New MAP version in Java

MSB (Management Systems for Business) is an Argentine company that has worked in development, consulting, and business intelligence for the last 12 years. The company which uses GeneXus as a development tool commercializes two products: MAP (personnel management method ), and SGC ( commercial management system).

MAP is the company's top-notched product. It has 400 tables, more than 1,000 workpanels, and although it is mainly installed on AS/400 platforms, it is also installed on C/S with Oracle, and on Xbase with Visual Fox. Some of MAP's clients in Argentina include Johnson&Johnson, PAE oil company centralizing human resources management of other countries in Latin America  Avon, Refinerías de Maíz, and Nidera a seeds company.
The company has worked with GeneXus as a development standard since 1994.

"We started with the RPG generator (for MAP), and we went on generating with RPG through all the GeneXus version changes, Sandra Guarna stated.

This year, MSB has decided to generate the product version of MAP Human Resources in Java with SQL. We have to have something as strong, as important, and with the same quality as the application we have on AS/400, but on a platform that will live up to what it is out there, and that will meet the specific needs of our clients nowadays, Ms. Guarna explained.

At the Meeting, which gathered MAP users in Buenos Aires, MSB introduced a demo of its new version developed in the GeneXus Internet Virtual Space (GIVS) environment.

The impact that the new MAP version in Java will have on clients is very notorious because they are used to seeing character screens, green colors, and they can only see a set of data. There are functions they currently use, for which they have to make four or five options; from now on, they will be able to do the same with only one option that will match sets of data logically combined.   Our ten-option menu has now become a two-option menu each one of which can display five other options seen as a group-. AS/400 users who had to navigate through menus, exit, and make other selections, will now be able to work with large groups of data on a single screen", Ms. Guarna said. "This is possible thanks to the use of webpanels, which make it possible to show dynamic components, that is to say, a combination of different types of data on a single screen", she added.

The company is also planning to incorporate GXQuery to MAP. "At the XII GeneXus Users Encounter, it was great to discover that Excel was the interface of GeneXus Query. Most of our clients are familiar with Excel, so we think it will make a big difference", she concluded.