BCD Awards - 2005

BCD wins Big in Search400.com's 'Products of the Year' Awards Honored include: WebSmart, Catapult and Nexus Portal

These days it isn't enough to simply distribute documents. Users need to manage those documents and have controls to do it automatically. Think it isn't possible to find a tool that does that? Then you haven't seen Business Computer Design International Inc.'s (BCD)

Catapult Wins Search400.com's 'Products of the Year' Document/Image Management Software - Gold Award

Catapult is BCD's unattended automated spool file and report distribution tool. It automatically monitors outques and distributes iSeries-AS/400 reports to any network drive, e-mail system or Web site. You set up the selection criteria for distributing reports -- no changes to your programs or printer files are required.

Catapult checks for new spool files at scheduled intervals or at specific times. Spool files are downloaded to a poller PC where they can be e-mailed; faxed; printed; split; converted to PDF, RTF or HTML; zipped, compressed and more. In addition, Catapult interfaces with EZ-Pickin's to automatically extract data into Excel, Access and Word files.

It is Catapult's new interface to BCD's Nexus Web Object Warehouse that the judges took notice of. With this innovative integration, users can automatically distribute iSeries reports to the Web Object Warehouse portlet with search indexes. Users create search indexes by extracting report data such as customer number and invoice number. Users can access the documents via any Web browser with Nexus Web Portal. If document security is a concern, then you'll have no worries here. Catapult can designate the security for each document it distributes to the Web Object Warehouse.

The judges also gave Catapult high marks for its ease of use and manageability. Once in place, Catapult works without any user intervention required. For example, you could set it up to look for new spool files every 10 minutes, cache any qualifying reports and have them e-mailed at 2 a.m. once a day. To make it easy to distribute reports to many e-mail addresses at once, you can define lists of e-mail addresses called groups. In the grab rule, you can specify either a single e-mail address or a group name. You can also use Catapult as an archiving facility. Instead of e-mailing reports, you can have the reports downloaded to the server PC as PC files.

"The amount of time and cost saved using Catapult is significant," one judge said. "This is a robust package that small and large iSeries shops can benefit from. You might find similar components from other vendors, but you won't find as complete a solution as this." -- Search400.com editors

WebSmart Wins Search400.com's 'Products of the Year' Application Development Tools Silver Award

For Business Computer Design International's WebSmart 5.0, the race for the gold was a close one. Having been edged out of the top position, it wasn't because it lacked innovating features. In fact, this release boasts more than 25 new features.

One of its most impressive new features is a RPG to Web conversion component that automatically converts ILE RPG code and display file DDS to PML, HTML and JavaScript. PML is WebSmart's programming language that generates ILE RPG, ILE RPG free-format, and Java servlets, in conjunction with HTML. With this feature, it is now possible to migrate legacy business applications from green screen to Web applications and allow you to work with the converted code in the WebSmart IDE where your application development can continue in a managed environment.

The judges also took note of WebSmart's new Client-Side Code Generation feature, which lets developers write programs and generate source code on a PC in WebSmart's IDE. This source can then be compiled on the iSeries. Previously, the source was generated on the iSeries. The Client-Side Code Generation greatly reduces development workload on the iSeries. Other added features include the following:

• Support for both record-level I/O and SQL operations
• Vertical view of HTML segments
• Improved PML functionality, change management

WebSmart also received high marks for its functionality. As one judge said, "It's an easy-to-use tool that insulates developers from the complexity of Web application development." -- Search400.com editors

Nexus Portal Wins Search400.com's 'Products of the Year' Security Software - Silver Award

When you access applications via the Web, you need to make sure that access is secure. Enter Business Computer Design International Inc.'s Nexus Web/Report Portal.

Nexus offers secured and controlled Web browser/portal access to enterprise information, including iSeries Web applications, iSeries green-screen applications, iSeries reports, iSeries spool-file access, iSeries system messages, portlets with links to all other PC programs and Web links, and the new Web Object Warehouseing document management portlet.

It is through Web Object Warehousing that the security features come into play. It is a secured iSeries-centric warehouse for documents, including spool files and documents uploaded by authorized users from network drives or PCs.

Documents/objects are stored in a secured area of the IFS on the iSeries, providing security, reliability and scalability. In addition, new administration functions allow site administrators to determine who is authorized to view, search or work with documents or objects in Web Object Warehousing.

The judges were also impressed with how easy it is to use Nexus Web/Report Portal. In particular, they liked how it eliminates the need to maintain HTML pages by hand. No hand coding of HTML is required. Instead, you use a simple Web interface to modify your front-end pages and to include links to other pages.

They also liked how it allows you to incorporate powerful native iSeries security features such as site log-ins using validation list security or user profile security. It also provides maximum security of both client- and server-side data through the use of AES encryption in conjunction with native OS/400 security. On top of it all, for most users the only cost associated with this product is the maintenance fee. You'd be hard-pressed to find a similar product at that cost. -- Search400.com editors