves a personal interview with an alcohol and other drug abuse counselor and examines the person’s alcohol and drug use habits. A Driver Safety Plan is developed for the person in order to help prevent future intoxicated driving. The plan may include treatment and/or education. Failure to comply with the requirements can result in a suspension of driving privileges. The Department of Transportation needs to keep track of the progress of each assessment.

Solution: A desktop application installed at each agency that does OWI assessments, with either an MS Access or SQL Server back end. Each agency maintains its own information, enters the information about the client, arrest, assessment, findings, recommendations, and progress. Data is exported and transferred to the DOT using a secure and encrypted connection. The Driver Safety Plan Program also has reporting features that each agency can use for demographics, payment status, and other custom reporting needs.

Waukesha Catholic School System: Website and Custom Content Management System

Background: The Waukesha Catholic School System consists of three catholic school campuses in Waukesha, serving the four catholic parishes. They need a website to promote their schools, as well as to provide information for families of students in the school system.

Solution: A web application that shows information for families considering a catholic education, and provides information about each school’s staff, events, tuition, and sports teams. The custom content management system allows users to use custom web forms to enter information to be displayed, such as paragraphs, sports teams’ schedules, rosters, tournaments, and more.

TYME OUT Youth Center: Contacts and Donations Management Program

Background: The TYME OUT (Total Youth Ministry Experience Openness Trust) Youth Center of Nashota, Wisconsin receives support from individuals, businesses, and organizations. They need a cost effective way to track donations and contacts.

Solution: MS Access application to track contacts, donations, correspondence, participants, events, and fundraising efforts.

Industrial Towel and Uniform: Mats Program

Background: Industrial Towel and Uniform (ITU) supplies the walk mats that businesses have in their entryways. They drop off, pick up, and clean the mats at regular intervals. Mats come in many sizes and colors and have various delivery and cleaning cycles. Loading the right trucks with the right mats on the right days was a labor-intensive task. Managing inventory was also very difficult. ITU needed a way to load trucks more efficiently, track inventory, and respond to changes in product demand.

Solution: Mats were embedded with a small RFID (radio frequency identification) chip. A desktop application was developed to keep track of every mat by ID. A master list of every mat, its size, type, color, and ID is maintained by the program. Schedules and orders are imported daily from another IT system. As mats are loaded into the truck, the RFID chip is scanned and compared to the list of mats to go on the truck, and the mats are tallied. This ensures each truck has the correct number, size, type, and color of mats. When mats are returned to the warehouse, they are scanned right before they are washed. This allows them to keep track of how many times a mat is washed. A worker can indicate the condition of the mat, if there are any repairs that are needed, or if the mat is too worn out to stay in use. By tracking the number of washes and the condition, they are able to project when mats will wear out and determine when inventory will need to be replaced. The system can also help track down missing mats. If a mat has not returned for cleaning for a several weeks, they can look back to what truck it when out on, help determine the customer site where it should be, and, hopefully, find the lost mat or charge the customer for a replacement.

Industrial Towel and Uniform: Driver Efficiency Program

Background: ITU pays its drivers who deliver walk mats bonuses for being efficient and for selling additional services. They needed a way to keep track of the estimated hours and miles for delivery routes, compare that information to actual hours and miles for delivery, and track any sales made by drivers.

Solution: MS Access program to capture estimated route and mileage information, actual route and delivery information, and sales by driver. Reports compare estimated and actual route and mileage and total sales information, summarized by pay period so that each driver is paid the correct bonus. Managers are able to view reports summarizing efficiency and sales data for all of their employees.

Running in the USA Website

Background: When Mary began running, she found it tedious to look for races. She visited hundreds of websites looking for races to run. When traveling, Mary likes to run a race in the place she visits, and finding a race outside her home state was even more difficult.

Solution: A website dedicated to the sport of running, Running in the USA is the largest online directory of races, results, and running links.

Features

  • Race, Results, Club, Photo Directories: Visitors can search by state for races, results, clubs, and race photo album links. Running in the USA also offers many other search options to help visitors easily find what they are looking for.
  • News: Visitors can view links to running news articles by state or world running news.
  • Forums: Each race and club has its own message board for discussion about the race or club. General forums are also available.
  • "You Might Be a Runner If...": A humorous look at running.
  • Race, Results, Photo Album Hosting: If your race, race results, or photo album is not already on the internet, Running in the USA will host it for you. Some services are free, others have a fee.
  • Race Participant Search: Looking for race results for a particular person? Running in the USA’s custom search will look through thousands of results links looking for the specified person.
  • 50 Stater's Gadget: Many runners are 50 Staters – meaning they are on a quest to do one marathon (or half marathon) in every state. These folks like to find marathons they can do back-to-back in one weekend. The 50 Stater’s Gadget lists marathons and half marathons in nearby states on consecutive days.
  • Custom Stats for Clients: Clients with ads or hosted sites can view web stats about their ad or hosted site. Ad clients can view how many impressions (number of times viewed) and clicks each of their ad spaces has. Hosted site clients can view how many times each of their pages has been viewed.

Running in the USA: Administrative Tools

Background: Maintaining current data at Running in the USA is a full-time job for Mary’s husband, Bill. As of January 2009, the directory include over 10,000 race listings, 57,000 race results listings, and 1,100 running clubs. Each week, Bill adds results for the races that recently occurred. On average, 200 races happen every weekend. Bill checks for results to post, new race dates, and new race links. Every week, 200 races must be updated just to stay even. New races are added whenever he finds them. Simply preventing duplicates is a big job with 10,000 races. Bill also contacts race directors to let them know when results are posted, when their race is updated, or to ask for updated information when he is not able to find it. Running in the USA also sells ads, targeted by state.

Solutions: Desktop and web application components to make maintaining all this information as easy as possible.

Features

  • Race, Results, Club and Photo Album Directory Tools: Allows easy data entry for all of these, always checking for duplicates. The application has data entry fields along the side and a navigable browser window incorporated, allowing the URL to be captured without typing. Also, email addresses can be automatically captured when a page is visited, and added to our internal email directory.
  • "Automatic new year" search allows Bill to queue up 500 races, and the program loops through them all searching for a new race date. When the search is done, it queues up the listings with the ones most likely to contain a new date.
  • Ad Package Tools: Application shows which ad spots are available and helps calculate the cost for various combinations of ad spots. When an ad is sold, it is entered in the system and then automatically displayed on the dates and pages specified in the ad package.
  • Correspondence Tracking: Program keeps track of all the emails sent related to directory listings. This prevents RUSA from overloading anyone with too many emails and knowing which people respond, which don’t, and who has asked not to be contacted.
  • Web Stats Processing: RUSA has very specific needs for web states. Page view counts for every page are tracked, as well as specific parameters such as which state was selected in the Race, Results, Club, or Photo directory. Every client has their own web stats page with only their web stat information (either ad packages or hosted sites).

The Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse of Washington County: Appointment Scheduler

Background: The Council is one of the agencies that use the previously mentioned Driver Safety Plan Program. OWI Assessments are just one area of service they offer. They want to be able to enter appointments into their computer system and have OWI Assessment appointments automatically entered into the Driver Safety Plan program.

Solution: A desktop application for entering and maintaining appointment schedules and that also feeds the appropriate information into the Driver Safety Plan program, preventing duplicate data entry.