intergen smarts 10 (2005)

8
From statistics to suits, from insurance to apples, the team at Intergen has been busy working with an exciting and diverse range of clients. Statistics New Zealand, Rembrandt Suits, AMP, Environment Waikato and Turners and Growers, have all been presenting us with unique challenges. An increased focus on business efficiency and system integration within and between organisations has been the catalyst for embarking on a joint venture with Fusion5. The joint venture company called Interfusion has acquired Ernst & Young’s Microsoft Navision practice. Navision is part of the Microsoft Business Solutions stable and provides a flexible, customisable system for financial management systems. Interfusion currently supports 30 implementations and has 12 staff. As a result of the joint venture we will be able to expand our offering to clients to include integrated business solutions. These solutions include core financials, end user reporting and analysis, employee intranet, business workflow, business to business commerce and line of business applications. You will see more of Interfusion over the coming months. This year’s TechEd conference was a huge event for us with over 20 staff involved. ISSUE TEN >> HOT NEWS: >> THE INTELLIGENT BUSINESS MAGAZINE Running hot < Copyright 2005 Intergen Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission of Intergen Limited > tony.stewart @ intergen.co.nz INTERGEN SYDNEY >> SLEEPYHEAD >> 2 2 3 4/5 6 7 8 INTERGEN CONSULTING >> TECHNOLOGY >> TECHNICAL PREVIEW >> CASE STUDY - AMP >> UI DESIGN & CRM >> Breaking news: Intergen acquires Ecentric. Ecentric brings an area of expertise and client base to complement Intergen’s current work. Ecentric is known for its work in the entrepreneurial sector, involvement with start up companies and new initiatives. It was responsible for the development of a number of well known ventures such as Trade Me, Carter Holt’s e-cargo, and the Anchorville site. The acquisition complements Intergen’s focus on established business solutions. ASP.NET 2.0 in action. Known as early adopters of new technology, Intergen recently appeared on Microsoft’s Customer Evidence site showcasing a recent ASP.NET 2.0 project we developed for the Bexhill Funding Group (search for Bexhill on the Microsoft site). Intergen sponsored and ran the Hands-on-Labs, which gave conference goers the opportunity to use some new or advanced Microsoft technologies by working through real examples. We used the labs that had been prepared for TechEd USA, which involved testing them, fixing any problems, learning the content, setting up the 100 computers in the lab and providing staff to assist with questions. This was a great experience for us. Our staff really enjoyed working together to set up the labs (including some very late nights) and helping people work through labs and use technologies they might not otherwise have the opportunity to see. In addition to running the Hands On Labs we also provided four speakers for TechEd sessions. Jeremy Boyd was one of the hardest working speakers at the event, delivering seven sessions in New Zealand and Australia including an extra session on SQL Server 2005 after his first session was ‘sold out’. Andrew Tokeley received the third highest speaker rating, beaten only by two of Microsoft’s international stars. We are very proud of our contribution to TechEd and we congratulate Microsoft on running a great event. The New Zealand event had over 2000 attendees, making it by far the largest TechEd per capita in the world. To bring an international perspective to some of the coming trends and technologies we brought Mike Iem to New Zealand to speak at our think! conference and to visit with clients. The presentations covered new Microsoft products that improve our ability to deliver the kinds of systems that our customers are starting to demand. We are excited about these technologies and will be using them with our clients. Intergen’s team at TechEd

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Intergen's newsletter, Smarts, now available for online reading. Intergen provides information technology solutions across Australia, New Zealand and the world based exclusively on Microsoft’s tools and technologies.

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Page 1: Intergen Smarts 10 (2005)

From statistics to suits, from insurance to apples,the team at Intergen has been busy working with anexciting and diverse range of clients. StatisticsNew Zealand, Rembrandt Suits, AMP, EnvironmentWaikato and Turners and Growers, have all beenpresenting us with unique challenges.

An increased focus on business efficiency and system integration

within and between organisations has been the catalyst

for embarking on a joint venture with Fusion5. The joint

venture company called Interfusion has acquired Ernst &

Young’s Microsoft Navision practice. Navision is part of

the Microsoft Business Solutions stable and provides a

flexible, customisable system for financial management

systems. Interfusion currently supports 30 implementations and

has 12 staff. As a result of the joint venture we will be able to expand

our offering to clients to include integrated business solutions. These solutions

include core financials, end user reporting and analysis, employee intranet, business

workflow, business to business commerce and line of business applications. You

will see more of Interfusion over the coming months.

