Products - Launchpad

Purpose Of Product

Launchpad is a “multi-dimensional” database with a fully integrated web-based user interface that can be used to very quickly and easily create the data model underlying any business area or “application specific domain”.

The user interface provides full administration of the database to create projects, dimensions and attributes.

Launchpad also automatically creates a main user interface for the model created from the administration view, which provides functionality to add/change/delete data “nodes” in a dimension, and to link any dimension “node” with any other dimension “node”.

For example a project management domain could be split into the following dimensions:

- Business Drivers	- Deliverables	- Incidents
- Business Processes	- Tasks	- Change Control
- Requirements	- Resources	- Issues
- Assumptions	- Meetings	- Risks
- Requirements	- Actions	- Questions
- System Components

By building up data within these dimensions, an accurate data model of the project is created. Then by adding links or “relationships” between data held within these dimensions, it is possible to create a very powerful, model for the management of the project – which can be subsequently used as a “project blueprint”.

Launchpad is intended as a superior replacement to documenting central project information in MSExcel or other MSOffice applications. It forces users to think more carefully about content rather than presentation (data can be easily extracted into standard templates via automation techniques – Succeed offers a product called “Service Manager” to automate the production of MSOffice documents.

Feature Listing

Web-based administration portal allowing the creation of projects, dimensions, and dimensions attributes – without the need to write any codebase.

Creating the data model also dynamically creates the data entry front end for that model.

The data entry front end allows the creation of new “nodes” within dimensions, and the adding/changing/deletion of nodes or the content within those nodes.

Launchpad supports the embedding of files within nodes

Creation of “typed” relationships between nodes of different dimensions (or the same dimension).

Inbuilt security model where users are given access to projects and dimensions within these projects.

A powerful search engine to search and retrieve data from any project or dimension to which the user has access.

Inbuilt support for “versioning” – of data within dimensions – snapshots or “versions” of dimensions or even entire projects can be stored for reference and comparison against prior or future versions.

What it is

A “multi-dimensional” object-based database

A reporting tool

A workflow engine

What it isn’t

A rich and user-friendly web-front end (see Launchsight).

A reporting tool (see Service Manager)

Technology and Dependencies

Launchpad is written in an APS / ASP.NET codebase and requires a minimum of IIS5.0 running on Win2000 server.

Launchpad runs on

Pricing, Support and Hosting

Launchpad can be priced on a per-project basis, or as an overall unlimited licensed application.

Launchpad can be deployed as a codebase to a client, or as an application hosted on a secure server by Succeed.

Launchpad comes with a full software support contract – Succeed takes no responsibility or liability for the backup procedures associated with the database, or data loss associated with hardware failure.

Current and Future releases

Current version: 2.1 (August 2005)

Next release:      2.2 (May 2006).

Additional features include:

Comments

The strength of Launchpad is that is forces users to think in an “object-based” way – i.e. to take a business area or problem and reduce it to its set of underlying “dimensions” or classes which can then be modelled.

A driving principle of Launchpad is that it stores data in a more intelligent and re-usable fashion than traditional MSOffice-based project deliverables. It prevents redundancy and increases accuracy in a project by only storing core project data in a single place – in the database, rather than running the risk of creating numerous “versions of the truth” in MSExcel, MSWord and other MSOffice applications.

Using Launchpad in conjunction with the Service Manager MSOffice documents can be auto-generated as “reports” from the core Launchpad data repository.