Architecture

Figure 5: Customer Information Architecture.

The architecture of the Customer Information System is comprised of four components:

• Cabinet and Drawer View - This component is written in Visual C++ and has been implemented as an OLE Server. This allows applications outside of the system to drive the view and create custom solutions.

• Folder Forms and Open Folder View - This component is written in Visual Basic. This allows easy customization of the folders and reduces the required level of programming skill.

• SQL Server - All structured data from the Folder Forms are stored in SQL Server. This allows other applications such as Microsoft Project and Microsoft Excel to access the information.

• Mezzanine - All documents are managed by Saros Mezzanine. Mezzanine attaches a SQL Server record to each document that includes attributes. The attributes include long file names, authors, and keywords. The document is then submitted to a Fulcrum Text Search Engine to allow full content searching.