Case Studies: C#

Telemedicine, using technology to bring doctors and patients together efficiently over distance, is a rapidly growing field. Since 2008, Saturn Systems has provided core software development and quality assurance services to industry leaders. Our projects range from medical device communications and integration, to online calendar management. Saturn Systems’ unique skills mix of device control and enterprise application development are the perfect fit for the industry.

Saturn Systems has provided staff augmentation to a leading company in the retirement planning solutions industry since 2007. With staff ranging from business analysts to .NET developers and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) experts, Saturn Systems has provided top technical expertise, competitive Rural Outsourcing rates and the flexible staff levels the customer needs.

Saturn Systems was contracted to design and develop a web solution to provide fundraising services to non-profit organizations and their event participants. The purpose of the system was to allow online registration for charitable events, and offer a user-friendly, yet versatile means for fundraisers to create a personalized web site for collecting and reporting ongoing donations. To do this effectively, the system had to allow for quick and easy fundraiser registration and dynamic personalized web site, while preserving consistent organization branding. Integration with existing payment transaction software and an online and desktop fundraising tracking application were also key requirements. The resulting system was built and deployed successfully and has been instrumental in raising tens of millions of dollars for charity purposes.

A nationwide printer of newspapers, inserts and catalogs contacted Saturn Systems to replace an online portal used by chain retail advertising customers to design and customize weekly inserts. The system to be replaced was a heavyweight Java application with client PC and bandwidth requirements that frequently exceeded those of their customer base. Saturn Systems designed a new lightweight, purely web-based solution that supported online markup and annotation, page additions using approved templates and prototype generation. Significant back-end enhancements were made, adding workflow to ensure advertiser edits were routed, approved and processed. The resulting system has significantly simplified the weekly process of design, approval and publishing advertising circulars for Saturn’s customer and their advertising customers.

Saturn Systems took over support and enhancement of a complex system of web services and batch processes used by a non-profit that works with troubled mortgage owners to stay in their home. The system is continually being enhanced to add services, address new regulations and integrate with agencies and providers. The systems were developed by the previous vendor which used a hybrid onshore/offshore model. Saturn Systems was able to step in and deliver the necessary technical expertise and staffing at a lower cost than the previous vendor.

A regional provider of chemical dependency services contracted with Saturn Systems to provide support and enhancement of an existing web based secure forms solution used for tracking of all patient information and case activity. The site uses IBM Forms technology, formerly PureEdge, to accept information and integrate with attached smartcard readers to verify electronic signatures of staff and patients. The original system was developed using Microsoft Classic ASP which had become difficult to support. Saturn Systems redesigned the system to use ASP.NET and improved the usability of the interface. The resulting system has greatly simplified maintenance and reduced development costs.

A national chain of clothing stores with more than 700 outlets contracted Saturn Systems to create a web-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application for use by all of their stores. The resulting application integrated with the point of sales (POS) system and allowed store staff to survey customers at the time of purchase. The design required support for multiple store brands, and each retail chain required its own unique survey form containing questions designed by the chain’s marketing staff. The application is widely used to collect tens of thousands of names, addresses, birthdays and personalized notes on customers, which are used to mail promotional materials and by store managers to contact individual customers regarding special sales and new merchandise.

Saturn Systems was contracted to design and develop a comprehensive case management solution for a provider of care, education, and treatment for children with emotional, behavioral, and learning disabilities. To prepare for the design phase Saturn Systems performed a complete analysis of all the major business and treatment entities within the organization. The result was a system designed to meet a wide variety of very detailed needs yet provide a straightforward interface usable by users of varying skill levels. The system has been a success for the customer and has greatly simplified life for their users, allowing them to focus on their jobs.

Electronic blood glucose meters are used by diabetics to accurately track blood sugar levels. They are used by doctors in telemedicine to track a patient’s daily and long term ability to manage these levels. Available meters communicate with a PC using either serial or USB communications. Saturn Systems has developed and integrated drivers for a number of these devices, each of which has a unique communications protocol.

In the process of upgrading the audio conferencing features of their flagship product from Windows XP to Windows 7, one of Saturn Systems telemedicine clients discovered that support for acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) was no long supported in the Microsoft Real-Time Communications libraries. Saturn Systems engineers were asked to replace the system with a custom solution and a new audio codec. Using Microsoft’s Media Foundation technology, a replacement was developed that included the necessary loopback functionality required for echo cancellation. The resulting component provided better quality audio and efficiency than the original solution and was integrated with the core product successfully.

This case study provides a good example of a small project that made a big difference for a customer. A brick and mortar lighting business branching into e-commerce had a cumbersome process of receiving and appropriately processing thousands of images of vendor products for display on their web site. Each image could arrive in a variety of formats and had to be cleanly processed into various resolutions and placed in appropriate folders. Recognizing the project as fairly straightforward, Saturn Systems assigned it to the intern staff in order to keep costs low. The resulting application was one that anyone on the customer staff could now run without needing great technical skills. The owner’s comments on completion were, “Everybody is happy with your product, we love your work!”

Saturn Systems took over support and enhancement of a vendor management portal used by the financial industry when the customer’s previous vendor decided to end support for the package. The original designer of the solution had used Microsoft’s MVC along with a considerable palette of open source utilities and packages. Transition of the complex package occurred with little support from the previous vendor, requiring Saturn staff to quickly gain an understanding of the system architecture and an intricate deployment process. Saturn Systems continues to support and enhance the site.

Saturn Systems was contracted to develop a C# .NET based driver to communicate with an ANSI 12.19 compliant smart meter over general packet radio service (GPRS). The resulting driver had to be integrated with an existing parser to produce readable data for inclusion in a database. The project required our engineer to quickly understand the depth and complexities of the ANSI 12.19 protocol as well as an undocumented custom parser module. The project resulted in a robust, object-oriented driver framework and common data link layer that supported protocol enhancement and meter specifics. The parser code was also abstracted to support generic 12.19 parsing as well as the easy addition of meter specific data parsing. All code was developed and tested using a custom driver application used to exercise all features and functions supported by the driver.

The Electronic Security Systems Integrated Management System (ESSIMS) application is a large scale enterprise web development initiative sponsored by SPAWAR code 743, responsible for providing physical security for Marine Corp bases throughout the world. ESSIMS is a powerful and intuitive web based project management tool that allows project engineers, program managers and USMC sponsors and site managers to manage USMC Physical Security projects. Users are able to track and manage project finances, milestones, documentation, tasking and problem reports. Saturn Systems leads a group of software engineers for this project and is responsible for project management, requirements gathering, software design and quality assurance.