UK Telecoms Forum E-reporting system

Screenshot for the CPI e-reporting webiste

Technology

  • Microsoft ASP.NET web site using C#
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000
  • Microsoft .NET Windows Forms back-office application
  • Consuming of Web Services
  • Generation of graphs using GDI.NET
  • COM Interop automation of Microsoft Excel 2002

 

Background

The UK Telecoms Forum is an industry organisation which produces Comparable Performance Information for UK consumers on the quality of fixed line telephone services. The information produced by the Forum was being published as two hard copy booklets every six months.


Business requirements

  • Reduce overall cost of publication
  • Practical, easy to use website for consumers
  • Rapid response to new measurement types
  • Minimum impact on the standard data collection procedures in place
  • Automation of manual procedures to reduce errors

Benefits experienced

  • Improved presentation (electronic publication replaced >60 page booklets)
  • Users can specify the companies and measures they are interested in
  • Time taken for publication reduced by 75%, hence more up to date information
  • Reduced publication costs for the UK Telecoms Forum
  • No change to data collation processes


Solution Overview

A back-office .NET Win Forms application written in C# controls the entering of data and release of data via a SQL Server 2000 database. It performs automation of Microsoft Excel for the purpose of importing publication data into the database.

The public facing web site is an ASP.NET application also written in C#. It interrogates the database in response to users' choices and generates tabular and graphical representations of the data. Graphs are generated using the GDI.NET API. The application also consumes web services which provide residential service availability by postcode.

UniTech researched, scoped and developed the solution. The web site www.cpi.org.uk went live at the beginning of October 2002 with new data published every six months. It has now been replaced by the TopComm website.