MCS Global Ltd.
About MCS and Insitu
Headquartered in the Thames Valley in England, MCS Global Ltd. develops and distributes the leading computer-based management system for the equipment and tool rental market. Deployed in countries worldwide, their Synergy/DE-based Insitu application suite tracks a wide variety of rental items—everything from deep-sea diving equipment to cement mixers.
How is MCS using XML?
MCS uses XML for business-to-business
data transport and to communicate with Web
services.
Data transport
The Point of Sale (POS) application
is the principal component of MCS’s Insitu
software suite. It handles various types
of transactions, both rental and sales,
from initial inquiry to final accounting.
MCS customers wanted a streamlined process
for electronically invoicing their customers
and receiving orders from them. However,
end users’ incompatible applications
and operating systems prohibited the sharing
of data, forcing MCS customers to complete
these processes manually.
“Some of our customers generate over 10,000 invoices a month,” states Mark Nolan, Research and Development Manager at MCS. “Getting bogged down with manual billing procedures and costly human errors just isn’t an option for them.”
Looking for an affordable way to meet their customers’ requirements, MCS decided to incorporate XML into the Insitu solution. Outbound invoices and dispatch notices are now converted to XML, enabling third-party applications to receive and understand the data. Similarly, inbound orders and remittance notices arrive in XML format, enabling easy interpretation by Insitu.
“Opening up this type of communication has allowed us to streamline many of the day-to-day processes for our customers,” maintains Nolan. “Using XML, we can offer our customers this new functionality without the complexity or the expense associated with traditional EDI solutions.”
Communication with Web services
Another way XML is helping Insitu
users streamline business processes is by
enabling them to communicate with Web services.
When users enter new customer or supplier
details, Insitu calls on the www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk
Web service to help the user specify address
information. When a user enters a number
in the zip code field, Insitu uses the Synergy
HTTP document transport API to send a request
to the postcode Web service. It requests
all company addresses with that zip code
and then uses the Synergy XML API to parse
the XML data that is returned. The user
receives a list of addresses corresponding
to the zip code entered and can simply click
on the appropriate entry.
“This obviously saves our customers significant time, not to mention the increase in accuracy it provides,” states Rachel Blunden, MCS Senior Developer. “Given the success with ‘postcodeanywhere,’ we have decided to look at Web services for other areas of our application. We are just beginning to unlock the tremendous potential this technology offers our application.”
Note: Because their data transport implementation occurred before the Synergy XML API was available, MCS created their own XML parsing/assembling code to meet their needs for that project. “We would have used the XML API if it had been available at the time,“ says Nolan. “We used the Synergy XML API parsing routines with our Web services project, and it was certainly easier than creating our own parsing code.”
For more information about BusinessCraft, visit their web site: www.mcsglobal.com
