Atlas Systems
About Atlas Systems
For more than fifteen years, Atlas Systems has been exclusively dedicated to developing software, training, and consulting solutions that enable Public Library Systems to transform their user services and maximize workflow efficiency. Best known for creating the ILLiad interlibrary loan management system used by more than 1,100 libraries worldwide, Atlas focuses on bringing the benefits of automation to library processes that are not addressed by other software services. We have also introduced Ares, an electronic reserves solution, and Aeon, an online request and workflow management system specifically designed for special collections libraries and archives.
Describe your project:
All three of our primary product suites contain applications that leverage DXperience components.
ILLiad
Our ILLiad resource sharing management software automates routine interlibrary loan functions to increase productivity and reduce paperwork. Using ILLiad, library staff can manage all of their borrowing, lending and document delivery through a single, Windows-based, client/server interface.
Atlas Systems
Check in from Lending library - ILLiad Client
Borrowing Request - ILLiad Client
ILLiad Staff Manager
Training - ILLiad Client
Ares
Our Ares software automates library reserve services. It features robust copyright management, integration with a variety of e-Learning environments, and the ability to accept a wide variety of file formats all while improving the efficiency of faculty members and library staff.
Aeon
Aeon is special collections circulation and workflow automation software for special collections libraries. It improves customer service and staff efficiency while providing unparalleled item tracking, security and statistics.
What led you to use DevExpress?
We are a relatively small development team supporting applications with tens of thousands of users. We needed to be able to produce applications with very high quality user interfaces while still being able to focus our development resources on the features that only Atlas can create.
We chose the DevExpress tools because they provide all of the components that we needed to provide those very high quality and robust interfaces for using Delphi and .NET. We have continued to use the tools because we found them to be flexible and extensible enough to do all of the interesting things we’ve needed them to do over the years.
What project challenges were overcome by using DevExpress?
The library workflows that Atlas’ products are designed to optimize can vary from client to client so we needed a way to allow our users to customize both the organizational layout of our products as well as some of the extended functionality.
To allow each staff user to customize the grids and forms available in our applications, we took advantage of the DevExpress XtraLayouts and XtraGrids libraries. We augmented these libraries with custom change tracking and persistence layers to automatically save per user form and grid layout changes to a SQL database table. Whenever a form in the application is loaded, we retrieve the user’s persisted layout for that form from the SQL database and apply it before it is displayed.
To allow our users to extend the functionality of our applications, we took advantage of the flexibility of the DevExpress tools to design an add-on system for our applications. Using the LUA scripting language, our users can leverage the add-on system to augment the workflows available in our application to optimize them for their own specific needs. For example, our users often need to import data from their own custom web resources and online library catalogs as part of their primary workflows. The add-on system we’ve built allows users to integrate this data import into their request processing workflow so that they never have to leave the application.
What qualities of DXperience helped your project?
DXperience's extensibility has really allowed us to implement some really great features in our products and not having to design our own UI elements has allowed us to focus on adding amazing features that we wouldn’t have otherwise had the time or resources to implement. Our users really love our layout and add-on systems. The ability to tailor our applications to meet each user’s unique needs is something our customers really appreciate about our applications.
Would Atlas recommend DXperience to a friend?
Yes. DXperience is an amazing tool that can be leveraged to allow you to focus on whatever it is that sets your product apart from everything else competing in your product space.
Atlas Systems
http://www.atlas-sys.com/
