TBC Hits Jackpot with Surround Technologies
Software Vendor’s Casino Package rewrite project enabled by Surround Technologies
Developing a Windows user interface from scratch can be a time-consuming and costly task. Not only does
the developer need to figure out how to program complex business rules and requirements into the system,
but he also has the challenge of designing and developing the overall look and feel of the application --
the Graphical User Interface (GUI).
Developers at Today’s Business Computers, Inc. (TBC) came face to face with this challenge when they
decided to modernize their Casino Enterprise Management System (CEMS) to a more advanced, productive,
and intuitive Windows Interface.
TBC's research led them to LANSA’s Visual LANSA for its productivity and portability gains over equivalent
products, such as Visual Basic, C++, and Java. The complexities of building a true Windows application,
especially as developers new to event-driven programming, led them to Surround Technologies, LLC, and the
Envision Visual LANSA Accelerator (EVLA) to enhance their productivity even further.
Just as much time can be spent building the "look and feel" of a system -- which includes menus, buttons and
navigational components -- as can be spent programming the actual guts of it. This work can be time consuming,
tedious and unproductive. “Visual LANSA Accelerator provides Visual LANSA developers with a head start by building
the basic architecture, or framework, of any system,” explains Lee Paul, founding partner of Surround Technologies,
LLC, a LANSA software partner and developer said. "Visual LANSA Accelerator does much of the mundane work for the
developer, allowing them to concentrate on creating the meat of their application instead of worrying about the GUI,
navigation, and windows management of the system,“ continued Paul.
The Challenge
When TBC partners Don Guenther and Lou Vilardo began to research rewriting their CEMS system to utilize a true Windows
event-driven environment, they began to question whether it was cost justified. "When you do a rewrite like this, you
are really not moving the product forward, and therefore it is a tremendous cost without much gain in the way of new
business features," Guenther said. Guenther, Vilardo, and their programmers had never developed this kind of interface.
They already had a solid database and there existing LANSA development skills allowed them to easily move into Visual
LANSA. However, they did not have the in-depth knowledge of fundamental Windows concepts required to understand the
interface or to work with an event-driven programming language.
"Here we are in a transition going from the old character-based screens to wanting a visual look and feel for our older
systems, as well as needing to develop new systems, and we had not yet invested in obtaining Visual LANSA knowledge and
very little interface knowledge of Windows and GUI applications in general," Guenther said.
"Given our significant time constraints, we needed to find a solution that had the framework already incorporated into
the solution.” Guenther said. "Visual LANSA Accelerator had the pre-built components that allowed us to build a
presentation-ready Visual LANSA application in a very short period of time."
The Solution
"Visual LANSA Accelerator is a set of base components that form a customizable framework that can be used to develop
any Visual LANSA application," according to Paul. "The VL Accelerator allows developers to quickly generate shell
systems with a standard Windows user interface that requires virtually no programming. The code generating wizards
can then be used to quickly develop components that can be specific to your business and easily plugged into the VL
Accelerator." And now TBC partners Guenther and Vilardo agree that VL Accelerator is an invaluable solution that will
be utilized in all projects going forward.
"VL Accelerator enabled us to quickly and cost-effectively rewrite our entire casino package,” Vilardo said. "(VL)
Accelerator made this challenge more cost effective by drastically reducing the amount of time and number of programmers
required. We fully expect to see savings in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and already see an increase of 25 to 1
in our productivity."
TBC is utilizing VL Accelerator to build another Visual LANSA system from scratch. They are near completion on their new
Health and Welfare Funds Management System (HWFMS), developed in conjunction with a New Jersey-based health and welfare
funds manager/third party claims administrator.
VL Accelerator gives Visual LANSA developers the visual architecture, or framework, that forms the base of any Visual
LANSA system -- including navigation functions, buttons and menus -- features that make up the look and feel of any GUI
application. With this visual framework in place, developers can then concentrate on the meat of their systems -- the
business rules and functionality. Additionally, using templates included with the VL Accelerator, developers can quickly
generate the code they need to round out their Visual LANSA applications.
