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OVERVIEW
One of the greatest challenges of a service-oriented organization is efficiently and
effectively maintaining communications with a diverse client base. Clients need to
know the status of their project, provide feedback, submit raw information and
isolate requirements. Streamlining communication while maintaining a strong link
between the service provider and the customer is critical for meeting deadlines,
maintaining cost control and avoiding rework. Tracking the status of a variety of
projects can quickly come bogged down in a stream of voice mail, freeform electronic
mail, post-it notes and status meetings.
Harlequin is a comprehensive software package for project management that allows
customers and developers to collaborate over the Internet. Through a web browser,
Harlequin provides clients and employees with timely and complete information regarding
the status of all the projects in an enterprise.
FEATURES
- Manage open issues with reports. Reports track the work to be performed
through the development process. Harlequin provides employees with an up to
the minute list of open issues that need their attention. Project managers
can quickly assign tasks, identify workloads and follow up on open issues.
- Exchange information with files. Harlequin supports the transfer of files over
the Internet. Files may be added to projects by any user and are immediately
available for access by the other project members through the project web site.
Files may also be posted privately so that only the management team has access
to the information.
- Maintain a schedule of events. Events may be used to publish a schedule of
meetings, deadlines or announcements that are important for the members of the project.
The events may be viewed in a variety of contexts from the list of upcoming events to
the monthly calendar.
- Collaborate with topics. Utilize discussion forums to track correspondence. Harlequin
provides unlimited newsgroups for all projects to maintain a history of responses
for reference. No more lost e-mail. No one is out of the loop.
- Customize each project. Harlequin can manage all of the projects in an organization.
Each project can be customized to manage and provide unique information. Existing
web content can be easily integrated into projects so that clients always know where
to find their critical information.
- Secure project access. Harlequin provides secure access to mission-critical project
information. Access may be granted on a project by project basis. One system can
provide information on all of the projects to employees while customers only have
access to their accounts. Microsoft Windows NT authentication may be optionally
used to provide automatic security.
- Access project information anywhere. Full functionality is provided for clients,
employees, contractors and administrators through a web browser interface. The
project system can be accessed from any system with a connection to the Internet.
- Host it anywhere. Harlequin may be hosted on a private Intranet server, a company's
Internet server or through Sanctuary Software Studio's hosting service. Harlequin is
simple to set up and configure on any Microsoft Windows NT Server. Sanctuary Software
can also provide hosting services for a zero-administration option.
Harlequin User Home Page
ARCHITECTURE
Harlequin is a 4-tier client-server implementation. The software functionality is split into
logical, independent blocks operating through defined interfaces. The architecture of
Harlequin provides maximum scalability while maintaining a minimum cost of deployment.
- Database: Harlequin uses a standard SQL-90 database implementation accessed
through the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) standard. Harlequin can be
deployed using the most cost effective DBMS for any organization from workstation
databases such as Microsoft Access through enterprise databases such as Sybase
Adaptive Server.
- Business Rules: The project management logic for Harlequin is implemented in
reusable business objects. The compiled objects provide a more robust and secure
run-time environment than script based systems. All objects are implemented as
stateless inproc servers for optional Microsoft Transaction Server support.
- Web Server: Server-side script is used to dynamically generate HTML content using
the business objects. All script processing occurs on the server for maximum
scalability and portability. Server script accesses the business objects without
directly accessing the database to decouple the page generation from the
data storage.
- Web Browser: The entire user interface is implemented in strictly compliant
HTML 4.0 for access on any platform. The presentation may be customized for
integration in an existing Intranet system.
Full source is supplied for the web server and web browser tiers of the software allowing
simple configuration and customization by the end user. Sanctuary Software Studio is
available for the modification of business objects to integrate Harlequin into any
existing information system.
REQUIREMENTS
Server Requirements
- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 with Option Pack 4.0 or later
- ODBC compliant database management system (Microsoft Access, MySQL, Sybase
SQL Anywhere, Microsoft SQL Server)
Client Requirements
- HTML 4.0 compliant browser with support for cascading style sheets (Netscape
Navigator 3.0+, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0+). Harlequin may be customized
for access with other browsers.
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