Over the years, Tech Solutions have built up a history of delivering solutions to clients in a variety of technological areas all over the world. These are some of our stories. We hope that we can turn your technical challenge into one of these successes.

Location: Phoenix, Arizona

Solution: Leading Immigration Law Application Service Provider needed a way to integrate their web based applications with Microsoft Outlook, so that their customers could transfer data between their online client files and their local Outlook Email, Calendar & Tasks data.

A popular method of supporting business applications these days is through ASP (Application Service Provider) model companies. And the #1 service provider to immigration law firms in the United States called upon Tech Solutions for assistance. This company approached Tech Solutions to develop a software solution that would allow users of the popular Microsoft Outlook to attach emails pertaining to client cases & matters to their web based system. Tech Solutions, using a combination of Outlook Add-In technology developed in Delphi, and WebServices provided an easy to install and maintain solution that extended Outlook and brought the user's Outlook system in contact with the ASP web based system that their clients know and love.

Developing Outlook Add-Ins is a service that Tech Solutions can offer any client. This allows your organization to integrate your normal MS Outlook usage with your database from Outlook (or in fact any MS Office application) directly with your database. We expect to extend on this technical area in the future, by way of new products and services we can offer our clients. An example of how this looks in Outlook is shown below with a typical button added to an Outlook Toolbar.

Figure 1. Sample addition of custom button to Outlook Email form

We can extend Outlook at any level, from additional buttons to lists of emails, contacts, calendar items, etc. Functionality can be added to communicate from Outlook with external applications, or to extend to complete custom add-ins to Outlook for any purpose.

Location: Los Angeles, California

Solution: Leader in Pro Audio & Musical Equipment, Alesis Corporation, choose Tech Solutions for the design & development of fusionsynth.com, the Global Resource web site for their new Fusion HD Synthesizer keyboard products

With the pressure on to release one of the world's newest and most exciting keyboard synthesizer products at the international Winter NAMM 2005 convention, Alesis Corporation, world renown for their musical equipment and pro-audio equipment, and inventors and manufacturers of the Alesis ADAT products, needed a web site to kick off this product. Time was of the essence and they needed a web designing company that could deliver what this corporation needed - fast. Alesis chose Tech Solutions Inc. as that company and well before their deadline, Tech Solutions was able to design & develop, in conjunction with the staff at Alesis Corporation, www.fusionsynth.com, the global resource web site for the Fusion HD synthesizers.

Alesis product manager, Jim Norman, had this to say about the web site, "This Website is awesome!! Thank you so much for the great work.", after the site was delivered one week prior to the deadline. With enough to worry about with a new product launch, Alesis found that Tech Solutions' approach and ability to not only design & develop the site, but also to host it through Tech Solutions Hosting, took the pressure off their staff so that they could be focussed on the core business objectives - delivering the next generation of keyboard synthesizers to their marketplace.

Location: Tucson, Arizona

Solution: Major manufacturer of Turf & Irrigation Equipment, R&R Products, choose Tech Solution's edgeCommerce system for their eCommerce Internet Web Site

After struggling to find a secure, eCommerce system to support this 300+ person company who is a world leader in the supply of turf & irrigation equipment to the Golf and club market, R&R Products chose Tech Solutions to develop an integrated eCommerce system that would work the way they wanted. 'Off-the-shelf' systems wouldn't cut it due to the large amount of catalog business that this organization does, and an integrated and powerful solution running on Mac OSX and using Webstar web server software made the most sense. Tech Solutions were able to develop a complete and SSL secure eCommerce facility for this client in record time. edgeCommerce framework was used for the development of this system which has now been running constantly since January 2004, with little or no downtime. In its first year, this system will handle over $US 1 million in transactions, with an anticipation of 100% growth as more and more of their customers begin to utilize eCommerce as a way to handle orders for products.

