Collaboration: More Important Than Ever

As Bricsnet's ProjectCenter celebrates its 10th birthday this month, it's interesting to remember how times have changed since this application was introduced in 1998.
The Internet dominates the business world in a way that was almost inconceivable a decade ago. And as a result, online collaboration has become a way of life for many people. Although the Web was a familiar place in 1998, it was -- compared to today -- a relatively static environment. The dynamic, interactive applications we know on today's Internet were, for the most part, a few years away. Although attempts were being made to "webify" some business applications, the applications were, for the most part, crude and simplistic.
In that world, ProjectCenter was a groundbreaking advance. And the product has kept pace. As expectations of Internet applications have grown, ProjectCenter's functionality and user interface have continued to develop. The new release takes advantage of the latest technologies to bring customers new scheduling and communication functionality that makes this tool more powerful and easier to use.
Here are some of the new and enhanced features you will find in ProjectCenter 6.0:

New User Interface
Icon Driven User Experience
Moveable / Adjustable / Collapsible Panels
Option Skin Color Themes
Anchored Pop-up Windows
Wizard Driving Administration

Project Schedule / Milestone Tracking
Parent and Child Events
Task Assignment
Gantt Chart

Project Calendar Enhancements
New interface
Event Export to Outlook
Action Item Due Date View
Milestone Item Due Date View
Enhanced Email Notifications

Administration Enhancements
New Wizard Driven Interface
Role Based Security Available
Drag and Drop – Team Directory & Folder Structure
Username/Password Notification Allows Attachments

Document Management Enhancement
File Listing Custom Fields (Text, Drop-Down, Date, Memo, and Radio Button)
File Upload Progress Indicator
Selected File User Notification (Post Upload)
Enhanced Document “Expanded” View
Enhanced Commenting Functionality

Workflow & Configurable Form Enhancements
Added Additional Custom Field (Memo, Date and Radio Button)
Additional Task Management
From a Single Screen a User can see:
Tasks Assigned to Them
Tasks They Have Assigned
All of Their Action Items

With all of the advances of the past decade, we can only imagine what the next 10 years will bring. But looking at the new ProjectCenter release, you can begin to believe that whatever new paths web technology forges, ProjectCenter will be there.

On the Owner vs. Tenant Battleground with Bricsnet

In the commercial real estate industry, owner vs. tenant obligations are battle-hardened topics. The subject has been weighed thoroughly from diametrically opposed perspectives. While the owner fights for renewal rights and reclaiming space for better deals, tenants perform lease audits against CAM reconciliations and OPEX charges.

In the retail industry, landlord/tenant contracts get even more complex. In a mall environment, for example, CAM charges reign as a constant battle, forcing some retailers to seek free-standing stores over malls based on fees alone. These contracts are often extremely complex, with things like termination clauses if the anchor store closes, CAM fee percentages, flat CAMS and other intricacies. The variables in these cases are infinite. Regardless of the outcome and changes from this continuous struggle, one thing remains constant: tenants need flexible and agile technology to effectively enable, enforce and normalize lease operations. Bricsnet helps retailers:

Enable
· Avoid unnecessary expenses by thoroughly understanding terms, conditions and landlord vs. tenant responsibilities
· Make-informed decisions on lease renewals, extensions, terminations, options and opportunities
· Keep responsible parties informed about critical dates and scheduled actions

Enforce
· Ensure that deadlines and critical dates are met without exception.
· Track improvements, including budgets, expenses, landlord vs. tenant contributions, and other details
· Enforce approval chains

Normalize
· Retain a complete audit trail for every lease
· Define and manage roles and responsibilities in lease administration
· Manage lease-related insurance policies and details
· Calculate and manage specialized rents such as indexed and percent-based rents

Most importantly, Bricsnet provides a flexible and stable platform that adjusts with constant change. While Bricsnet offers standard lease management capabilities built from years of customer interaction and best practices, customers can fine-tune the solution without touching the source code. With Bricsnet, you can easily modify workflows, add data elements specific to your business, manage security and access rights for internal and external users, classify information in ways that make sorting and filtering easier – even change the look and feel of the application to match your standards. To learn more about how Bricsnet can enable, enforce and normalize your lease operations, contact Bricsnet at (415) 321-2650 or www.Bricsnet.com.

