Development of a Personnel Planning Application

Summary

A child care organization in the Netherlands relied on a Microsoft Access personnel planning system to control employees' time and working schedules, but wanted a richer interface and the ability to use it over the internet and intranet. INNERLUXES re-engineered the application on Windows Presentation Foundation with XBAP, delivering a rich, sandboxed user interface available online and on the intranet, with several secured client-server interaction patterns and the system's functionality hosted as a web service for easy maintenance.

About the Client

The Client is a child care organization in the Netherlands.

From a Desktop Access Tool to a Web-Enabled Application

The organization's personnel planning system is an information system for child care organizations that provides features to control employees' time and working schedules. The project's goals were to enhance the existing Microsoft Access application with a rich user interface that improves the existing functionality, and to make the application web-enabled — available over both the internet and the intranet.

A WPF/XBAP Solution With Secured Client-Server Interactions

INNERLUXES selected Windows Presentation Foundation to build the solution, which provided the foundation for a rich user interface that uses the full power of the client computer and is easily available over the internet and intranet through native XBAP support. Security and maintainability shaped the architecture:

• Sandboxed apps — XBAP applications run in a sandbox, protecting users' computers against misuse and allowing the necessary restrictions to secure client-server interactions; INNERLUXES developed several ways to enable secure client-server interactions for the new WPF/XBAP projects.
• Web-service functionality — the system's functionality was implemented as a web service hosted on a provider's server, which considerably simplified maintenance.
• Controlled access — because XBAP applications may only interact with web services hosted on the client-side server, direct access to the provider's web services is denied, while the client side interacts with both the customer-side and provider-side web services.

A Tailored Web Solution With a Rich UI

• The custom web development produced a solution tailored to the Client's needs, with a rich user interface for controlling employees' time and working schedules.

Technologies and Tools

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, WPF, XBAP, ASP.NET Web Services, C#, LINQ, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, MS SQL Server 2005, Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Internet Information Services.