Business need
Quartal Corporate Governance Solutions (Quartal CGS) is part of Quartal Group. Quartal Group delivers high-quality software solutions and related services for the needs of the Asset Management Industry, and Corporate Governance activities and is located in Frankfurt, Espoo (Finland), Paris and in Zürich.
Quartal CGS provides a secure, high-quality online service for board collaboration. By supporting first-class board work they help their clients to reach a new level with their corporate governance processes and board work activities.
Due to growth and launch of new projects our client needed an additional team to take advantage of their growth.
Challenge
The main challenge at the beginning of this cooperation was that we didn't have SharePoint specialists on our team. However, we had a huge advantage as we were highly recommended by an existing German client--and Germans are well known for their desire to choose a reliable honest partner. So we agreed that we would search the labour market and find high level SharePoint specialists for their team.
Another challenge was the client's need to have the remote team onsite from time to time. Ocassionally, onsite visits are vital when important events happen, like discussion of specification of a new product on SharePoint platform, or implementation of the finished product or for some other reason teams usually gather in one place.
Solution
Binary Studio satisfied all the needs of our client. First of all, we found really smart SharePoint specialists whom our client is extremely happy with. Our SharePoint experts not only have the technical knowledge of the SharePoint platform, but also good knowledge of other areas and technologies, logical thinking and sharp wit, so they are a very valuable addition to our client's team--and to Binary Studio.
As for the onsite presence, this also was not a problem. We gladly send our resources onsite, taking care of all the paper work, visas, etc, required in such situation. We do that for the following reasons: it is a good motivation for developers, as travelling and meeting people is always an exciting experience. And most importantly, we believe this helps developers become more and more efficient and we are ready to go the extra mile to make the projects of our clients a stunning success.
The fact that we are working with this client for several years now supports our approach is a good one.
Projects we did together
DirectSMS
Background
Developed for Quartal CGS, DirectSMS is a custom Web Part for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server to extent Quartal’s Corporate Governance Solution that enables secure collaboration between board members of publicly-traded corporations. The DirectSMS Web part interfaces with a SMS gateway to allow integration of SMS-enabled features within a SharePoint installation.Enlarge image
Objectives
- Enable users to select SMS recipients from SPS user directory
- Enable users to compose and send SMS through the DirectSMS Web Part
- Allow users to select their own mobile phone number as the SenderID
- Allow users with administrative privileges the ability to configure SMS Gateway
Platforms, Languages & Technologies
- Windows Server 2008
- MS SQL 2005
- C#
- ASP.NET 2.0
- Web Services
- JavaScript/AJAX
- SharePoint Portal Server 2007
- Clearwire Messaging API
WhoisOnline
Background
Developed for Quartal CGS, DirectSMS is a custom Web Part for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server to extent Quartal’s Corporate Governance Solution that enables secure collaboration between board members of publicly-traded corporations. WhoisOnline is a custom Web Part for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server that displays user presence and activity history within the SPS deployment.WhoisOnline works with a SharePoint front-end cluster to collect and store user activity from multiple servers within the cluster, which are merged to form a single user activity store. A unique algorithm was developed to support the logic and function of the Web part services.
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Objectives
- Display current user presence and activity history (across multiple servers)
- Create a single XML-based store of user activity collected from multiple servers within the cluster
- Allow administrators to monitor activity and control access to status and history visibility for individual users
- Allow administrators ability to control log file attributes
Platforms, Languages & Technologies
- Windows Server 2008
- MS SQL 2005
- C#
- ASP.NET 2.0
- Web Services
- JavaScript/AJAX
- SharePoint Portal Server 2007
- SharePoint Front-end Cluster
UpdateME
Background
Developed for Quartal CGS, UpdateME is a custom Web Part for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server to extent Quartal’s Corporate Governance Solution that enables secure collaboration between board members of publicly-traded corporations. UpdateME is a custom Web Part for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server that enhanced options for user notification.UpdateME delivers notifications to subscribed users using timer job events, so there is no need for administrators to individually configure alerts for individual document libraries. Based on the user-defined values and preferences, UpdateME sends messages with links to recently added or modified content so subscribers can keep up to date on their priority activities.
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Objectives
- Allow users to select and subscribe to individual notifications, select channel preference (e-mail, SMS, both) and control the frequency and timing windows of notification delivery
- Display last 5 notifications directly within the user’s dashboard
- Allow administrators the ability to manage both email and SMS templates for a single alert
- Allow administrators to manage subscriptions and message templates
- Support localized alerts based on the user’s preferred language
Platforms, Languages & Technologies
- Windows Server 2008
- MS SQL 2005
- C#
- ASP.NET 2.0
- Web Services
- SharePoint Portal Server 2007
- Clearwire Messaging API







