Simplified Tools & Middleware & Product Line Engineering
IBM Application Creator for Business Users Technology
IBM Application Creator for Business Users is a web application development tool with a simple user-interface to allow people without technical skills to create business applications that solve every day tasks.
IBM Application Creator for Business Users requires no programming skills and is a visually appealing, user-friendly, interactive tool designed to develop online business application for any business task, including Human Resources, Finance, Sales or Marketing, that automate common manual processes, such as the collection and analysis of information. By giving users easy tools to create simple applications themselves, this eliminates wait time required when a typical employee issues an application development request through an IT department.
Unlike application wikis which require technology-savvy users and do not address workflow or data storage in a database, IBM Application Creator for Business Users is designed to appeal to the average business user. It requires no elaborate instructions, cumbersome download or installation of any new software, enabling users to focus on the problem at hand. A typical user has limited experience using software "wizards," documents, spreadsheets and forms, and knows how to create items in a "canvas" and later rearrange them using basic drag and drop functions.
As more business activities move online, there are more occasions to ask the IT Department for help. But if you have to wait a lengthy period for support, or you don't have an IT dept, you can save either time or money -- and a lot of aggravation -- by quickly creating your own online forms for just about anything.
An example of this useful technology in action might be at a small business where lunch is ordered every day from a local restaurant. The office manager collects orders and at the end of the week subtracts lunch costs from each employee's salary. This application could be used to easily build a Web-based form where each employee fills in his lunch order every day. The application could calculate the weekly or monthly costs and keep everything orderly. On the flip side, the restaurant owner may want people to be able to order food online - even without actually purchasing the food. This way the restaurant owner can prepare the right food on time and know to whom the food should be delivered.
Another example involves an onsite operations manager interested in keeping track of renovation costs. If the user wants to collect price quotes from various contractors, she would normally update a spread sheet every time new information is gathered. Putting this information on the Web with IBM Application Creator for Business Users allows anyone to access the file and update it, collect price quotes, analyze the information or collect references - all in one central location without having to know how to program.
IBM Application Creator for Business Users builds on Web 2.0 attributes and uses technologies such as AJAX, a Web development technique for creating interactive Web applications. Users develop the online business applications over the Web on any Internet browser. The user is taken through a series of "wizard" pages that let him specify details such as an application name, behavior, look and feel.
Once the user defines the application, the definition is submitted to the tool's Java -based server-side back-end where the application is constructed. At this point the back-end uses templates to generate the application and returns to the user a URL, pointing the user to the Web-accessible online business application.
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