A system has been launched that allows the MRREE –Uruguayan public body– to query customs information from eleven countries worldwide. This project was developed within a joint work scheme between
Cybernet,
Concepto and
Ucom. Cybernet, a company that bid for the project called by AGESIC (Agency for the Development of the Electronic Management Government and the Information and Knowledge Society) is dedicated to the development of information technology solutions, with special emphasis on logistics, customs, free trade zones and foreign trade. Concepto, in turn, is dedicated to similar activities and especially to the customs sector, while Ucom provides foreign trade information services to companies associated with Uruguay's Chamber of Industry.
The MRREE needed a Web application that allowed it to query foreign trade information (imports and exports) from multiple sources, in order to enable the Office for International Finance Issues, MERCOSUR and Integration of the Ministry and Ambassadors to apply business intelligence and identify the business opportunities that arise in different countries.
One of the requirements was that the solution should be integrated into the future portal of the Ministry, developed with GXportal. The resulting application was called
Business Information System (SIC) and was developed with GeneXus Java by taking the most useful data from Ucom's existing Knowledge Base and redesigning the data model to represent the reality of multiple data sources. Building on this base, a large number of features were developed to take full advantage of the data entered into the system in an agile and intuitive way.
The challenges overcome include the following: • Distributed development using team members in different locations who communicated at all times via the Internet, managing the model.
• Changing the database system for production in the middle of the project.
• Managing tens of millions of records to be queried using multiple combinations, with immediate response times. In this sense, the loading and storing of records had to be optimized.
• Integration with GXportal, according to the MRREE’s requirements.
• The agreed deadline for the global launch of the system was of only 4 months.