Adobe Success Story

Project Details

Macromedia ColdFusion MX and Dreamweaver MX Enable Rapid Development, Easy Tracking

With a team of 800 attorneys, paralegals, and other professional staff, the San Diego County Department of Child Support Services (SDDCSS) handles thousands of child-support enforcement orders that proceed through the county court system. At any point, there are approximately 180,000 total cases in various phases of establishment or enforcement. Closed cases must be retained for 52 additional months. As a result, SDDCSS has an enormous challenge in accurately tracking and managing the volumes of paper-based files these cases generate.

The agency employs a team of file clerks whose sole responsibility is to retrieve and deliver files to the agency's professional staff. Response times for file requests were averaging eight hours -- when the files could be found. Manual logs and paper-based sign-out sheets were inaccurate. Often, attorneys would retain files after working on a case, because they wanted subsequent access to documents. It wasn't uncommon for several broadcast e-mails to go out each day from agency attorneys seeking missing files from their colleagues. Small de facto file banks sprouted up in different offices and on different floors. At any point in time, 20-30 percent of needed files couldn't be located.

Seeking a better way to automate its case file management, the SDDCSS decided to implement a wireless solution that would leverage portable PDAs equipped with wireless networking and scanners, as well as a traditional browser-based interface for requestors and administrators.

According to Darius Fattahipour, senior IT engineer, the platform choice was very important. "We'd purchased some Palm PDAs equipped with Symbol scanners, but we thought that the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) was clunky and feature-limited. We decided to go with the Compaq iPAQ PDA because it had a fully functional Windows 2000 operating system and Internet Explorer. That would simplify our development and increase usability. Plus, there wouldn't be any need for synchronizing data -- there would be live, real-time updates."

SDDCSS also took great care in selecting and implementing its wireless network. "Given the confidential nature of this information, we placed a great emphasis on security," said Abdallah Elassaad, supervising IT engineer. "We use IPSec 256-bit encryption with a PIX firewall and VPN."

For application development, Fattahipour made a quick and easy decision: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and ColdFusion MX. "We wanted a fast development cycle," he said. "With these products, we were able to dramatically reduce our development time. Dreamweaver MX is the perfect IDE for Web application development. Together with ColdFusion, they enabled us to develop the wireless file-locator application in two months -- well ahead of our project estimate of six months. We love the new MX versions. It's great to have all of the features of Dreamweaver and ColdFusion -- all logically presented in one unified interface.

"We were able to develop the GUIs for the different clients -- Pocket Internet Explorer and standard Internet Explorer -- and complete all CFML, JavaScript, SQL, and CSS code using Dreamweaver MX. In addition, ColdFusion MX seamlessly integrated with our Windows 2000 Advanced Server environment running Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft Exchange 2000. Most importantly, ColdFusion MX perfectly integrated with our Cisco hardware firewall and VPN, using Microsoft ISA. The application we were creating is a wireless Web application. ColdFusion MX is the ideal tool for developing wireless Web applications. The power of ColdFusion and its rapid development environment were quite simply the keys to the success of this project."

Slashing File Retrieval Times

"We used to joke that we had little elves coming in and taking files off our desks and credenzas," said Sande Hanson, chief of production for SDDCSS. "That's part of the reason we decided to name our new system 'Electronic file Locator System' or 'ELFS.'"

All SDDCSS file folders carry a unique nine-digit case number and barcode identifier that can be scanned by file administrators and clerks using specially equipped iPAQ PDAs. The application provides functionality for three classes of users -- file administrators, requesting users, and file runners. File Administrators at the agency's on-site File Bank have a superset of functionality accessible from their desktop Web browsers. ELFS automatically refreshes its data with any changes, enabling Administrators to generate queries on the location of any file at any time. They can scan inbound files to be archived off site. They can use ELFS to add new cases or add comments and annotations about existing cases and files. And they can also generate extensive reports about virtually any aspect of a file -- its location, the current file holder, how many times that file has been requested, how many file requests a user has made, and more.

"That information is very useful for us in dealing with invoices from our outsourced records-management service provider, noted Hanson.

SDDCSS users can request a file from his/her PC-based Web browser through a very simple process. The user simply submits up to 10 different case numbers. Using the power of ColdFusion MX, ELFS searches its system to see if that file's documents have been electronically imaged and, if so, presents the option to view those images online immediately. If the file only exists in paper form, ELFS will send a confirming e-mail with an estimated time of arrival, depending on whether the file is in a local FileBank, out with staff, or in the off-site archive.

Users can also transfer files to colleagues without checking files back into the FileBank. Once he/she enters the transfer, he/she is responsible for physically delivering the file to his/her colleague.

The ELFS system uses ColdFusion MX to handle query calls to and from a Microsoft SQL Server database. All program logic and database calls use the elegantly simple but powerful CFML tags. For instance, every time a file request is made, stored procedures are called within ColdFusion tags that return the location of the file. File Clerks deliver these files and update the ELFS database wirelessly through calling additional SQL stored procedures. All transactions wireless or otherwise, process through ColdFusion MX Server.

Accurate Information Delivery -- Faster and Cheaper

The use of 10 wireless, scanner-equipped iPAQs by file runners who scan a barcode on the file and assign it to an owner -- anywhere in SDDCSS offices -- is significantly accelerates the file retrieval/delivery process.

"Previously, we were quoting a retrieval time of 6-8 hours for an on-site file," said Fattahipour. "With ELFS, we've cut that to about 2-3 hours. When you're pulling an average of 15,000 files month -- now all managed through the ColdFusion MX-based ELFS application -- that represents a major productivity gain. SDDCSS has essentially automated a manual, labor-intensive task by turning the management of the process over to ColdFusion MX. We don't tie up our higher-salaried attorneys and child-support officers with clerical tasks. And we've reduced the lost-file stress our clerks had to endure. With our new application built with Macromedia products we've reduced the number of missing files from 20-30 percent down to about 5 percent -- and we expect that to decrease to less than 1 percent over time."

Benefits of Macromedia technology:

Macromedia products:
Macromedia ColdFusion MX Server, Enterprise Edition; Macromedia Dreamweaver MX

Hardware:
Compaq Proliant ML 530 dual-processor

Operating system:
Microsoft Windows 2000 with Internet Information Server 5.0

Database:
Microsoft SQL Server 2000

Size of DB: 10 GB

Network connection:
Cisco Aironet 1200 Wireless Access with Cisco VPN clients

Development team:
1 full time developer and one part time DBA