rails intranet
Rails is a great framework for creating time & cost saving web applications that work for the small and medium enterprise. To prove this we built a medium sized intranet application for a small construction company and are inviting the rails community to tell us what they think. There's a link at the bottom of this page that will take you to the app but it solves quite a complex business problem so if you're really interested in discovering what it's about then first take a few moments to read what it does.
the business problem
The company makes structural steelwork in their yard and assembles it on construction sites. During the process they create many verbal purchase orders by phone for items such as steelwork, plant & hired equipment. Prior to this application existing they would wait for the invoice to be delivered before entering it on an Excel spreadsheet which meant that they'd have little idea of how much cash was being spent until the job was over and it was too late to manage.
the intranet application
This application allows them to enter purchase orders as they go along, giving them a graphical display of how much has been spent in various cost centres such as 'plant' or 'shop labour'. They then reconcile these with invoices when they arrive. The system also lets them put in applications for payment from clients and wages so that they get a full view of their cash-in and cash-out on what is quite a complex cash flow.
User Interface
The company we built it for lives on Excel spreadsheets so we tried to give the application an 'office' feel by putting all actions and navigation into toolbars at the top of the screen. It's certainly worked for the client and we'd be interested in other people's feedback.
Note !!!
- The client wanted a rich UI experience so we have built the application for Firefox and Safari, it also seems to work on Opera and Konqueror. We'll make it IE7 compatible if IE7 proves up to the job. The client was lucky enough not to be committed to a particular browser so there was little point wasting time or limiting functionality by making it work on IE 6.
- The application is in use but we are still working on UI elements such as icons and saerch result nvigation so these will change
- We've created a forum specifically for this application so if you like the app, hate it or have any questions technical or otherwise then please feel free to drop us a line.
Have a go
To leap into the demo without having to log-on, click here but remember not to use Internet Explorer 6, it's just not up to the job.
