DCSL GuideSmiths

WaterAid is an international charity with a vision of a world where everyone, everywhere has safe water, toilets and hygiene. Since 1981, it has helped millions of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people access these vital human rights, expanding into 35 countries across Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Central America. The charity is headquartered in London, UK.

Although WaterAid already had a system in place to manage large grants, its capabilities were limited and the charity had outgrown it. Managing funds of £30 million+ each year, and with 150 active grants on the go at any one time, as well as historical records to access and manage, the charity needed a more comprehensive and robust grant management system. In due course this will be integrated with other back-office systems. The new system needed to be intuitive to use and include a database; a way of managing restrictions, approvals and income; easy reporting; and storage for key documents. It needed to be accessible via intermittent Internet connections, and be usable in different languages.

DCSL developed the system using Microsoft ASP.NET MVC 5 and C#, underpinned by SQL Server, to create a functionally-rich system which also uses the Internet efficiently, without requiring a high-speed connection.

The new Restricted Income System is able to capture all of the details of a grant and the conditions attached to it, and follow it through to project completion. Previously, systems administrators would have to download data into Excel to produce reports manually, whereas the new system supports live reporting. This is boosted by the ability to filter and search, so users can get to the information they need in a few clicks – for example identifying all grants for a particular country.

Read the full case study on our website: https://www.dcsl.com/clients/water-aid/ 

Co-founded by MetLife and AXA, MAXIS Global Benefits Network (MAXIS GBN) is a network of almost 140 insurance companies in over 120 markets, combining local expertise with global insight. Its clients are major international corporations which provide insurance cover for their employees – specifically medical, accident, disability and life insurance products.

As part of its drive to keep adding new value for clients, MAXIS GBN has provided an online portal through which employers can access reports. Having a self-service portal is convenient and informative for clients but the organisation wanted to do more with this facility – providing clients with interactive, at-a-glance insights into their current insurance portfolios; relative take-up, premiums and pay-outs from country to country; and other on-demand, tailored information.

DCSL Software built the new client portal and Wellness Intelligence Tool (WIT) using the latest Microsoft technologies. Across the new, transformed OneClient portal, interactive graphical dashboards show aggregated costs and claims, which clients can drill down into to see how product uptake, claims activity and costs compare between different countries. This enables employers to make more strategic decisions about insurance planning, and associated risk and cost management, on a global basis.

Read the full case study on our website: https://www.dcslsoftware.com/clients/maxis/ 

Augustus Martin is a leading UK marketing services business, specialising in creating, manufacturing and implementing retail activity for top consumer brands in the UK and across Europe. To enhance their service offering Augustus Martin identified the need to help their customers deliver their campaign activity more effectively driving and in doing so drive major cost and operational savings.

Augustus Martin appointed a product owner and project manager to work with the DCSL team. An agile approach was adopted to drive rapid development cycles with key gatekeeping points along the way. Through a highly collaborative, iterative development process – which allowed all parties to agree the system was moving in the right directions – DCSL Software developed the system using the latest Microsoft Web Technologies. These included ASP.NET Core, with SQL Server at the back end and an unobtrusive JavaScript (uJS) at the front end, to maximise system performance.

Read the full case study on our website: https://www.dcsl.com/clients/augustus-martin/