Location: Mesa, Arizona

Solution: Nationwide supplier of telecommunications service to corporate customers need a service management solution for their 500+ technicians

A prime telecommunications contractor to Wells Fargo Bank, keep the phone systems going in all Wells Fargo banking branches across the United States. To ensure fast response and smooth service to their customers, the customer required a service management solution that would allow their call center to receive service requests both by telephone and over the web from their large customer base. Service requests received are routed to the best technician nationwide, based on geographic location, by the software, and the technicians then provide the highest quality of service to the branch to resolve their issues. Eclipse Service Management Software was chosen for the job, and along with some customization programming services, a solution was delivered in record time that manages the thousands and thousands of service requests that this organization process every year.

Location: San Diego, California

Solution: Outfitting of major technician crew with PDA handheld units with custom digital work order handling software

In a world where mobility counts, a 20+ person field service crew needs to know where to go, what jobs they are scheduled on, and needs to capture work done and parts used in order to manage the overall database of service information effectively. Tech Solutions, through is Eclipse Service Management Software product, have extended the reach to both PalmOS and PocketPC enabled devices with its Eclipse PDA product. This client in San Diego manages the service of the bulk of computers and networks in over 1,700 schools and relies on Eclipse and Tech Solutions for scheduling its service crew.

Tech Solutions have again show amazing flexibility by embracing PDA technology and developing software for the client that empowers their technicians to do a better job and increase the quality of education for ll students at these 1,700 schools.

Location: Lenexa, Kansas

Solution: Provision of Service Management Software Solution for Electronic Polling Stations for upcoming USA Elections

The vote counting fiasco of 2000 was a worldwide phenomenon, as the US Federal Elections demonstrated that manual vote counting and its problems resulting in extended periods of time when the United States didn't know who its leader was. In the 21st century, this is an unacceptible situation. So to ensure simplified and integrated vote counting for future elections, including the upcoming 2004 Presidential Campaign, the various states of the USA are installing electronic polling stations. This is a very historical event in the history of the USA.

The 180,000 polling stations being rolled out for these upcoming future elections MUST work flawlessly, and to ensure that the service of these units are professionally managed, Tech Solutions Inc. secured the provision and customization of its Eclipse Service Management Software to the main vendor of these units.

The software was completed on time and within budget and has been installed for the client. As the months move forward, this Eclipse system continues increase the amount of asset records that it will manage and helps this monumentous project succeed.

Location: Los Angeles, California

Solution: Development of on-line registry of actors for Hollywood Casting agents

Tech Solutions Inc. designed and developed the casting911.com web application for major actor workshop organization, ITA Productions. This application allows their members to register their talents and experiences online through this simple to use 'kiosk' system. Using the full power of 4th Dimension's web capabilities, teamed up with Apache web server (hosted directly by Tech Solutions), this company was able to put a powerful and well designed system online in months, and allow Los Angeles based actors to be seen by casting directors. Using a combination of information and photography, Tech Solutions were able to leverage complete power from 4th Dimension's web serving capabilities and offer a fast and easy to use system for this client.

Location: Old Lyme, Conneticut

Solution: Installation of service management solution for major Audio/Visual international manufacturer

When International microphone manufacturer, Sennheiser Corporation, needed a service management solution for any returned products that are serviced in the United States, they came to Tech Solutions to order Eclipse Service Management Software. This system runs on over 15 workbenches at Sennheiser, and is being expanded to allow any microhone or Sennheiser product owner to go online through Sennheiser's web site to request a return authorization to ship the product back to Sennheiser for repair. This system has reduced the chaos associated with running a busy service center and allows management to gain valuable insight as to the operations of their world class service organization.

Location: Thousand Oaks, California

Solution: Development and deployment of 4D Web based survey system for Fortune 100 corporation for 6,000 users

This biotechnology client needed to support the annual salary and bonus review process with peer, management and client level review of the performance of every member of their staff. Consequently they chose the development and deployment of 4D Web based software as the answer to their needs. With a 5 month development timeline, and a VERY complex web interface, Tech Solutions were able to deliver a working system with little or no production level issues, that was entirely scalable and centrally managed. All data was stored and managed in Sybase, with 4D acting as the middleware and web server solution. The ability to work seamlessly with this client's internal staff members is a key reason why the client chose Tech Solutions as the vendor on this project, and Tech Solutions delivered the goods and solved this business problem.

