What is EfficiencySpring?
EfficiencySpring is a software platform for building and hosting data-centric applications. It provides the flexibility of custom software creation with the stability of out-of-box applications.
Is EfficiencySpring Right for Us?
Is your organization currently running its operation on email, Excel spreadsheets, Access databases and/or paper? Is it because no off-the-shelve software package meets your needs, but at the same time building your own system from scratch is daunting? Or perhaps you have important corporate data in SQL Server and need to surface it up for end-users?
In either scenario, EfficiencySpring is worth considering. Organizations can use EfficiencySpring to configure all the interfaces that are typical of information applications, configure business rules, and then deploy them to users both inside and outside their organization.
As far as running EfficiencySpring, it can run both in local Windows networks and the Microsoft Azure cloud.
What Can EfficiencySpring Do?
Below is a high-level overview of EfficiencySpring’s capabilities, along with links to deeper content and video. Also, contact us with any questions.
Forms
Organizations can use EfficiencySpring’s section configuration tools to scan database tables in SQL Server and SQL Azure and generate Data Manager sections, complete with forms for adding, editing, and deleting records. In addition, forms can include an unlimited hierarchy of sub-forms, allowing for complex forms and information structures.
Multiple types of fields are supported on each form, including text boxes, date fields, dropdowns, radios, etc… Integrated file uploads are also supported. Business rules can be configured to have fields hide and show based on a variety of factors, as well as have values automatically set, have business processes triggered, etc…
Information can also be imported from uploaded PDF forms, allowing for easy import of information sourced from outside the application’s user base.
Reporting and Analytics
In addition to the forms themselves, each EfficiencySpring Data Manager section comes with integrated search capability for finding existing records, and built-in reporting capabilities for output to Excel, Word, and PDF.
EfficiencySpring also has native charting and analytical capabilities, presentable in configurable dashboards.
User/Group Access
Access to every application configured in EfficiencySpring is controlled by a user/group security model. Users can belong to specific groups, and each group can be granted specific rights to configured applications. This allows for a variety of scenarios, such as providing some users with add/edit/delete access while other users are purely consumers of information presented in the applications.
Authentication
EfficiencySpring comes with its own login screen, password management, and multifactor capabilities.
In addition, it can be configured to work with SharePoint authentication, Azure AD authentication, and Windows Domain authentication, should your organization wish to use those login providers.
User group mappings can also be automatically set based on SharePoint user groups, Azure AD groups, and Active Directory groups.
Security and History Logging
Every login is logged in EfficiencySpring’s centralized security log.
In addition, every time a record is changed in EfficiencySpring, a complete log of those changes is recording in its History Log. This makes it easy to determine when information is changed and by who.
Integration
An application sometimes is only as good as its ability to work with other systems. EfficiencySpring provides a full set of Restful APIs, so that other systems can access records housed in its applications, just as live people can.
JSON Services
Simply at &format=json to the results page in a Data Manager section and watch the output change from a web interface to machine readable JSON. This capability is available on search, add, edit, results, and view screens in EfficiencySpring.
This of course isn’t useful to humans, but for other systems needing to access your application’s data, its everything. Access tokens can be setup for other applications, allowing them to login to EfficiencySpring and access the APIs of EfficiencySpring.
This capability makes EfficiencySpring not only a great provider of user interfaces, but also a capable backend data provider for Android and iOS apps, which generally access data via JSON calls. Indeed, EfficiencySpring installations have been setup purely to provide other systems with authenticated access to data contained in SQL Server databases.
Accessing Other Web Services
EfficiencySpring also ships with a framework for configuring API calls to other information providers, such as Microsoft’s Azure AD, ADP’s WorkforceNow, etc…
EfficiencySpring as a SharePoint Add-In
Microsoft SharePoint is commonly used as an Intranet platform for organizations of all sizes. It’s great for hosting corporate documents and providing ad-hoc information management capabilities in the form of Lists.
If there is one thing it doesn’t fully natively support, however, it’s complex databases. To address this need, EfficiencySpring can be configured as a SharePoint Add-In, utilizing SharePoint’s security and adopting its look-and-feel, while providing all of EfficiencySpring’s advanced form and database capabilities.
What If I Have Business Logic Requirements That Can’t be Configured?
There is a lot EfficiencySprng can accomplish on pure configuration. However, it also has a robust object-model for adding custom behaviors to events, such as when records are added or edited. These customizations can be carried out in industry-standard C#. Indeed, many EfficiencySpring implementors turn to EfficiencyNext to provide any final necessary custom programming to reach 100% of their needs.
How Do We Implement EfficiencySpring?
Contact EfficiencyNext and we can discuss the best approach. Some organizations prefer our consultants to work with them on requirements and then build out the EfficiencySpring system for them; other organizations prefer to receive training on how to configure EfficiencySpring themselves. We support both options and even a mix of the two.