Software as a Service Makes Sense for Business

Software as a Service (SaaS) is not a new concept. As soon as the Internet became a common part of our lives in the 1990s, software companies began promoting the benefits of hosted software applications. First touted as ASP (Application Service Provider) delivery, the concept has evolved over the last decade to what we now commonly refer to as SaaS.

Elimination of in-house IT burdens provided and still provides – the primary rationale for hosted software. With IT staff often in short supply and older buildings often not equipped for uninterrupted power and the significant cooling and other environmental requirements of server rooms, Software as a Service offers the possibility of offloading applications to experts whose core business is in care and maintenance of IT environments.

There were justifiable fears and undeniable problems with early ASP delivery. Internet connections were still slow and unreliable. Applications weren’t designed for Internet delivery, and so performance and user interfaces were less attractive than the client-server appications that were dominant at the time.

But the world has changed in a decade. Today, Software as a Service fulfills its early promise, and can provide the most reliable and economic for companies to access their business systems. Here are some of the reasons the picture has been so thoroughly transformed:

• Internet connectivity has improved: When business applications were first offered over the web a decade ago, many people – and many businesses – were still relying on dial-up connections to reach the Internet. Access was difficult, limited to locations where phone jacks were readily available, and subject to frequent dropped connections. Today, with high-speed and WiFi connections becoming ubiquitous – in hotel rooms, airports, cafes and even public parks – people really can work anytime and just about anywhere. Internet security has improved too; business today is conducted over secure Internet connections that have little risk
• Web-based applications have matured: Unlike early web-enabling technologies, which often took minutes to move from screen to screen or to update data, applications today can be built – like Bricsnet – from the ground up to perform quickly and effectively over the web. Technologies such as AJAX have eliminated long waits for screen refreshes, and today’s web applications provide graphics, spreadsheets and other common formats with speed and ease of use. And unlike early web-hosted applications that were rigid and limited, today’s applications offer the same flexibility, configurability and upgradeability as applications housed inside corporate firewalls.
• Data Centers have come of age: The collocation environments that began to spring up in the late 1990s have become solid, highly reliable environments focused on uninterrupted connectivity. Because they can leverage the benefits of housing many customers in one environment, today’s data centers typically offer stronger fail-over and recovery processes than most in-house data centers can, as well as strong data backup and audit procedures. Bricsnet’s data center in Novato, California, for example, has a strong record of better than 99.9 percent uptime, and meets the stringent requirements of the SAS 70 Type II standard.
• Security is more than just a word: One of the early reactions to hosted software was a reluctance to house sensitive corporate data “outside the firewall.” But contemporary Internect security protocols and encryption have eliminated that concern. Led by demands for online banking and procurement, security has improved to the point that any organization can be confident its data is safely transmitted to and from hosted servers.
• Interoperability is a reality: In the early days of ASP offerings, customers were pretty much limited to stand-alone applications that couldn’t connect outward to other important business systems. Even with in-house systems, integration and interoperability was often limited to flat file data transfers that required significant manual intervention. SOA architecture and Web Services have changed that. Now, applications leverage Web Services to make calls to each other, seeking and receiving data instantaneously and honoring business processes across application boundaries. It has become nearly as easy for two data center-based applications to communicate with each other as it is for two workers to talk on the phone.
• SaaS Delivery provides real economy: Self-hosted applications require investment not only in software, but in hardware, support personnel and maintenance. With Software as a Service, companies have the chance to reduce risk by contracting for annual or monthly payment terms that easily fit into operating budgets and thus bypass the need for approval of capital investment. In terms of Speed to Value, the elimination of lengthy capital approval processes can provide one of the greatest shortcuts, giving companies the chance to be up and running on a new system in record time.

For all of these reasons, Bricsnet's Software as a Service option is a key component in our ability to provide Speed to Value to customers. To learn more, contact Bricsnet sales at +1-415-321-2650 or salesinfo@bricsnet.com. We look forward to showing your organization the benefits of Software as a Service.