Smart Client Sales Application Saves Time and Cuts ...



Overview

Country: United States

Industry: Information Technology

Customer Profile

The Microsoft enterprise sales force consists of more than 8,000 technology professionals working with enterprise-level companies around the world.

Business Situation

In order to best serve these customers, the field sales force needed access to reliable information about the software lifecycles for which its enterprise customers have agreements.

Solution

CyberSavvy, a Microsoft® Preferred Vendor, created a smart client application that gives the sales force the product information they need, when, and where they need it.

Benefits

■ Improved user experience

■ Increased end-user productivity

■ Easy deployment

| | |“In the case of EPR [Explorer], developing a ‘no-touch’ deployment scenario would have required 6,000 lines of code and three weeks of developer time. ClickOnce reduced that to almost nothing.”

Bob Ellsworth, Director of Enterprise Product Roadmap, Microsoft Corporation

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| | | |Every day, more than 8,000 Microsoft sales reps interact with thousands of enterprise-level |

| | | |customers. These customers often request roadmap information about what software is coming to market,|

| | | |when they can count on getting it, and how they will be able to integrate it with their existing |

| | | |systems. CyberSavvy, a Microsoft® Preferred Vendor, developed EPR Explorer, a smart client |

| | | |application that gives the Microsoft enterprise sales force a timely, accurate roadmap of crucial |

| | | |product information. CyberSavvy used ClickOnce technology for seamless deployment and automatic |

| | | |update of EPR Explorer. By using ClickOnce, the development teams did not need to code the setup nor |

| | | |update processes—a savings of 6,000 lines of code. Sales reps now automatically get application |

| | | |updates every four to eight weeks, so they always have the latest information to better serve their |

| | | |customers. |

| | | | |

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Situation

Microsoft Corporation relies on third-party software (Siebel CRM), as well as internally developed line-of-business applications, to support its employees and customers. For example, nearly 8,000 Microsoft enterprise sales representatives rely on sales force automation software from Siebel Systems to support many Microsoft customer-related activities. Because the Microsoft enterprise licensing agreements typically last three years, customers want to know about the lifecycle of the technology products included in these agreements and when new products will be coming out. These customers realize that a change in technology for many users normally requires considerable planning and support.

For the field sales force, the challenge is aggregating the product roadmap information from multiple sources and then correlating it with customers’ licensing information. Providing accurate information in response to a customer’s request for a product roadmap was time consuming and frequently required multiple follow-up phone calls or e-mails, especially when the sales representative was visiting a customer location and didn’t have access to the Microsoft intranet.

To better service their customers, field sales representatives needed reliable access to all of this information during the customer visit.

Solution

To equip its field sales force with the tools to respond to customers’ needs, Microsoft gave the assignment to CyberSavvy, a consulting firm that specializes in smart client applications. The CyberSavvy team, led by Peter Hammond, built Enterprise Product Roadmap (EPR) Explorer, an application to create and maintain product roadmaps for the sales force. EPR Explorer is a robust sales productivity tool that brings up-to-date product data to field sales representatives when they need it. With EPR Explorer, the sales force can navigate, search, and explore lifecycle dates; and support information, security features, and collateral content about Microsoft® enterprise products. In addition, EPR Explorer integrates with Siebel and licensing systems to provide a comprehensive view of each customer’s licensing position.

EPR Explorer has been deployed to more than 5,000 employees worldwide, with new releases becoming available every four to eight weeks.

CyberSavvy created the EPR Explorer client tier by using Microsoft Windows® Forms and integrating it with the Microsoft Office System, so users can export information to the Microsoft Office Excel® 2003 spreadsheet software, the Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2003 presentation graphics program, and the Microsoft Office Visio® 2003 drawing and diagramming software. Like other smart client applications, EPR Explorer uses local processing power for resource-consuming tasks, such as sorting large volumes of product data. The client application is deployed through ClickOnce, a Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 technology. The .NET Framework is an integral component of the Windows operating system that provides a programming model and runtime for Web services, Web applications, and smart client applications. ClickOnce enables self-updating client applications to be installed and updated from a centralized location.

As shown in Figure 1, the server environment includes Web services that incorporate the business logic for data updates and security. These Web services use Active Directory® directory service to connect users to Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 database for product, customer, and licensing information. CyberSavvy recently upgraded to SQL Server 2005, so it could use Recursive Common Table Expressions (Recursive CTE) to improve performance in the data tier; with the upgrade, they also improved reliability through the use of Database Mirroring, a feature in SQL Server 2005.

Benefits

CyberSavvy developers benefited from the combined power of the Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005 development system, the .NET Framework, and ClickOnce technology to meet the needs of sales representatives while minimizing the development time and effort needed to create and support the solution.

