Store Reporting System |
Les Schwab Tire Centers
Prineville, OR USA
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Gary Hopkins leads a two-man .NET development team as part of the 128-person IT department at Les Schwab Tires,
the largest independent tire manufacturer in the Western United States. For years, every one of the store managers
and assistant managers at 360 stores updated the intranet data by emailing or faxing information to Gary's team and
then waited for them to have time to input the data. Since this was just one of many document-centric activities at
the company, the IT team was moving everything to IIS and the .NET Framework in order to automate functions, improve
service to store management, and save time and money on all ends of the process.
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"We were using Visual Studio .NET Enterprise, and I quickly realized that building an editable data grid was hard,"
Gary says. "I went looking for a helpful tool and found Iron Speed Designer."
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"I downloaded it and saw immediately that this was much more than just limited components, this was really the answer
to my dreams," he says. Gary used Iron Speed Designer to create an entire application customized to his needs that linked
to his current SQL Server database. Since it was a pretty simple application involving just thousands of records, a
couple of multi-table joins and one editable form with various report views, the whole application was built in a few
hours. No code extensions were needed. Gary showed it to the rest of the development team that day and launched it to
employees the next.
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"I started out thinking I just wanted an online form," Gary says. "I found a lot of functionality in Iron Speed Designer
that enhanced our original goal by creating new database tables, changing the page controls, sorting and filtering, and
adding custom controls on the view report page. A painful, four-step, manual process is now one step, and automated!"
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The Gary Hopkins story |
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As Gary's shop moves from hand-coding everything to adopting modern methodologies, several code generation and component
tools have been evaluated and abandoned along the way. "The system was proprietary or too complex or the generated code
was bulky and slow, and hardly useful," Gary says of some of the other tools tried. "We are looking for advanced features.
We need tools that work in our current environment."
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"I have three criteria for any tool," Gary says. "It has to work with my other tools and platforms; it has to be able to
deploy what is promised in working, quality code; and I need to be able to get help from the vendor if and when I need it."
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"Iron Speed Designer excelled on all three points. I kept thinking, 'This is too good to be true. It will fail at any moment now.'
But it never did."
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"Of course Iron Speed Designer does not create 100% of your application," Gary says. But the time-consuming parts are the first 80%
or so. "Getting anything sophisticated on the .NET Framework is great, but what we really need on the ground right now are tools
that make .NET more usable."
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Web apps in every-day roles |
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"We haven't even scratched the surface of this tool's power. The application code is rock solid and it deploys on .NET without a hitch.
We immediately upgraded our purchase to the Enterprise Edition. I'm planning to use it for more and more complex applications going forward."
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What's next? |
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"No wonder this tool works so well. It is designed by folks who have practical development experience. Everyone here keeps saying, 'Wow.'"
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About the developer |
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A native Oregonian, Gary has been a programmer for more than 30 years. Like many developers, he's
evolved from his mainframe roots to master application development on the .NET Framework. Gary is the
Project Lead on .Net Technologies at Les Schwab Tire Centers and has been using Iron Speed Designer
since 2003.
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Build something that gets your IT team saying, "Wow."
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