InControl Price
My role during a six month contract was to help get the back-end services and web-interface for the line-of-business suite of applications into operation within a competitive time-frame, while fixing existing problems reported by the business.
One of my roles was to increase the stability of the application, while ensuring that it continues to be maintainable by their existing team. The issues ranged from business rule problems to performance bottle necks.
The software was developed for use by the Co-operatives pharmacy and food retail businesses, and is used by till operators and head office staff alike to control all aspects of the stores from how much stock is in a store to how much money should be currently available be in a till and the store.
The application was also used to manage user authorisation and authentication, products and promotions, all from a central location or from in-store. In the case of head-office based changes, the data was exported to all Co-operative stores running InControl Price in nightly batch operations.
During the contract, we received various reports of issues with the Co-operatives chosen hand-held devices which were used for warehouse like operations within the stores. The problems ranged from scanning barcode data to maintaining active connections with the back office. Because of my previous experience with Windows CE and Windows Mobile based devices, I was asked to research and recommend solutions.