This year’s TechEd conference was a huge event for us with over 20 staff involved.

I S S U E T E N

>> HOT NEWS:

>> T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E

Running hot

< Copyright 2005 Intergen Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission of Intergen Limited >[email protected]

INTERGEN SYDNEY >>

SLEEPYHEAD >>

2

2

3

4/5

6

7

8

INTERGEN CONSULTING >>

TECHNOLOGY >>

TECHNICAL PREVIEW >>

CASE STUDY - AMP >>

UI DESIGN & CRM >>

Breaking news: Intergen acquiresEcentric. Ecentric brings an areaof expertise and client base tocomplement Intergen’s current work.

Ecentric is known for its work in theentrepreneurial sector, involvementwith start up companies and newinitiatives. It was responsible for thedevelopment of a number of wellknown ventures such as Trade Me,Carter Holt’s e-cargo, and theAnchorville site. The acquisitioncomplements Intergen’s focus onestablished business solutions.

ASP.NET 2.0 in action. Known asearly adopters of new technology,Intergen recently appeared onMicrosoft’s Customer Evidence siteshowcasing a recent ASP.NET 2.0project we developed for the BexhillFunding Group (search for Bexhill onthe Microsoft site).

Intergen sponsored and ran the Hands-on-Labs, which gave conference goers the

opportunity to use some new or advanced Microsoft technologies by working

through real examples. We used the labs that had been prepared for TechEd USA,

which involved testing them, fixing any problems, learning the content, setting up

the 100 computers in the lab and providing staff to assist with questions. This was

a great experience for us. Our staff really enjoyed working together to set up the

labs (including some very late nights) and helping people work through labs and

use technologies they might not otherwise have the opportunity to see.

In addition to running the Hands On Labs we also provided four speakers for

TechEd sessions. Jeremy Boyd was one of the hardest working speakers at the event,

delivering seven sessions in New Zealand and Australia including

an extra session on SQL Server 2005 after his first session

was ‘sold out’. Andrew Tokeley received the third highest

speaker rating, beaten only by two of Microsoft’s

international stars.

We are very proud of our contribution to TechEd and we

congratulate Microsoft on running a great event. The

New Zealand event had over 2000 attendees, making it by

far the largest TechEd per capita in the world.

To bring an international perspective to some of the coming trends and technologies

we brought Mike Iem to New Zealand to speak at our think! conference and to

visit with clients. The presentations covered new Microsoft products that improve

our ability to deliver the kinds of systems that our customers are starting to demand.

We are excited about these technologies and will be using them with our clients.

Intergen’s team at TechEd

Page 2: Intergen Smarts 10 (2005)

AustralasianIntelligent Business

>> INTERGENITE:

< S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T E N >>> I N T E R G E N S Y D N E Y / I S S P>>2

Martin Johnston

What do you do?As the CEO of Intergen in Australiamy role is to establish the business,by building a client base and anIntergenite pool.

I specialise in IT strategy andarchitecture, and large scale programmanagement.

How do you make a difference?I challenge the way customers lookat their business problems andopportunities, and the way they createsolutions to those problems.

What do you love about your job?The challenge of starting somethingnew, and working with clever,enthusiastic people to do that.

Innovation is my passion. I really enjoyworking with clients and the talentwithin our organisation to bringinnovative ideas to life.

A bit about meI have worked in the professionalservices industry for over 25 years.I was a partner at Ernst & Young andthen a vice president at Capgemini.

Marilyn and I are pretty much keptbusy “24/7” by our four boys. They’rea lot of fun, whether it’s weekends atthe beach or watching them play sportor performing music.

In early 2005 Intergen joined the ranksof companies with operations on eitherside of the Tasman. This expansion isthe first small step in an importantphase of our business growth.

It is also important for our ability to remain at the forefront

of providing innovative “intelligent business” solutions for

our customers and helping to ensure we continue to provide

interesting and challenging work for our people.

Expansion into the Australian market offers us a larger base

across which to invest and maintain our leadership position

whilst continuing our high standards of customer service

and quality delivery.