"VL Accelerator is a powerful tool that all development companies, like TBC, should use in developing their Windows-based
systems," said Derek Maciak, Surround Technologies Vice President of Development. "The architecture was designed to separate
and manage the presentation logic, which allows the developer to concentrate on the business logic. For many companies, this
‘jump-start’ functionality is essential to the success of their projects. VL Accelerator will manage everything from navigation,
to menus and toolbars, to multiple windows, to user security. All of this leads to a consistent look and feel to any Windows system.”
The Benefits
Tommy Bardinas, a Surround Technologies developer who has been working with TBC on the development of HWFMS, explains
that the VL Accelerator removes the tediousness of developing interface features in Windows applications.
VL Accelerator reads in a LANSA database and, using the information about the data, automatically generates detailers,
browsers and sub-browsers, including full navigational functionality that allows the end-user to access any data from
anywhere in the system.
“After a database is developed, the applications can be completed in less than half the time than if you had to code
each individual detailer, browser and sub-browser," Bardinas said. "You would have to code one specifically for each
file layout. With VL Accelerator, through table entries, inquiries are already set up along with the detailer, browser
and sub-browser, so you can concentrate on developing the business requirements of your system which would be more cost
effective." And indeed HWFMS is a large, complex system containing hundreds of files, thousands of functions and millions
of records.
"Through table entries, all of the application's detailers are unique, meaning the programmer doesn't have to go in and
create these detailers on their own because they are already created by using the VL Accelerator Object Development
templates," Bardinas added. "The programmers only have to modify existing detailers. The VL Accelerator will create a basic
detailer for you based on the tables you create. You have a working application before the programmer has to do any
programming." Bardinas described an example of functionality in HWFMS that was implemented with the VL Accelerator very
quickly and with no programming:
In HWFMS, the end-user can go to a detailer to add a claim. There, they enter the first few letters of the member's last
name. They would then see a drop-down list of all member names starting with those letters. If the member cannot be found,
the end-user will be taken to a new detailer where they can enter a new member's name, social security number, phone number,
and other information. When the end-user is done, the member automatically will be added to the back-end tables. "All of this
is functionality available out of the box with the VL Accelerator, with no programming required," Bardinas explained. "Without
VL Accelerator, it would take at least 24 hours of a moderately skilled Visual LANSA developer to create the same functionality.
But with VL Accelerator, you can do all of this in one to two hours. "VL Accelerator is a fantastic starting point to get you
on the right path to developing Visual LANSA applications," continued Bardinas, a long-time LANSA developer. "VL Accelerator
can complete 60% or more of the application for you before you even start programming."
According to Bardinas, programming just the basic interface of HWFMS would have taken TBC several months to accomplish without
the VL Accelerator, never mind developing the business functionality of the system.
"But through our one-week intensive training, TBC developers were able to be productive in a couple of weeks," Bardinas said.
"While VL Accelerator is very easy to use, we offer and strongly recommend a one-week training course to introduce new developers
to both the Windows and VL Accelerator concepts and implementations."
Conclusion
TBC agrees with Bardinas' assessment regarding the short learning curve required to use the VL Accelerator.
"By the time (Surround Technologies') Derek (Maciak) finished training us, we already had some parts of the system
built that we could use," TBC's Guenther recalled. "Now, we've got it down to where we can create a new Visual LANSA
screen with maintenance functionality -- browser, add, change, delete and search capabilities -- in about half a day,
using the VL Accelerator. Without it, this same type of module with all the included advanced functionality could take
somebody over a week to do. Surround also continues to add functionality to the VL Accelerator quite frequently. This
provides more new interface features to our clients with little to no development effort on our part."
Guenther points out that the VL Accelerator gave them a head start in developing their Visual LANSA systems, and Surround’s
programming expertise gave the TBC developers, who were new to Visual LANSA, the additional support they needed.
