Sales Force Automation(SFA)
using Ruby on Rails

Corporation, Okinawa JAPAN

Shinobu MIYAZATO

12/03/2008

Introduction of OCC(1)

My company's main focus is computer system integration
Established in 1966
We have 450 employees
Last year the company sales was 6 billion yen
(about 60 million U.S. dollers)

Introduction of OCC(2)

Our product:

Resident Information Management System
School Affairs System
Retail Management System
Groupware
Sales Force Automation (SFA)

Introduction of myself(1)

I love OSS.
I'm using OSS for all my work.

Debian GNU/Linux
PostgreSQL
Ruby for the programming language
Vim
Subversion for version control
S5 for presentation
Compiz Fustion and GNU screen for window and screen manager

Introduction of myself(2)

Three reasons why I use OSS
Firstly, OSS is customizable

You can customize it yourself
By doing so, You get software features you wants
Customizing becomes your knowledge

As in the old Japanese saying you can 一石二鳥.
Kill two birds with one stone.

Introduction of myself(3)

Three reasons why I use OSS
Secondly, OSS can cooperate with other OSS

Because the specification is open to the public
Because the customer's selfish requirements can be solved

Introduction of myself(4)

Three reasons why I use OSS
Finally, It is fun.

Using OSS makes me happy
This is true

These are the reasons why I use OSS.

Overview of my presentation

We developed the Sales Force Automation(SFA) using OSS to support the salesman's work

SFA has been developed using:

Ruby
Ruby on Rails WEB application framework
PostgreSQL

Overview of my presentation

Composition of the SFA

The salesman will access the WEB browser, and the Ruby on Rails will be executed, returning the results.

Agenda

What is SFA?
Why we chose Ruby on Rails and its learning cost
SFA Business Model

What is SFA?
Why we chose Ruby on Rails and its learning cost
SFA Business Model

SFA features

SFA provides some features to support salesman's work:

Resource Management
Keyword Search
Analysis of Salesman's Work

Resource Management(1)

Salesman possesses valuable resources:

Customer Information
Contracts
Schedule

↓
Salesman prepares documents based on these resources.

Resource Management(2)

Salesman prepares documents based on these resources.

For the customer:

Estimate
Product manual

Also, documents to his boss may include:

Report of his activity
Report of his sales performance
Budget documents

In order to creating these documents, what does the salesman needs to do?

Without using the SFA...

Resource Management(3)

Without using the SFA...
Consume a lot of time:

To find the information
To add up the total
To write the documents

Under these circumstances the Salesman's valuable time will be consumed and be wasted.

Resource Management(4)

The salesman will write what kind of business he did that day into the SFA
This means that all the salesman's business information will be stored in the SFA

Summary of SFA features

SFA has three core features

You can automaticly generate the routine documents required by the salesman
You can search the sales information
You can analyze the Salesman's sales pattern, or his business strategy

What is SFA?
Why we chose Ruby on Rails and its learning cost
SFA Business Model

Why we are using Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is WEB application framework for the Ruby programming language.
Ruby on Rails based on two core principles:

Convention over Configuration (CoC)
Don't repeat yourself (DRY)

Convention over Configuration(1)

In the past, many WEB application framework has been invented
To use these WEB application frameworks, you have to write a lot of configuration files

Convention over Configuration(2)

Ruby on Rails uses naming convention instead of configuration files

Convention over Configuration(3)

Don't repeat yourself(DRY)

The objective of DRY is to get rid of overlaps, and not to repeat the same work over and over again.

Ruby on rails is designed to be DRY.

Don't repeat yourself(DRY)

↓If column name "mail" is change to "mail_address"

CoC and DRY

Thanks to CoC

You don't have to write configuration files
To less source coding

Thanks to DRY

The information in one place
So, DRY will shorten the time needed for maintenance

These are the reasons why we chose Ruby on Rails.

Learning cost of Ruby on Rails

The things that you will have to learn to be able to use Ruby on Rails:

Database schema design
Programming of Ruby
Ruby on Rails How-to

To gain knowledge of naming convention
To gain knowledge of how to write the actual coding

Development case in OCC(1)

We trained our new employee with the following training program.

4 days for Database schema designin
8 days for Programming of Ruby
3 days for Ruby on Rails How-to

A total of 15 days.

Development case in OCC(2)

After the training program, we let them form a group of 4 to 5, and let them make the actual program.
This on hand training period was one week.

They were able to develop softwares using Ruby on Rails.

