Re: Doing The Impossible
From: J.Marsch (jeremy_at_ctcdeveloper.com)
Date: 04/20/04
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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 11:08:09 -0500
Greg:
There are a few technical alternatives, and I think that the other posts
cover most of them. For any of those solutions, you will face maintenance
issues where you have to update your code to parallel changes made to the
web application, and depending upon how the application in implemented,
there might be a danger of posting the wrong value to the wrong field if the
web app is ever changed in a way that takes it out of sync from your
application.
However, this feels more like a project management problem than a technical
problem. You are dealing with 2 different departments -- yours, and
whatever department the web application came from (administration?
development?). In order for this to really work, your project is going to
need a sponsor. The sponsor would be someone who has authority over both
departments, such that they can arrange that the two groups work together to
create a solution.
The bare facts are that you have a project which will require some degree of
coordination between at least two departments in order to be successful.
The only way that you are likely to get that is if you have someone in
management to tell both of the departments to work together. This might be
accomplished through the cooperation of your two department managers, or it
might be accomplished with the help of someone who has authority over both
departments.
If you don't get cooperation between the departments, this project is likely
to fail.
You are going to need at least some level of cooperation with the owners of
the web application -- so that you can get the data exchange right, and so
that you can be aware of changes that you need to make to your system to
keep it in sync with updates to the web application. In order to get that,
you need for your department to be in collusion with the programmers, and
for that to happen, you are going to need someone with authority to create
that relationship -- your sponsor.
If the workers in your department are really behind your software, your best
ally will likely be the manager in charge of the purchasing group that uses
your application. Of course, you will ultimately need for your department
head to buy in to your idea. Indeed, you probably don't want to go looking
for a higher level sponsor if your department head doesn't agree with you --
that could be a bad political move.
If there has already been a University-wide decision to use this new web
application for purchasing, it might be that a decisions has already been
made at a high level. In that case, you are probably going to have a hard
time getting sponsorship. At this point, I'm making quite a few assumptions
about the situation. But to plunge on: If the University has already
decided at a high level that purchasing will be made through the web
application, administration will probably be disinclined to create an
exception to the rule for one department. Your goal will be to show how
providing interoperability with your application will add value (save money,
save labor, save time, reduce errors etc). The first person that you want
to convince will probably be your department head (assuming that there is no
manager between you and your head, if there is, make sure that this/these
individual(s) are involved as well).
If that sounds like a lot, it really might be. It depends upon what level
of involvement you need from the other department. And, that depends upon
what technology you use to accomplish the interoperability (I would be
thinking about the lower-level options that have been surfaced on this
thread: a web service interface if I could get the web programmers to build
one, or perhaps http posts from my application if I couldn't).
Whatever you do, have a good idea of what sort of cooperation you need from
the programmers: specs only, http support and change coordination, web
services, etc. Also, getting this project off the ground might be easier if
you can demonstrate how it will help outside of your department. How many
other departments use their own systems for purchasing? If the web
programmers created a general http or web service interface, it could assist
those other departments as well. You might not be the only ones who need to
integrate your operations with the new system.
Sorry for the long rant -- I've been through the bottom-up grass roots
project pattern before. The chances for success are pretty low if you don't
have mgmt behind you.
"Greg Smith" <gjs@umn.edu> wrote in message
news:exoueOtJEHA.752@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> Hello, I have been given a programming task that falls into the
"impossible"
> category with my current skill set. I am hoping somebody out there knows
> how to do this and can save my b-t.
>
>
>
> I work for a large University. I wrote a Windows-based database
application
> for my department that is used in purchasing. The University has just
> released Web-base application that does the same thing using a sub set of
> the data that my application uses. The people in my department hate it
and
> want to keep using my application, however, the University application
MUST
> BE USED to order. What my users have asked for is a way of doing a mass
> copy and paste of the needed information from my Windows app to the Web
app.
> I have talked to the University's programmers and there is absolutely no
> chance of them changing their application to facilitate this. It all has
to
> be done from the Windows app.
>
>
>
> Obviously information could be cut and pasted a field at a time, but they
> would like a massive copy and then go to the web form and paste, paste,
> paste.
>
>
>
> Is there a way to do this from the clip board? From a text file? Can I
> assign a hot-key programmatically to paste things off the clipboard or
text
> file?
>
>
>
> Any help is greatly appreciated.
>
>
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