Location: New York City, NY

Solution: Provision and enhancement of service management solution for service provider to major record labels in New York

The expectations of the entertainment industry are high. So its no wonder that their contracted service organization in New York chose Eclipse Service Management Software, from Tech Solutions, as the answer to managing their on-site and off-site technicians, and handling Job Dispatch, organization, purchasing, scheduling and communications needs. Consequently through another 4D solution, Tech Solutions were able to offer an inexpensive and powerful answer to keeping up with demand in this dynamic business.

Location: San Diego, California

Solution: Development of Web based service management solution to major service provider to Los Angeles Unified School District

Supporting literally thousands of schools with their computer needs is a big job, and managing 25 technicians who work primarily in the field is even harder. But with technology developed by Tech Solutions, through their Eclipse Service Management Software application, and custom programming, its a piece of cake. By providing a 4th Dimension based solution, Tech Solutions were able to utilize all of the advantages of 4D's client/server and web capabilities to integrate field level staff with office level staff and bring a service solution to this client that has allowed them to double their number of field technicians with little or no additional administrative overhead.

Location: Irvine, California

Solution: Development of CRM oriented system for securities firm

The challenge of handling information in the sales process is complex for portfolio managers. Through the development of a client/server network solution in 4th Dimension, Tech Solutions Inc. have been able to offer a complete system to this client in a fraction of the time compared with other options. Fully Macintosh based, this system will enable marketing representatives to keep on top of all leads and communications and increase their success rate on new deals.

Location: San Jose, California

Solution: Authoring of White Paper on 4th Dimension Connectivity

When 4D Inc. wanted an expert to author a white paper on connectivity options with 4th Dimension, they came to Myles Wakeham, at Tech Solutions Inc. This paper was written and will be shortly available for viewing at www.4d.com

Location: San Francisco, California

Solution: Object Oriented 4th Dimension development consulting with major healthcare software development organization

Traditional development in the powerful database development language, 4th Dimension, has been done using procedural, structured coding standards. However through the use of object oriented development techniques, Myles Wakeham was able to identify the benefits of this approach, consult with this software development organization and move their team forward into using OO as a development framework for the upcoming major revision to their software systems.

Location: New York

Solution: Consulting assistance with medical software company wanting to develop web based services in 4th Dimension

Tech Solutions' immense knowledge of developing dynamic web applications was used to assist this client in learning how to develop for the web in 4th Dimension. Through only 2 days of on-site consulting work, this client was propelled forward onto the road of web development and has fast tracked this transition through the use of Tech Solutions' consulting services.

Location: Los Angeles

Solution: Delivered nationwide HR merit award system as 4th Dimension Web application for Fortune 100 corporation

By building on past success in developing web solutions for large organizations, Tech Solutions again delivered a mission critical application for the awarding of merit increases for a major Fortune 100 corporation. This project was considered mission critical by all members of the management team, right up to the CEO of the corporation. Through the use of the web, coupled with the power of 4th Dimension, Javascript and SQL back-end data management, Tech Solutions again proved themselves to be the ideal outsourced partner for this corporation and delivered a rugged system on time and well under budgetary expectations.

Location: Los Angeles

Solution: Team members in development and delivery of Web based survey tool for 4,000 users in Fortune 100 corporation

When organizations get big, it becomes increasingly more difficult to get information from its members. Information that really tells the story. Such was the problem of a major Californian biotechnology corporation. Their 4,000 or so US employees needed to be surveyed for Human Resources purposes, and what better way than to develop a survey tool in 4th Dimension 6.5 to be deployed as a web service. Tech Solutions assisted in this area, through the development in infrastural systems that allowed such a web service to exist in context with the organization's security policies, maximized up-time expectations, and simple administrative interfaces for IT personnel. This system went live to its audience without any major hitches, proving that not only can 4th Dimension support this type of application, but Tech Solutions were the right organization to partner with for this level of system.