We are excited about this stage of our development but

we’re also careful to ensure that we maintain the core values

of our business as we move forward. Intergen is an exciting

and innovative place to work and work with. We will be

working hard to see it stays that way.

New Zealand is without question the foundation of our

business and likely to remain so for sometime to come.

The addition of an Australian operation is seen as building

upon that foundation, using the proven Intergen recipe for

success for our customers and ourselves.

It is early days yet, but as we progress we’ll keep you posted.

Welcome aboard the Intergen family to Martin Johnston,

a friend and associate of many of us for many years.Martin Johnston’s children:

future Intergen Australia staff.

Martin Ellis, Group GM at Sleepyhead,talks to SMARTS about Intergen’sEnterprise Resource Planning (ERP) expertise.

We understand that you were facing a significant business challenge with a

project to upgrade your ERP system.

We had a strategic vision on where we wanted to take the business and needed

to assess whether our current ERP system would provide us with the appropriate

platform or whether there was something better in the market.

Why did you choose Intergen to help you to review the situation and recommend

a way forward?

They came highly recommended by a colleague.

Sleep easy After recommending a way forward, how did Intergen assist you in implementing

those recommendations and getting the project back on track?

The issue we had was two-fold. First to resolve the huge number of outstanding

bugs we had with the version we were running at that stage.

Second, to work with our provider on what enhancements we needed to provide

us with a viable solution.

What do you perceive to be the strengths of Intergen’s capabilities?

They have the ability to keep a cool head in testing conditions as they keep

emotions out of the decision making process. They also can draw on a huge

amount of knowledge they have gained from

work with other organisations and packages.

Would you use Intergen again for similar

consulting work and why?

Yes, because they get results.

Page 3: Intergen Smarts 10 (2005)

Your helping hand

Intergen is not only the best developer of Microsoft.NET applications in New Zealand – we also haveexceptional business and technical consultingcapability.

We carry out a variety of consulting assignments, all of which straddle the divide

between business and information technology. You can either look at it as ‘IT

consulting with a business edge’ or ‘business consulting with an IT edge’.

Our consulting capability is drawn from across all our teams, providing consultancy

in many areas: business, information systems (IS), technical, development, QA

and creative. But the focus of this article is on our business and information

systems consulting capabilities.

Our consultants are experienced, business-

savvy, technically-aware, and comfortable

working in both the public and private

sectors. Our focus is on providing value –

delivering tangible benefits in all the

work we perform.

To discuss how we can help you

please contact:

Paddy Payne in New Zealand

[email protected],

04-472-2021

or 021-505-215

or Martin Johnston in Australia

[email protected]

02-9904-0443

or 04-1448-9000

< S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T E N > >>3>> I N T E R G E N C O N S U L T I N G

>> P R O C E S S I M P R O V E M E N T

Processes, information, people and systems – they are intertwined and need to

be considered when reviewing processes. We will help you understand how you

can streamline or reinvent your business processes to improve the efficiency and

effectiveness of your organisation.

>> S T R A T E G I C I S P L A N N I N G

Your business strategies need to guide your IS planning, but conversely your

IS strategies and vision need to influence your business strategies. We will help

you to leverage your information systems to take advantage of trends in

information technology and deliver real business benefit.

(In our last issue of SMARTS Peter Carr from the Office of the Clerk discussed

how Intergen helped them develop their IS Strategic Plan)

>> O R G A N I S A T I O N A L R E V I E W S

It is a balancing act for your IS team to remain responsive to business demands

while maintaining the stability and integrity of your current information systems.

We will help you review how effectively your IS people and processes contribute

to the success of your organisation, and help them become expert tight-rope walkers.

>> P R O J E C T R E V I E W S

We see many projects that are delivering less than they promised – that’s because

there are many factors that impact on their success. We will help you understand

the issues you have with your projects and work with you to get them back on

track.

(See the panel on the opposite page to read Martin Ellis’s thoughts on how we

helped Sleepyhead with one of their projects)

>> E N T E R P R I S E A N D S O L U T I O N S A R C H I T E C T U R E

This service is designed to generate a robust representation of the way in which

all elements of a business solution interact. Architecture is fundamental to the

evolution of applications, particularly in our service oriented world, but beyond

the application, the business needs to understand those services and how to

provision and evolve them.

