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FAQs
- What is Breeze?
Breeze is a hands-on example of a virtual workplace for a fictitious mid-size company. It is a web-based, virtual work environment that consists of a robust intranet, portal and extranet. Within the workplace, you can explore 20 different applications and 18 business processes. CorasWorks built Breeze to demonstrate what an organization can build out when using CorasWorks’ application development software on the Microsoft SharePoint platform.
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- Why does Breeze matter to my organization?
In short, it is a “look into the future” and provides the potential business value to be gained by an organization. Organizations are increasingly moving towards web-based environments for their workforce. This is driven by the growing reliance on the information worker, the flatter way of working, the new web-based technologies, and the web orientation of the new generations in the workforce.
Breeze gives you a practical, hands-on experience of what is realistic for organizations today – what they are doing and where they are going. Organizations are rapidly moving to make themselves more productive by helping their people work better together. Whether you will be one of the organizations moving in this direction or not, you will certainly find yourself competing with those that are.
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- Who should consider using the Breeze model?
CorasWorks has more than 1,000 customers across 23 countries and in nearly every industry. Whether you are in the private sector or public sector, the Breeze model can, and should, be part of your future.
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- What is the virtual workplace?
A virtual workplace is a web-based environment where people go to work. It is a virtual representation of the physical and logical structure of your organization. Thus, it allows you to have a place to go to share information and get work done. Or, you can just do your work and let the system keep everyone informed and alerted.
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- Is Breeze a hosted offering, like an ASP?
No. Breeze is just an example of what you can do with CorasWorks application development software on Microsoft SharePoint. Every organization would run SharePoint and CorasWorks on their own servers, wherever they run those servers. This is important because in most cases the virtual workplace integrates with the other applications, systems, and data sources within your organization.
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- Can I buy Breeze?
No. It is an example of what you can build. Every workplace for every organization should be unique. Thus, each organization will build out their workplace as they add more departments, applications and people – who learn how they want to work together.
The whole trick is that the CorasWorks software is modular. Thus, organizations just snap together the workplace and build it out as they go. It is also easy to change. This new modular application development software is the breakthrough that makes it practical for organizations to build what they need.
So, actually you get Breeze for free. Since it is all modular, whatever you see in Breeze today, and in the future, can be snapped off. You can then use it in your own organization – as long as you have CorasWorks software and Microsoft SharePoint.
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- What version of SharePoint does Breeze use?
Breeze is running on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise, known as MOSS Enterprise. You can also build and run your virtual workplace on Windows SharePoint Services 2007 or MOSS Standard.
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- Is the virtual workplace secure?
It is a secure environment. You will notice that you have to log in. The areas in the workplace are securable at many levels. The underlying security is controlled by the Microsoft SharePoint platform and Windows.
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- Can we still benefit from this if we like to develop code?
CorasWorks software primarily appeals to organizations that like the idea of not having to do custom code development. If you like to develop code you can still do so in individual components and add them into the environment. By its nature SharePoint is an open environment. However, these custom coded components will not be manageable as part of the overall system such as the elements of CorasWorks.
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- What is CorasWorks application development software?
CorasWorks provides two main products that allow organizations to design, build, and manage web-based applications and integrate these into a manageable environment such as Breeze. These products are the CorasWorks Workplace Suite and the CorasWorks Data Integration Toolset. The Workplace Suite is the core product that is used by non-technical people to build their applications and design and manage their work environment. The Toolset is an extension to the Workplace Suite that allows slightly more technical people to build more robust applications that integrate with multiple data sources, including applications and data sources outside of SharePoint.
Together, the Workplace Suite and the Toolset comprise the CorasWorks application development software that was used to build Breeze – without having to write any custom code.
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- So Breeze is an example of what I can do with CorasWorks application development software?
Yes.
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- What are the system requirements for Breeze and CorasWorks?
Windows 2003 or Windows 2007. SQL Server 2005, SP1 or SQL Server 2007. Any version of SharePoint 2007. And, the CorasWorks Workplace Suite and the CorasWorks Data Integration Toolset.
The full environment can run on a single server. However, the Breeze Virtual Workplace is designed for a mid-size company of 2,000 people or a division of an enterprise of that size. For an organization of this size, we recommend a three server configuration of two front-end web servers and a single back-end server for the SQL Server database.
Note: In a SharePoint environment, the SQL Server database holds the information consisting of both the data items and the documents which are stored in the database as blobs.
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- I already have SharePoint. What does CorasWorks application development software add beyond that?
SharePoint is the underlying platform. CorasWorks in Breeze provides just about the entire user interface. As you click through Breeze, more than 95% of what you see is CorasWorks. About the only user interface element you see that is SharePoint is the Search option. Breeze is an environment that spans data sources, sites, site collections, web applications, and server farms. Each of these is a barrier to user interface elements of SharePoint.
CorasWorks software is a robust, modular application development system that was designed top down. All elements of CorasWorks are modular and can be snapped on and off. Most importantly, using CorasWorks any of the displays allows users to see, contribute, and act on information coming from anywhere in the work environment. Because the Breeze environment cuts across workspaces, applications, departments and zones, CorasWorks is the only option unless an organization chooses to do a great deal of custom development.
Further, since CorasWorks software is used to design, build, and manage applications as part of a distributed but integrated work environment, the entire system management aspects of CorasWorks are unique to any SharePoint environment.
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- How long would this take to implement a virtual workplace like Breeze in my business?
It took CorasWorks 4 man-months to build Breeze. We expect that it would take you about about 12 man-months.
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- We don’t have in-house expertise in this area, what kind of support options are available?
CorasWorks has a worldwide network of services partners that are trained to build solutions using CorasWorks on SharePoint. In addition, CorasWorks provides Professional Services to assist organizations directly for architecture. We also provide Training and Education services to provide people within your organization with the skills to build out your work environment on your own.
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- My business is specialized; will I be able to integrate 3rd party applications into my virtual workplace?
In general, the answer is yes. The CorasWorks Data Integration Toolset was designed to make it easy to integrate external data sources and applications with your virtual workplace on SharePoint. You can use ADO.Net or Web Services to connect to these 3rd party applications. This means that you can connect with most leading databases such as databases of SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, Access or to any application that has exposed functionality via a web service.
Accordingly, this allows your workplace to be a common front-end for your people to work in, across your organization’s many applications.
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- Can I experience the Breeze environment for myself?
Yes, Breeze is an online, hands-on, live working environment. You can check it out here - Enter Breeze
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- How can I learn more about Breeze and CorasWorks?
The first thing to do is to view the multimedia presentations located under
Tour & Demos. Then, walk through the Breeze environment. For a more robust experience, contact CorasWorks so that we can do a walk-through with you.
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- What savings will I see from investing in building a virtual workplace with CorasWorks?
In general, if you were to attempt to custom build an environment such as this, the cost would be in excess of 10 times the cost of the CorasWorks software. Further, with CorasWorks, the knowledge and everything being built is reusable. So, once you go modular, your cost to add new elements or change things continues to decrease. Further, as a non custom coded environment, your support costs are far lower than a custom built environment. But, overall 1/10th of the cost of a custom built environment on SharePoint is a good estimate.
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- How much does it cost?
For a quote please contact us at:
sales@corasworks.net
1-866-580-3115
Local ⁄ Int'l: +1 703-797-1881
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- Ok. I want to make creating my virtual workplace a Breeze. How do I get it?
Review the My Breeze in 5 Steps video to understand what it takes and then contact CorasWorks to work with you to get you going.
For more information or a quote, please contact us at:
sales@corasworks.net
1-866-580-3115
Local ⁄ Int'l: +1 703-797-1881
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