Project Outline
Softcom (Ireland) Ltd. required a multi-company online application to manage expenses
submitted by employees. The solution is hosted online as an Application
Service provider. This is called Softcom Expense Manager which is exclusively available
directly from Softcom Ireland.
Security is
Paramount
The security
and its level was the foundation which formed and allow us build an extremely powerful
and useful application. For this project security was paramount. Once the security
of the roles, policies, group and users was set it was logical and simple to do
most complex of tasks with the Expense Manager applications thanks to programming
methods involved.
The application security model in Expense Manager is comprehensive, intuitive with
many levels, with the use of users, groups and roles. The companies subscribed to
the Expense Manager application would have a separate security administrations.
It was important from the outset that companies on the system were completely isolated
from each other. This included data records, uploads and files.
Along with
security came policies on the various expenses categories within the system. These
policies were specific to each company within the Expense Manager. The polices could
be applied to users, groups, vendors, expenses and other entities defined.
The outline technologies through out the application had to be manageable and expandable
at any stage to ensure future modifications and enhancements. Therefore a modern
standard industry method of software architecture was implemented. This is the 3-tier
model Data Layer, Business Objects and Application Layout Layer, which is being
used in all new applications in the last few year due to advancements in programming
languages and tools.
The Database
Choice
The Data Layer gave us the freedom to be independent allow us to choose and provide
support from a range of relational databases. With these options in mind, we could
either use Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle or others databases. This was requirement
from our client to ensure scalability and stability at every level.
Business Objects is the practice of forming your business routines into modules
in code using modern programming called Object Oriented, while being flexible to
changes. Business Objects allow us to add changes and interactions easily and simply
in the event for example new Tax/Revenue laws or simple improvements and features.