Page 4: Intergen Smarts 10 (2005)

The only complaint we had from our think! conferences

was there was too little time to cover everything

thoroughly. To address this, we’ve put together a two

page summary of the topics presented.

installs them automatically from the web or

from a pre-downloaded Microsoft cabinet file

(.cab).

Default configuration targeted for new BizTalk

Server developers

New feature-based user interface (UI) that

presents a consolidated view of each feature

Granular configurability which provides the

ability to selectively configure or unconfigure

each feature.

Better management and operations

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) provides

a single management tool for configuring,

deploying, managing, and monitoring your

BizTalk Server applications

Application deployment – BizTalk Server 2006

enables you to package artefacts into a simplified

BizTalk application simplifying deployment,

management and troubleshooting.

Empowerment for business users

Extends capabilities introduced in BizTalk Server

2004 such as Business Activity Services (BAS)

and Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)

Better integration with Microsoft Windows

SharePoint Services

Provides real-time support for business activity

subscriptions and notifications.

Empowerment for developers

Orchestration designer improvements

New POP3 and Windows Sharepoint Services

adapters.

Micro views of what’snew and hot

GEEK-O-METERTM RATING

< S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T E N >>>4 >> T H I N K * C O N F E R E N C E R E V I E W

DA BIZ

BizTalk Server 2006 helps organisations to efficiently

and effectively integrate systems, employees, and

trading partners. It does this through manageable

business processes which automate and orchestrate

interactions.

What it offers customers

Simplified setup and configuration

Seamless upgrade path from BizTalk Server 2004

Simplified and flexible installation experience

for one or more server installations

Advanced component update technology that

checks for missing prerequisite components and

Some cool things we are already doingwith it

We’re one of two Microsoft partners in New Zealand

to participate in Microsoft’s Technology Adoption

Program for BizTalk 2006. As part of this I visited

Redmond recently for deep dive training and to meet

the product team. As a result we have the ability to

implement BizTalk 2006 effectively and efficiently

to maximise its potential.

[email protected]

VISUAL STUDIO 2005TEAM SYSTEM

The release of Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2005 Team

System early next year will be the most significant

release ever of Visual Studio as it moves from being

a dedicated development tool to a complete project

delivery suite.

While the core Visual Studio developer’s tool is

significantly improved, the greatest advancement is

the integration of tools and features for the entire

project team including project managers, architects,

testers, operations and developers.

The goal of Visual Studio 2005 Team System is to

streamline the process of building great software by

improving process, communication and quality through

a project’s life cycle. This is achieved through tools

such as:

Process templates to support your own project

methodology

Microsoft project integration for task

management

A complete reporting solution to monitor all

Page 5: Intergen Smarts 10 (2005)

Enhancements to Analysis Services are aided by the

new data mining algorithms: association, time series,

neural networks and sequence clustering algorithms.

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services (SSRS) provides

improvements in areas such as report design, processing

and end-user interactivity. It provides better integration

capabilities with other components in the SQL Server

suite such as Analysis Services, Integration Services

and Management Studio. For developers, it offers

unparalleled reporting integration with the Visual

Studio .NET development environment, and the

inclusion of freely redistributable Windows and ASP.NET

controls provide an easy means to embed reporting in

both server-based and client-based applications.

SSRS 2005 also includes Report Builder, a new ad hoc

reporting tool that enables business users to create

their own reports and explore corporate data.

The introduction of Integration Services, the successor

to Data Transformation Services (DTS), is the transform

and load offering provided as part of SQL Server 2005.

It offers significant advantages over its predecessor

with increased functionality, improved error handling

and transaction support, and extensibility through

integration with the .NET framework.

The majority of new features pertain to enhancements

within the core database product itself. .NET Common

Language Runtime (CLR) is now integrated into the

database engine, giving developers the option to create

stored procedures in any .NET language (eg. C# or

VB.NET).

>> T H I N K * C O N F E R E N C E R E V I E W >>5< S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T E N >

aspects of the project lifecycle

Design surfaces to reduce translation from design

diagrams to code

An extensive integrated testing suite

A new integrated enterprise source control.