Improved User Experience

Although EPR Explorer began as a Web application, the team quickly realized the advantages of building and deploying it as a smart client application. Smart client technology provides low-cost distribution and easy change management of Web applications. Smart-client applications can also provide the features of rich user experience: user controls, integration with Microsoft Office 2003 in the client, offline capabilities, and immediate response times to user input.

The use of Windows Forms and the many built-in controls offered by Visual Studio 2005 allowed CyberSavvy to focus on the business needs of the field sales force rather than on the technology issues of development. “Visual Studio already does so many things that it allows us to concentrate on solving the business problem rather than technology problems,” Hammond says.

With the smart client version of EPR Explorer, field sales representatives immediately noticed improved response times, and the new features. Chance Garrity, Sales Account Executive for Microsoft, called EPR Explorer “the single greatest tool available to the field.”

Increased End-User Productivity

EPR Explorer automates the aggregation of roadmap data; and, because users can sync the data for offline use, sales representatives have access to this information while traveling or visiting customers. The need for follow-up e-mails or calls has decreased significantly. “EPR helps enable the average salesperson to spend an extra day per month with customers,” says Josh Anderson, Enterprise Product Roadmap Product Manager at Microsoft.

Easy Deployment

ClickOnce deployment allows sales representatives to safely install EPR Explorer on-demand; they go to the EPR portal, click on a link, and the application installs locally on their laptops. ClickOnce automatically detects product updates and prompts the sales representative to install them; all this functionality comes out of the box with the .NET Framework 2.0. “In the case of EPR [Explorer], developing a ‘no-touch’ deployment scenario would have required 6,000 lines of code and three weeks of developer time. ClickOnce reduced that to almost nothing,” says Bob Ellsworth, Director of Enterprise Product Roadmap at Microsoft.

“During the development phase, the process of managing daily builds, creating manifests, and writing deployment scripts all drain productivity from a development team,” Hammond says. “Having these tasks implemented by the Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE) cuts down the time it takes to deploy and increases our developer and tester productivity exponentially. We’re often asked how we’re able to produce so quickly. Visual Studio 2005 is our market advantage.”

In addition to simplifying deployment, ClickOnce allows each new version of the software to be installed in its own private store. If there’s an error or bug, a tester or even an end-user client can roll back to a previous version, with all the data intact. Hammond adds, “This rollback capability is something I haven’t seen in any of the other tools we’ve looked at in the past. And it’s available out of the box—no extra coding or anything.”

Microsoft Windows Server System

Microsoft Windows Server System™ is a line of integrated and manageable server software designed to reduce the complexity and cost of IT. Windows Server System enables you to spend less time and budget on managing your systems so that you can focus your resources on other priorities for you and your business.

For more information about Windows Server System, go to:

windowsserversystem

Microsoft SQL Server 2005

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is comprehensive, integrated data management and analysis software that enables organizations to reliably manage mission-critical information and confidently run today’s increasingly complex business applications. By providing high availability, security enhancements, and embedded reporting and data analysis tools, SQL Server 2005 helps companies gain greater insight from their business information and achieve faster results for a competitive advantage. And, because it’s part of Windows Server System, SQL Server 2005 is designed to integrate seamlessly with your other server infrastructure investments.

For more information about SQL Server 2005, go to:

sqlserver

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 is the world’s most popular development environment for designing, developing, and testing next-generation Windows-based solutions and Web applications and services. By improving the development experience for Windows, the Web, mobile devices, and Microsoft Office, Visual Studio 2005 helps organizations deliver a variety of solutions more productively than ever before. Visual Studio Team System expands the product line with new software tools that enable greater communication and collaboration throughout the development life cycle. With Visual Studio 2005, businesses can deliver modern service-oriented solutions more efficiently.

For more information on Visual Studio 2005, go to:

msdn.vstudio

Acquire Visual Studio:

msdn.vstudio/howtobuy

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© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Active Directory, Excel, MSDN, PowerPoint, Visio, Visual C#, Visual Studio, the Visual Studio logo, Windows, Windows Server, and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Document published October 2005 | | |

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:

For more information about CyberSavvy, Inc. products and services, visit their Web site at:



Figure 1. EPR Explorer architecture

“Visual Studio already does so many things that it allows us to concentrate on solving the busisual Studio already does so many things that it allows us to concentrate on solving the business problem rather than technology problems.”

Peter Hammond, President, CyberSavvy, Inc. | |

| |Software and Services

■ Microsoft Windows Server System™

− Microsoft SQL Server 2005

− Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003

■ Microsoft Office System

− Microsoft Office Excel 2003

− Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003

− Microsoft Office Visio 2003 Standard and Professional Editions

|Microsoft Visual C#®

■ Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

■ Technologies

− Active Directory

− Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0

− Microsoft Windows Forms

− ClickOnce

Partners

■ CyberSavvy, Inc.

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“Having these tasks implemented … cuts down the time it takes to deploy and increases our developer and tester productivity exponentially.”

Peter Hammond, President, CyberSavvy, Inc. | |

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