During its MIX09 conference held in Las Vegas yesterday, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MFST) announced its Expression Blend 3 Preview product. Innovapost, a Toronto-based IT solutions and services provider, used this interactive design tool to create a solution for Canada Post office outlets across the country.
Microsoft’s Expression Blend 3 Preview is aimed at improving the workflow and productivity of designer and developers within an organization. Tracy Alburger, solutions delivery director at Innovapost, said the company worked with Microsoft solutions such as Expression Blend and Visual Studio 2008 to help develop and create a solution for Canada Post office outlets, many of which are located in Shoppers Drug Mart stores across the country.
Today, there are about 7,000 Canada Post office outlets located nationwide, Alburger said. The business challenge these outlets were facing was inconsistencies in the way they were conducting their business processes. Almost half of these outlets were using legacy software solutions, while the other half were left using manual, paper-based operations to conduct customer sales, she said. Innovapost had to find a way to replace these legacy and manual systems and ensure the process was fairly seamless too, Alburger added.
“At the user-interface (UI) level, we used Express Blend,” she said. “The developers also used Visual Studio 2008 to build the UI and to create its look and feel. We were able to do this (solution) in just nine months, when normally it takes about two years.”
The new solution is a combination of hardware and software and uses touch-screen functionality. Canada Post has a huge SAP implementation, Alburger says, and Innovapost was able to maintain some of the outlets’ legacy mainframe applications, while at the same time, replacing the front-end hardware systems.
Now, instead of using pen and paper and outdated systems, post office outlet clerks can now key in data using a mouse and keyboard, combined with touch screen technology.
Today, over 1,500 post office outlets now have the solution up and running said Louis Potvin, a developer at Innovapost.
The solution comes as a package to the post office outlet and includes hardware components such as an HP desktop touch screen monitor, and an Epson receipt printer.
“About 15 sites are being implemented with this solution each night,” Potvin said. “These are all standalone systems that run on (Windows) XP.”
While all of the development and implementation work was done for these outlets in-house, Potvin said Innovapost did have Microsoft’s help too.
“We had premier support from Microsoft and we also had a training course that really helped us out with best practices in things like development,” he added.