Intergen has been using a collection of different

products over the last few years to improve our

development process, such as unit testing tools and

auto-build and deploy tools, but the evolution of Visual

Studio to bring all these tools together and move into

a single integrated environment is a great leap forward.

By addressing all the roles and phases within a

development project Visual Studio 2005 Team System

will help any development team improve processes,

communication and quality.

[email protected]

SQL SERVER 2005

The benchmark for databases has beenset. We take a brief look.

The most significant new feature in SQL Server’s

OLAP offering, Analysis Services, is the Unified

Dimensional Model (UDM). The UDM overcomes

some of the significant challenges faced by

businesses wishing to retrieve information from a

data source, such as an Enterprise Resource Planning

(ERP) database.

The UDM provides a central repository combining

data from one or more physical data sources and

defines business entities, business logic, calculations

and metrics.

Other enhancements include native XML support,

message-based services, native HTTP support,

notification services, T-SQL, SQLMO and ADO.NET

enhancements.

[email protected]

ALL YOU’VE EVER WANTED… AND MORE

Windows Communication Foundation (code-named

Indigo) is Microsoft’s next generation communication

technology, designed to help organisations overcome

the challenges of building connected systems both

within and beyond the enterprise.

As an extension to the .NET Framework 2.0, Indigo

provides support for the industry standard specifications

and has been designed and built around the four basic

service oriented tenets:

Autonomous and encapsulated

Loosely coupled

Share schema and contract, not implementation

Compatibility defined by policy.

Indigo presents a unified API to developers to simplify

the process of building secure, reliable and interoperable

services while adhering to web service specifications.

At Intergen, this means that we will have the tools to

easily and efficiently build these connected systems.

Previously the technology available to offer capabilities

such as security and encryption over web services was

limited and difficult to work with.

To see how useful this technology is let’s take a service

built using Indigo and secure it with WS-Security, the

specification around web services for providing security

for the messages we transport.

In Indigo, operational aspects of how the service is

offered are outlined in a .NET configuration file. This

describes how the service is hosted, what type

of channel it is exposed over (eg, HTTP, TCP) and what

the service expects as

a pre-requisite to delivering its functionality.

So to add WS-Security to our service, we would extend

our configuration like this:

<basicProfileBinding> <binding configurationName="Default" securityMode="WSSecurityOverHttp"> <wsSecurity authenticationMode="Username"/> </binding></basicProfileBinding>

This tells Indigo that we want to enable WS-Security

on our web service and that we want to use

Username/Password authentication.

As simple as that!

[email protected]

Page 6: Intergen Smarts 10 (2005)

Two of Intergen’s senior technical staff, Jeremy Boyd and Derek Watson,recently returned from Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference(PDC) in Los Angeles where they received in-depth insight into futuretools and technologies.

>> INTERGENITE:

Stephen Andrew

What do you do?I’m the Business Development Managerfor Intergen in Auckland. I work toensure that clients are delighted withour services and solutions, and thatour technology solutions are beingapplied to meet their business needs.

How do you make a difference?I ensure that every interaction we havewith our clients is as professional aspossible. I help team members toprepare properly and ensure that theythink about the client’s business firstand foremost. I bring experience froma range of IT roles, which helps temperthe team’s rampant enthusiasm.

What do you love about your job?I enjoy being able to channel thesignificant resources available atIntergen to meet and exceed clients’expectations. As a BusinessDevelopment Manager the thrill of anew deal is what drives me, but I’malso passionate about fostering longterm relationships, as these are criticalto the ongoing success of Intergen.

A bit about yourselfI’m the proud father of three primaryschool-aged children. I’m committedto coaching my kids so they can funda life of leisure for their mother and Iby playing for Real Madrid, atWimbledon or the Black Caps.

>>6 >> T E C H N I C A L P R E V I E W - P D C

Five minute future preview

< S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S

PDC is held every two years and is recognised as the premier event to network with the architects of Microsoft’s

technology vision and to see what’s on the horizon.

There is a huge wave of new technology coming from Microsoft over the next two years that will enhance

the software industry’s value to business. The transformation of the industry has been underway for a number

of years now, with service orientation changing the way people think about software architecture. However,

the tools and technology haven’t really caught up with thought processes and the demands of business and

end users until now.