Programming of Ruby was smooth
But, DB design did not too good
If the experienced developer takes charge of the DB design, development becomes more smooth

Development case in OCC(3)

Now, let me introduce the applications that we have developed using Ruby on Rails.

These are the applications actually on business used.

Also, I am goig to explain the cost for these software development.

Development case in OCC(4)

SFA : Sales Force Automation

Number of developers	2
Period of Development	6 months

SX : Internet Service Provider Member Management System

Number of developers	2
Period of Development	6 months

Development case in OCC(5)

Employee Management System

Number of developers	1
Period of Development	1 week

Equipment Management System

Number of developers	1
Period of Development	1 day

Development case in OCC(6)

Why we were able to development the Equipment management system in just one day?

The reason is we have used the Ruby on Rails Scaffold feature.

Demonstration of Scaffold feature

Ruby on Rails Scaffold feature automatically generates CRUD application.

(* CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update, Delete)

I am going to demonstrate Scaffold feature.
I will create a address book.

Scaffold

With this command, Scaffold will automatically create an address book.

./script/generate scaffold address_book name:string age:integer e_mail:string address:string

ext_scaffold

One more thing, let's look at ext_scaffold, which is the extended version of Scaffold.
ext_scaffold adds a Search and Sort feature to Scaffold.
With this command, Scaffold will automatically create an address book.
./script/generate ext_scaffold address_book name:string age:integer e_mail:string address:string

Scaffold and ext_scaffold

Application that uses only CRUD will be completed in a blink!
Of ccourse, we cannot fulfill the customer's requirements only by using Scaffold
But, developing under the CRUD's environment will make it much easier than development from scratch
All we have to do is cutomize the CRUD application according to the customer's requirements

What is SFA?
Why we chose Ruby on Rails and its learning cost
SFA Business Model

SFA Business Model

We feel that the followings are the SFA's business models:

The Proposal of SFA
The Configulation of SFA
Customizing of SFA
Cooperative use of SFA with other OSS

I'm goin to talk about one example of cooperative use with other OSS.
This will be the Pentaho collaboration.

Collaborate with SFA and Pentaho

Pentaho is an open source Business Intelligence (BI) Suite.
Pentaho BI Suite provides:

Comprehensive Reporting
OLAP Analysis
Dashboards
Data Integration
Data Mining

BIs used for business purposes is very expensive.
So, being able to use Pentaho for free is a great advantage.

Collaborate with SFA and Pentaho

Here, I will show you an example of how SFA and Employment Cost Management System can be collaborated using Pentaho's data integration feature.

Collaboration with SFA and other OSS

Employment Cost Management System differs from customer to customer
Some customers might want to collabrate with other systems and with the SFA
What the customers want to analyze may differ from customer to customer
Our business model is to combine SFA with other systems and to provide the analysis that fits the customer's business

Summary of my presentation

The point of business model that uses OSS is the coraboration of OSS and OSS
Only the use of one OSS is pretty hard to business
By combining several OSS and if we can think of adding more values to the system, this will lead to business
We intend to expand our business by collaborating our SFA with other OSS

This is all of my presentaion.

Thank you very much for your attension!

Sales Force Automation(SFA) using Ruby on Rails

Corporation, Okinawa JAPAN

Sales Force Automation(SFA)using Ruby on Rails

Corporation, Okinawa JAPAN

Shinobu MIYAZATO

12/03/2008

Introduction of OCC(1)

Introduction of OCC(2)

Introduction of myself(1)

Introduction of myself(2)

Introduction of myself(3)

Introduction of myself(4)

Overview of my presentation

Overview of my presentation

Agenda

SFA features

Resource Management(1)

Resource Management(2)

Resource Management(3)

Resource Management(4)

Resource Management(5)

Keyword Search Feature

Analysis of salesman's work(1)

Analysis of salesman's work(2)

Demonstration of SFA

Summary of SFA features

Why we are using Ruby on Rails

Convention over Configuration(1)

Convention over Configuration(2)

Convention over Configuration(3)

Don't repeat yourself(DRY)

Don't repeat yourself(DRY)

CoC and DRY

Learning cost of Ruby on Rails

Development case in OCC(1)

Development case in OCC(2)

Development case in OCC(3)

Development case in OCC(4)

Development case in OCC(5)

Development case in OCC(6)

Demonstration of Scaffold feature

Scaffold

ext_scaffold

Scaffold and ext_scaffold

SFA Business Model

Collaborate with SFA and Pentaho

Collaborate with SFA and Pentaho

Collaboration with SFA and other OSS

Summary of my presentation

Sales Force Automation(SFA)
using Ruby on Rails