Location: San Francisco, California

Solution: Consulting in requirement definition & management for major Healthcare Software Developer

In order to handle their growing business and move into the next generation of systems that they were developing, a major San Francisco based Healthcare software development company commissioned Tech Solutions to assist them with increasing the productivity and quality of their requirement gathering process. By combining a vast set of skills in this area, Tech Solutions were able to address their specific issues and train their domain experts on the process and capture techniques to ensure that all requirements have been identified and that the development team can address changes in the most efficient and highest level of quality. This is all done using industry 'Best Practices' in requirement definition - a specially of Tech Solutions. Through one day of training, the client was well on the way to increasing overall quality and process in their organization.

Location: Los Angeles

Solution: Development of E-Mail processing systems for major China replacement service

In order to support their upcoming Holiday season trade, and as a followup service to their almost 100,000 customers, a major China replacement service company commissioned Tech Solutions to provide them with powerful and rugged e-mail handling software to work in conjunction with their existing 4th Dimension based operations systems, and their growing web site. This was a perfect fit for Tech Solutions due to our extensive knowledge of 4th Dimension, and our extensive web experience. By adding powerful SMTP based e-mail systems to the client's existing infrastructure enabled them to directly affect their business by proactively supporting their customers. This software was developed in 4D Inc.'s 4th Dimension version 6.7 and works in an unattended mode through an inbuilt scheduling system, custom developed for the client.

Location: Los Angeles

Solution: Development of web site software for major Vitamin & Supplement manufacturer

When a major vitamin manufacture in California wanted to move their already successful vitamin & supplement manufacturing business into an e-Business, they chose Tech Solutions to help them get there. Through the use of eCommerce software from MDG Inc., and custom software that Tech Solutions developed they went live and now services their huge customer base on-line.

Tech Solutions were able to bring to the table custom software solutions for aspects of their online site that just weren't available otherwise. By using the power of 4th Dimension 6.5 and Tech Solution's extensive experience in 4D & web database solutions, this client now see the future from an online perspective.

Location: Los Angeles (client in Australia)

Solution: Modification of invoicing system to support new Australian Goods & Services Tax (GST)

Recently the Australian government introduced a new taxation system that would include goods & services tax being added to all products & services sold by companies within Australia. To address this alteration, Tech Solutions were commissioned to modify software for a large nonprofit organization to handle changes to their existing 4th Dimension invoicing system for GST.

The modification work was done in Los Angeles, and delivered over the Internet to the client. A simple installer was included that made the upgrade of software easy and Tech Solutions were available to the client at all times through the Internet. Testing of the software was done in a smooth fashion and the software was delivered on time and within budget, thereby allowing this organization to handle their GST obligations and yet not be affected by cashflow drain by stopping billing while these changes were being developed and implemented.

Location: Los Angeles

Solution: Development of web server management system for Fortune 100 corporation

Due to the increased demand for deploying application services via a web browser, this client has a development schedule that will involve the building of dozens of web servers to support its new applications. All web servers share a large percentage of functionality in common (i.e. security, error management, logging of activities, language translation, etc.). In addition, administrators having to manage this quantity of web servers are faced with a large percentage of their time devoted to watching the servers. The solution to this situation is the development of a centralized web server management system. Using Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI), the client is able to allow all web servers to communicate with central services to perform functions on their behalf. This approach enables greater salability and by using Java, web server proprietary barriers are broken. Web servers can be built in ASP, JSP, Apache, etc. And through integrated web server 'spidering', all web servers can be monitored by a single network service to ensure that they provide maximum uptime to their users.

This system has been developed in 4th Dimension, using Java RMI as a communication layer to any other web server (capable of supporting Java RMI). The result is greater leverage in development as a large percentage of the functionality of web servers can be built once, and not redundantly implemented on each web server. This increases quality and decreases the cost of development.