Much of the new technology is aimed at making software systems more dynamicallyconfigurable to allow business to adapt as change occurs. The next two years will see new

tools being released to allow us to build this type of system faster, better and cheaper. It will also allow us to

put more power back into the hands of the users of software, with tools like SQL Reporting Services and the

Windows Workflow Foundation. These tools allow the relevance and usefulness of software to be maintained

by the business throughout its life. And adhering to the principles of service orientation allows us, as developers,

to incrementally add new capabilities without having to scrap and rebuild.

The other major step forward with new technology is from a user-interface perspective.Many business applications are not intuitive to use, and end users need substantial training to understand them.

With a new presentation platform and the new set of Expression™ tools from Microsoft, we can build visually powerful

interactive experiences for users that more accurately reflect their understanding of what they are doing when working

with information. Much of the change to Microsoft’s own range of products, such as the upcoming release of Office 12

and Share Point version 3, are driven by the same motivation to substantially enhance usability.

What this means for us as a software solutions provider is rapid positive change. The challengewith any new technology wave though, is to apply it to create new opportunities for business.We would love the chance to talk with you more about how we can help.

Page 7: Intergen Smarts 10 (2005)

framework based on SOA principles and best practices, and we could capitalise

on the implementation of amp.co.nz by bringing all our external facing applications

up to one consistent high standard.” Shirley McIntyre, AMP.

Leveraging the new technologiesUsing Microsoft SQL Server 2005 allowed AMP to utilise SQL Server Integration

Services. This greatly improved the importing and transformation of retirement

information sourced from AMP’s retirement processing mainframe. Overall

complexity of the import and transformation processes was reduced, thus resulting

in increased maintainability. In addition, overall performance of these processes

increased by approximately 300 - 400%.

Six week transitionMeeting the timeframe showed integrity according

to AMP’s Project Manager Michael Coffee. “They

resourced accordingly, and their technical ability

and pre-knowledge of Microsoft’s new offering meant

they developed exactly what they said they would

do. If there were challenges, Intergen absorbed them,

rather than passing on costs.”

22,000 members and 750 employersuse NZRT on-lineAs a work-based retirement scheme, being on-line

provides instant capability for employees and

employers to check balances and manage contributions. The use of banner ads,

brand colours and easy usability means a more consistent experience for AMP

customers.

More leverage is planned, with excellent opportunities for AMP to grow their

technology footprint says Shirley McIntyre.

“In summary, we have an energised offering on our web site; and the technology

we have delivered these applications on has been future proofed for further

expansion and growth”.

THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Tackling the future head-on is familiar ground forAMP, whether it be helping people gain a longlasting income in retirement, or providing qualityadvice on insurance, investment or financialplanning decisions.

AMP wanted to bring their retirement scheme, New Zealand Retirement Trust (NZRT),on-line. Hosting penalties on the existing platform created urgency and a need todeliver on time.

First in the marketAMP took up Intergen’s recommendation to futureproof with an ahead-of-the-market solution utilisingMicrosoft Visual Studio .NET 2005 and SQL Server2005. As a company well versed in risk analysis, AMPviewed the opportunity as innovation not‘experimentation’ and went into the project with solidexpectations.

“Intergen have an extremely close partnership withMicrosoft and through that expertise were ableto convincingly demonstrate areas of high businessvalue using Microsoft’s new .NET toolset and SQLServer database. To be the first company to deliveran application based on this innovative framework was exactly where we wantedto be as a forward looking company.” Shirley McIntyre, Enterprise SolutionsManger AMP.

Gaining more business value through a reusable frameworkLeveraging their investment was a major business driver for AMP in this project.

“There was a lot of business value to be gained by redeveloping the web site

solution to bring NZRT on-line. .NET gave us the opportunity to use a common

>> INTERGENITE:

Jonathon Mitchal

What do you do?I am a proud member of theDevelopment and Integration teamat the Christchurch Intergen office,and have recently been involved inprojects using C#, ASP.NET, CMS, CRMand SQL Server 2005.

How do you make a difference?I have gained a strong knowledgebase from university, which allows meto apply myself to new technologiesand situations.

What do you love about your job?I thrive on providing professionalsoftware solutions for clients to putinto practical use.

I also enjoy the great workingenvironment and talented peer-basethat Intergen provides.

