Business Context
The client’s internal IT deparmtent was regularly being asked to perform repetitive data entry tasks.
Here are a few examples, possibly some of them may sound familiar to you:
- Change the weekly performance target from 80% to 90% of the targetted output volume.
- Change the weekly output target quantity to 5,000 units.
- Stop sending jobs to the queue for machine A.
- Start sending jobs back again to the queue for machine A.
- Cancel production of item 3 on order number P12345.
- Update prices for all items in category A first thing on Monday morning by 5%.
Even though each of these tasks alone may only take 5, 10 or 15 minutes - they all add up.
The time spent by an expensive resource doing this data entry would be way more valuable to the business invested in building new, and improving existing, applications.
About the project
Repetitive tasks performed by software developers need to be identified and automated as a priority.
Each one of them plays a part in the death by a thousand cuts of internal IT departments.
User interfaces needed to be provided for managers and administrators to change these values themselves.
Challenges
The procedure for creating the user interfaces needed to be very reproducible and predictable. Each time one of these repetitive “data entry” tasks was identified, the process to create a screen accessible to the user needs to run smooth and easy.
This ensures that the developer that gets the phone call or helpdesk ticket will pick this option instead of doing the quickie manual SQL database update.
The manual updating method does have one positive aspect to it - updates to the data are only made by authorised people, the developers. Providing a web app to allow this to be done by users presents a risk of unauthorised updates.
Solution
Using Microsoft’s .Net tools to efficiently scaffold a database connected web app, with the required screens to update the data.
Hosting the app in Microsoft Azure’s App Service, allows access to be be granted to only authorised users/user groups.
Project results
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Reduced helpdesk tickets/requests for software developers to update prices, statuses, effective dates etc.
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Faster turnaround time for requests for small but esssential data modifications.
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Reduced the risks of possibly massive database corruption each and every time a developer executes manual SQL commands against a database.
Technical Solution
See my blog post on how I did this.