"The investment we made in the VL Accelerator was a 'no brainer,'" added TBC's Lou Vilardo. "As a small developer or a
large developer, it is extremely cost effective to use the VL Accelerator to develop Visual LANSA applications."
He added: "We intend to use it for everything going forward."
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Surround Technologies, LLC is an information technology consulting firm dedicated to
providing efficient and cost-effective solutions to the corporate community by delivering high-quality
software applications and consulting services. Surround Technologies' client list includes industry
leaders such as Gannett Publishing, Verizon and General Electric Canada. For more information, visit
http://www.surroundtech.com.
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Software
Packages:
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Visual LANSA Accelerator A powerful development tool that helps the developer to easily and
quickly design, implement, and maintain large scale and highly integrated systems with a consistent, standard,
and feature-rich Graphical User Interfaces. All with virtually no manual programming.
Contact Management is an easy to use centralized solution for referencing and managing
contacts and their information throughout your systems.
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Contact
Address:
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Lee Paul
650 Bloomfield Ave
Suite 211
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
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Phone:
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+1 (973) 743-1277
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Fax:
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+1 (973) 743-1278
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Web:
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http://www.surroundtech.com
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Today's Business Computers (TBC) is a professional consulting firm and software developer
dedicated to providing innovative solutions for modern businesses. Founded in 1990 by President Lou Vilardo
and Vice President Don Guenther, TBC has built a solid reputation for technical competence as well as fair
and honest treatment of its valued clients. TBC's diverse national client base includes casinos, professional
firms, manufacturers, wholesale distributors, and service organizations. For more information, visit
http://www.tbcusa.com.
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Software
Packages:
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Casino Enterprise Management System CEMS) is a new, state of the art, casino management
software system. CEMS automates a casino’s Cage, Table and Player Tracking information. CEMS has a flexible
and solid design based on many years of consulting experience within the casino industry delivering superior
functionality and maintainability, with a powerful user interface. Some of CEMS features include: table/cage
accounting, player ratings and credit & check cashing. CEMS may also interface with Slot Tracking and Hotel
management systems.
Surround Products Used: Visual LANSA Accelerator
Health and Welfare Funds Management System (HWFMS) is a robust software application designed
to meet the demanding and complex processing requirements of Taft Hartley Benefit Funds, Third Party Multi-Plan
Benefit Administrators, Self-Insured Self-Administered Benefit Plan and Union Administrators. The system consists
of a variety of modules designed to track Member Demographics, complex Eligibility Management based on Wage and
Hour Bank Data, Fund Contributions, Claims Processing, and Cobra Maintenance.
Surround Products Used: Visual LANSA Accelerator, Contact Management
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Contact
Address:
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Louis J. Vilardo
6712 Washington Avenue, Suite 102
Egg Harbor Twp., NJ 08234
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Phone:
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+1 (609) 645-5132
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Fax:
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+1 (609) 641-6792
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Web:
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http://www.tbcusa.com
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LANSA is the leading provider of application development software for mid-market
companies looking to extend the value of their IT infrastructure and create new pathways to grow their
business. The company's core offering, LANSA 2005T, is a powerful suite of cross-platform development
and integration products that enables software delivery organizations to overcome the complexity inherent
in creating tomorrow's applications and the costs associated with maintaining them. LANSA 2005 also serves
as the technology foundation for a wide range of applications from LANSA and its 300 Solution Partners. For
nearly two decades, more than 7,000 customers around the world have relied on LANSA products and services to
help them move to the next level of business performance. For more information, visit
http://www.lansa.com.
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Software
Packages:
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Visual LANSA (VL) provides a comprehensive Windows-based development environment.
You can deploy applications to many platforms including Windows, iSeries, AS/400, UNIX, Linux and Wireless
devices. Visual LANSA uses LANSA's Object Repository and 4GL to develop both client and server programs.
You only need one set of easy-to-learn skills to rapidly develop graphical Internet and client/server applications.
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