A bit about yourselfI graduated from CanterburyUniversity last year with a Bachelorof Science. With my spare time atuniversity I DJ’d throughoutNew Zealand and enjoyed moderatesuccess with vinyl releases of originalmaterial overseas.

>> C A S E S T U D Y - A M P < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T E N > >>7

Going leading edge proves good insurance for the future

CustomFile Task

Preprocess Each File andSend an Email

Send notification emailif pick up fails

Move all the input csv’sinto a working directory

Preprocess each ofthe csv files

Load the staging tables

Update the main databaseonce the staging process

has been completed

For each user, put the user intoactive directory and add them

to the appropriate groups

Send the emails with thedetails of the upload process

If processing flow fails email out an error

Send FileError Email

Load Staging Tables

Load Working Tables

Update ProductionDatabase

New User Setup

SMTPServiceEmailhelper

AMP Integration Services Package

Send GeneralError Email

Page 8: Intergen Smarts 10 (2005)

>> U I D E S I G N & C R M < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T E N >

Closer customer relationships

Using databases to facilitate and improve customerrelationships will be easier with the release ofMicrosoft CRM 3.0 early next year.

The new version of Microsoft Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) will allow

additional customer specific entities to be added to the base system. Intergen

will be able to extend and configure the product without significant development,

ultimately lowering the total cost of ownership to customers.

New Microsoft CRM 3.0 features include:

>> Marketing automation including campaign management, response tracking

and marketing list generation

>> Enhancements to existing sales management tools including support for

identifying complex customer roles and relationships

>> Enhancements to existing service case management tools including service-

based scheduling and integrated knowledge base

>> Powerful new reporting capabilities based on SQL Server Reporting Services,

including drill down ability and report scheduling

>> Enhanced user experience capabilities with role-based customisation and

personalisation of the Microsoft CRM work environment

>> New service-oriented architecture (SOA) for systems integration including

web service description language (WSDL) interfaces for the core CRM business

platform providing enhanced integration opportunities to other web

applications, portals and business systems

>> Optimised email integration for both delivery and tracking

>> Enhanced mobile experience for remote sales and customer service

professionals.

Microsoft CRM 3.0 is designed for small and midsized businesses, large

organisations and divisions or departments of global enterprises that want to

build strong customer relationships by managing all customer interactions from

one central application.

[email protected]

Creative guns for hire!This year Intergen has been ramping up its service delivery capability in a number

of areas and the Creative Studio team is no exception. Our “Tight Three” – Jill,

Mark D and Eamon – have been joined by three new faces. Between them they

flesh out our interactive design competencies and bring some fresh new

perspectives to our design process.

It is fantastic having enthusiastic new talent with the bit between their teeth. This

lifts the game for the whole team and ultimately means Intergen’s customers

benefit with even better design outcomes. Although it’s early days, they’ve been

launched into a raft of interesting projects and are already producing great results.

Sally Coe, Interactive Designer: Sally hails from London and has a degree in

Graphic Information Design - which studies the ways people perceive, interpret

and interact with visual information. She has been working in interactive media

since 1996 for an impressive array of clients from Adidas and Mary Quant to

the British Army. Resident in Aotearoa since 2001, she has already gained

national recognition in the TUANZ (e)-Vision awards.

John Lewis, Interactive Developer: John exported himself from the Mainland

earlier this year after tearing himself away from his successful Internet Marketing

company which he devoted himself to exclusively after graduating in Marketing

Management and Information Science in 2003. John joins the Studio as an

Interactive Developer specialising in accessibility and web standards compliance.

Mark Chambers, Interactive Developer: Mark has specialised in developing

websites and creating multimedia content for 6 years since graduating from

National College of Multimedia and Technology. Our new CSS Guru, Mark has

a significant amount of experience in the government and education sectors.

If you’d like to learn how Intergen’sHuman-Centred Design approachcan benefit your interactive designproject, contact our Creative Director

Eamon O’Rourke [email protected]

From left: Mark Chambers,Sally Coe and John Lewis

F i n d o u t m o r e a b o u t I n t e r g e n :

Auckland: 09 966 3070

Wellington: 04 472 2021

Christchurch: 03 964 0017

Sydney: 02 9904 0443 www.intergen.com.au

[email protected]

www.intergen.co.nz