The Client:
The client is a market leader in providing applications that fulfill the needs of local government and communities. The project under discussion was a browser based workflow application that takes service requests requiring action by local bodies as inputs, e.g., uncollected garbage, street lighting problems, public drainage problems etc. Citizens of the community report these incidents through the public Web interface of the application. These inputs are then used by the workflow application to assign resources and track the issue to closure

The application was initially developed in Java and Sopra India re engineered the application on .Net. Various usability and performance issues were to be dealt with while also providing many enhancements.


The Challenge:
The following challenges had to be taken into account while planning and executing the project.

• The need to develop rapid familiarity with the domain. The team had to understand the typical arrangements and processes in North American local bodies for handling various civic requests.
• The system analysis and requirement elaboration happened mostly through remote interaction with the product champion through mail, telecons and walk through. This created an extra need for the team to be ready with all possible options before engaging in discussion on any topic.
• Extremely compressed time lines required the team to handle all dependencies proactively and keep a very careful watch on the critical path. It also required sharp team ramp up and down for various phases.
• Care had to be exercised to prevent scope creep while being flexible to incorporate genuine business needs. A system of weighted priorities was devised to keep control on the scope of work.

The Solution:

• Given the size of the project, it was executed in two phases to allow tighter control on project execution and for mid way course correction if required.
• The first phase was devoted to documenting various use cases and the design, and to prototyping, so that there was complete clarity about what was to be done.
• So that there was complete clarity about what was to be done, the first phase was devoted to documenting various use cases and the design.
• Appropriate design patterns were selected through analysis and prototyping.
• The team also engaged in reverse engineering of the existing application for determining the details of the various use cases as well as identifying design constraints that might have been present at the time of initial development.
• Phase II covered the complete construction and testing of the application based upon the requirements captured and design prepared in Phase I.
• Integration and system testing overlapped with sufficient risk mitigation to enable completion within the tight schedule driven by market needs.
• Integration testing was overlapped with system testing to enable completion within the tight schedule driven by market needs. The overlap was backed with proper risk mitigation.

Technology Used:

• Win 2K Pro
• Visual Studio 2K.Net Enterprise
• VB.Net
• Crystal reports
• SQL Server 2K
• Oracle 9
• Visio 2003
• Winrunner

Sopra India Benefits:

• The ability to carry out system analysis through a combination of remote collaboration and reverse engineering
• The ability to customize a life cycle that ensured quality while also meeting the tight deadline
• Improving application usability derived from Sopra India’s rich experience of developing web based applications