Post Success from attending International Spectrum 2008

For years we explored how we could generate interest and use in our legacy system with upper management.   Our legacy system requires users to navigate an extensive menu system and enter multiple responses to get to vast array of available data.      Upper management types have failed to develop the patience or interest to use our legacy character based system. 

Last year [2007], we attempted to gain final approval for a tool to enable browser base reporting via our intranet.   We decided on a tool we first got a glimpse of at Spectrum 2006.  Although, we had planned the year before and had an approved budget, our CFO failed to let us pull the trigger to purchase.

I attended Kevin King of Precision Solutions session, Quick Start: Programming in PHP, at Spectrum 2008 in New Port Beach.

Using information from this session on syntax and processes needed to create and deploy PHP applications, I was able to create several browser based inquiry options that replicate the report data of existing menu options.  These new browser based  inquiry options are able to be used without the need to know our extensive menu system and without having to respond to numerous prompts .   These new options allowed the user to point and click to generate useful report.  We used these new browser based options to generate interest and ideas from our user community, and to demonstrate to our CFO the merits of our pursuit of a tool for web based reporting.

Our CFO has now given approval for the purchase of the tool we selected for browser based reporting [at Spectrum 2006].

Bruce W. McAdoo
Wagner & Brown, Ltd.