Location: Los Angeles

Solution: Integration of 4th Dimension and Outlook 2000 for Fortune 100 corporation

Integrating client/server and web based operational systems into this organization requires a high degree of communications between communication and productivity software (Microsoft Office 2000). By developing routines in 4th Dimension, we have been successful in extending 4th Dimension to communicate with the Microsoft Windows object model, and therefore can directly program products such as Outlook 2000 with VBA. The result of this is that our 4th Dimension applications can now create e-mails into Outlook directly, schedule appointments, log journal entries, create or integrate with corporate contact databases, or create tasks for individuals. This capability will be further extended with the advent of Microsoft's Digital Dashboard, allowing our applications to participate in Team based workflow management and resourcing. This is a major achievement for 4th Dimension when demonstrating integration into a Microsoft-centric environment.

Location: Los Angeles

Solution: Web Server development in 4th Dimension for Fortune 100 corporation

A large worldwide corporation wants to deploy a range of services for its 8,000+ employees via the web on their intranet. The Human Resources department have contracted with Tech Solutions to assist in the design, development and deployment of a web based set of tools for staff. The development of a 'web engine' is required. The software is developed in 4th Dimension, using a combination of 4th Dimension as the back-end web server, Sybase as the corporate relational database and Javascript/HTML on the browser side. The solution is nonproprietary and supports multi-lingual access, corporate security, heavy duty process management and high resilience.

Location: Los Angeles

Solution: Knowledge Management solution using Outlook 2000, corporate Intranet & web pages, Microsoft Site Server, ASP

A major information technology consulting firm is presented with the challenge of retaining knowledge from their 100+ field based consultants in a way that is non-threatening to the consultants, but enables the capturing of tacit knowledge into a central repository. Tech Solutions is contracted to assist in facilitation of this process, management of staff to provide a tool that is simple and beneficial to the field based consultants, yet retains knowledge for leveraging. No longer is the client presented with the risk of a consultant leaving and taking all of the gained learning from field work with them. Using Outlook 2000, ASP and other Microsoft tools, such as Site Server, a solution was delivered in a very short time period that enables field based consultants to share knowledge and the firm to benefit from this asset for their ongoing business.

Location: Adelaide, Australia

Solution: Off-line invoicing system developed in 4th Dimension

A semi-government body is presented with the challenge of billing their clients for staff time. They have purchased a payroll system, but require additional functionality for billing of time to clients that the payroll system is not able to provide. Through data exchange with the payroll system, Tech Solutions were able to develop a system in a very short period of time that captures time spent, addresses the numerous styles of billing that is required for clients, and produces invoices thereby reducing the cashflow threat to the client and yet passing invoicing data to the client's accounting system. This system was developed in 4th Dimension for operation on Windows NT.

Location: Adelaide, Australia

Solution: Integration system for Payroll change over for major international car manufacturer

As part of an initiative to address Year 2000 problems in a suite of existing software in this major car manufacturer, a new HR system has been implemented. However transferring time worked on projects from work centers in factory areas involves integrating data from AS/400 systems to this new UNIX based HR system. Tech Solutions have been brought in to develop an integrational system that will cover the corporation if the requested changes to the HR system to cater for data interchange cannot meet their required timelines for Y2K compliance. Tech Solutions were able to deliver a solution in a matter of weeks that catered for data conversion for the corporation, that enabled them to have a 'plan B' in case there were delays in the customized changes to the HR system taking place. This solution was built in 4th Dimension for operation on Windows.

Location: Adelaide, Australia

Solution: Consulting assistance with major software company for requirement capture and documentation

Due to an overwhelming increase in customizational change requests to a major software company's core application, the process of capturing requirements for changes has been moved out to the state offices. Tech Solutions was brought in to assist in developing a process for this company to capture requirements from clients, document these requirements using industry 'best practice' techniques, and have software engineers react to these requirements in their interstate head office. Consulting assistance was brought in for management and this process resulted in changes to their process and an increase in overall customer satisfaction and quality of software process and product.

Want to know more?

If your organization has its 'challenges' with technology, then you have come to the right place. Let's get your success story up here too. Tech Solutions can provide you with consulting services, software development, expertise, etc. that will enable your projects to succeed.