Cebos is a leading provider of business improvement software that enabled hundreds of companies to comply with major quality standards such as ISO 9001:1994, ISO 9001:2000, ISO 14000, QS 9000, and TS 16949.

This software has traditionally been developed using an Access 97 front end to a relational database backend. This turned out to be very rigid (fixed number of columns, fixed columns displayed, limited filtering, etc.) and users were stuck with finding data the way Cebos developers decided at the time of writing the application.

What Cebos wanted to deliver was a solution that would provide even novice users the ability to find the data they were looking for, but at the same time give advanced users a toolset that would not constrain them from looking at their data in their own unique ways.

The decision was made to migrate the application from Microsoft Access 97 to the .NET framework using Microsoft VB.NET and Visual Studio and take advantage of XtraGrid from Developer Express to provide the kind of data visualization flexbility required

The solution was to create a "search" screen interface centered around the XtraGrid. This allows users the flexibility of column customization, re-ordering, sorting, column filtering, and the list goes on and on. Any modifications made at runtime by the users are saved by user allowing for complete personalization of the application. Taking advantage of the export features of the XtraGrid Cebos has also been able to allow users to quickly and easily export the list to excel and other platforms.

According to Jeff Phillips (Cebos CTO) "Not only are we on schedule, but we've also been able to increase the number of features thanks to the .NET framework and components like the XtraGrid."