Legacy Upgrade Case Study

Arepo have developed a new online database for Revenue Protection Support Services, a subsidiary of Southeastern Railway, to help manage the collection of train companies' ticket revenues.

The RPSS business was operating a desktop application running on Windows 95. This had been modified many times since its introduction and any future changes were considered too risky in case they resulted in problems with this business critical application. Generation of complex reports was manual and involved many man hours every month. Ongoing application support was restricted to keeping the system running and with all these issues combined the database was quickly labelled a 'legacy database'. 

Creating a new database from an existing legacy database can often hamper the development process with a preset database design that does not comply to the proposed future design requirements. However, by automating the link between the database and the front-end web pages using the Arepo Platform, changes to the database were easily reflected in the interface. Database changes, such as the adding and removing of new fields or tables, simply required updating the data and regenerating the front-end interface, often in a matter of minutes, which are some of the major strengths of our Rapid Application Development process.

The upgraded online database provides RPSS with: -

• Migration of millions of records into the new .NET application
• Name & Address lookups
• Management of notices and debts to chase
• Online payments through the RPSS web site
• Back office payments and refunds
• Online appeals and appeals processing
• Passenger correspondence storage and letter generation
• Financial and quality reporting
• Data archiving and backup

Over the course of this project, the database was developed to facilitate the sophisticated business logic required for the solution, as well as many requirements outside the actual detail of the original specification. These extra requirements were identified throughout the development life cycle. By utilising the prototyping power inherent in our rapid solutions, we were able to respond quickly to feedback, developing a database and user interface which not only meets, but far exceeds, our clients' expectations.