Drawings Database

Venture designed and implemented an intranet solution to make our client's catalogue of drawings, created by their drawing office, available to all staff located in multiple sites

Background

Venture worked closely with the client's drawing office staff to identify the key requirements for both the users and administrators of the database. A new database was created using the client's standard technologies, accessible via a series of web-pages. All records were then reviewed and loaded to it from the existing catalogue.
User functions were integrated to three simple views to promote ease of use:

• Search window using drop-down menus and intelligent text field searches
• Summary listing of drawings matching search criteria
• Detailed metadata for individual drawings including low-resolution thumbnail image

Administrator functions run off a central administrator console offering:

• Record creation and editing using drop-down menus
• Ability to supersede records to preserve file history
• Batch archiving and deletion tools
• Listings update drop-down menus
• Ability to export reports to Excel
• Simple tool to add/remove administrators
• Log file to monitor administrator activity

The Webpages were given the same look and feel to incorporate them into the existing Intranet. Access to the database is controlled automatically via the Windows login name to increase ease of access for both administrators and users.

Outcome

The database is now available through the client's Intranet to staff in 6 offices. Administrators are simultaneously creating new records from the clients UK and Netherlands drawing offices.

In addition to creating records for new drawings, the drawing office staff are now loading previously un-catalogued archived drawings into the database to increase the historical data available to users.

Venture is working closely with the drawing office to implement further enhancements to the solution to improve the way administrators create and users view new drawings.