Q4 Power Technical Overview

Q4 Power brings the flexibility to configure the system to your business needs. It uses modern interfaces and utilizes rear-end database engines to store, deliver and transact your information.

Software Flexibility

While the baseline Q4 Power system incorporates a very high degree of functionality, which meets the requirements of a large number of companies, Engica recognises the importance of fitting the software solution to the business. That is why we have designed our systems so that we can meet individual needs by quickly and economically configuring key aspects of the products.

Features to support configuration, customisation and integration include:-

MS Windows Interface

All Engica products make full use of the Windows GUI (95,98, 2000, NT, XP) following Microsoft guidelines for user interface features. Engica are committed to maintaining this high degree of compatibility with de facto Microsoft standards as they change.

We believe that user interface design is a key factor in the successful implementation of our systems and we have made ease of use a primary design objective. We advise purchasers also to place user interface design high on the evaluation criteria once the functional requirements have been met.

Engica’s products include several unique interface features, including arbitrary record tagging and powerful user-driven data navigation techniques. The client user interface is not simply a Windows representation of data forms but has been designed from the ground up for the Windows GUI. For example, user menus are presented graphically, shown as simplified business process flow charts, so that users quickly gain an overall understanding of the possible tasks and their relationships.

The graphical interface of Engica software allows the user to concentrate on improving the business process without becoming involved with the technical issues behind the software.

Ease of Navigation

The ability to move between databases without the need to move in to and out of each subsystem is seen by existing clients as a major benefit offered by Q4 Power. For example, a user inspecting an asset record can navigate to all related link fields such as Stock, Supplier and Drawing, simply by pressing the appropriate icon and without requiring a detailed knowledge of menu structures.

A consistent approach to screen design and icon design across the entire set of Engica products has been adopted in order to maximise user productivity and to minimise the time required to have new users up and running.

Relational Design

The Q4 system is based upon a fully relational design and implementation. The logical data model was designed from the outset using relational techniques. We have extended the power of the relational data model into the user interface through our unique data linking and navigation features.

Integration and Interfacing

A design goal for Q4 Power is to provide a system that is open to integration. We believe that, just as our customers will turn to us as CMMS specialists, they will want to procure other business systems from appropriate specialists. Our policy is to maintain platform independence for the CMMS data storage platform (data servers) and to make full use of the de facto standard GUI interface, MS Windows and Browser hosting.

This data storage independence provides our customers with scalability (from file servers to a variety of full feature database server platforms) and flexibility (of network, OS and hardware platform).

The choice of “server independent” Windows and Browser clients provides identical operation across all the various configurations, so that up sizing becomes transparent to users.

The system takes advantage of Microsoft’s DNA Architecture to provide extremely high levels of connectivity and integration. In the context of data access, the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) element of that architecture allows dynamic (live) access from a wide variety of data sources.

Client Server

The Q4 Power system operates in three main configurations. For light loads, it is implemented as an MS Access LAN server based system with PC front-end processors and data shared on a common LAN server. For medium to heavy loads, it is implemented as a client server system with a PC front end and a database server back-end including Oracle and MS SQL Server. Users can also connect to the system using a standard web browser across an Intranet or the web. Details of transaction rates, disk requirements and other system environment variables are difficult to provide without further discussion on selected platforms and detailed sizing requirements. The system provides rapid responses for data representing maintenance information for an entire organisation.

System Security

System security takes place at the client and the server; the client end providing detailed control over access to system process and the server security ensuring that data access rights are not violated.

Each user is assigned a name and a password within a defined “user group”. One user (the “site administrator”) has rights to assign users and to control their access to various elements of the system.

If a user is denied access to some data, the system locks the user from that data at the table level (even if they are using a database development environment) and prevents them from accessing the data through normal system operations. It also examines the system for processing which requires the data and prevents the user from accessing these processes.

The user may also be denied access to processes and forms (such as the “assess a fault” process or a particular screen), even when data security is not required.

Operations to which the user has no access are displayed as greyed buttons or options.

Summary and additional architecture technical information:

• Stands upon a relational data model.
• Provides powerful user data navigation tools, independent of the data storage platforms in use.
• Allows maximum technical flexibility and opportunity for integration.
• Distributes processing between server and client PCs, with the corresponding increase in network and server “headroom”.
• Provides a means for customers to use commonly available skills to access the data through in house tools.

Additional software tools that can be used with Q4 Power include:

• Crystal Reports
• Microsoft Project
• Watermark Document Manager