WebSAFE
SAFE As A Software Service
Let your employees, customers and vendors operate Simple Accounting for Forms Experts
from any Internet browser, on virtually any PC.
Install our Web SAFExtensions and your employees and customers can operate SAFE in your office, and also from any web browser. This means that users can use SAFE as easily as connecting with any other web site on the internet. This ability opens up a world of new possibilities for your company, including:
| Working from Home? | How many times have you or your sales people wanted to get some work done after hours or on the weekends. What about grabbing some last minute information to take to a client meeting at 6:00AM? If you ever wanted constant access to your orders and inventory, now you can have it with WebSAFE! |
| Remote Offices? | Do you have remote offices for salespeople or franchisees? Are you (and they) tired of not being able to get reliable, up to the minute information on inventory, customer history and order status? WebSAFE makes real-time management of all your locations a practical reality. |
| Client Self-Management? | If your larger clients need to manage their own orders, then WebSAFE is definitely for you! Customers can check the status of their own orders, take counts, place requests for releases, or even do routine reorders all on their own. That means faster response for them and less work for you. And that adds up to increased customer satisfaction and more net profit for you.
By the way, the word Security is probably coming to mind right now. Consider this: every WebSAFE user can be configured to see only their own information. That means that when a customer logs in with their ID and password, to them, WebSAFE appears to contain only their company’s data. They can’t even tell that you have other customers. |
How It Works
A user simply connects to your site and begins using SAFE inside their browser in exactly the same way they would access any other web page. Once at your home page, they see and run SAFE from within their browser exactly as if they were in your office. Nothing changes in the way they work with SAFE. Fast response is guaranteed because only the information the user needs is transmitted over the Internet connection. Screen response is quite snappy, even at 28.8k modem speeds.
This means that your sales people, employees and customers can run SAFE from anywhere with as many connections as your Web server can handle. No scripts; No extra programs, remote control software; no messy communication setups. The only requirements for a remote site are a PC capable of running Windows95 and a Java-enabled browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer.
Security is managed just as in ‘ regular’ SAFE, using the included Simple Accounting
Security Extension. Each user logs in with an Employee ID and a password which determines the menus and options she has access to. Data can be encrypted, and users can be limited to only data associated with their log-in ID (ie. a salesperson may only ‘see’ her orders, while a remote client may only ‘see’ his inventory). And, since users are working with the data on your server, all updates are in real time: no remote updates are required!
Two Ways To Serve You
There are two options for hosting WebSAFE: installing a web server in your office, or purchasing hosting services from an Internet Service Provider (ISP):
- Most users will want to install a web server in their offices. This has the advantage of allowing two-way access to SAFE: in-office users can access SAFE like any Windows application for fastest response; while remote users access WebSAFE from their browsers from anywhere!
- Cost-conscious buyers will purchase WebSAFE and install
it on an ISP’s web server, simply purchasing disk space on a monthly basis. This has the advantage of lower initial costs and zero maintenance. Your in-office users can access WebSAFE from a single Internet connection using their current PCs or even lower cost terminals.
Whichever way you choose to go, we’ll back you all the way, by installing the application on your web server, setting up security and providing all the expertise you need to get things running, immediately.
Some More Technical Stuff
The first time you run WebSAFE, a number of Java applets (small programs) are downloaded automatically from the web server to your client machine. These programs communicate with the web server, translating your keystrokes into requests for the web server. The web server in turn, sends back standard HTML web pages to your browser containing just the information needed to draw each screen. This technology is what
provides the speed. You’re only transmitting and receiving the absolute minimum at all times, so performance is snappy. Now granted, the very first time you run WebSAFE on a given machine it will take a few minutes to download those Java applets, but once that is done, you’ll be surprised at how responsive WebSAFE is.
Pricing & Availability
WEBExtensions for SAFE costs $5,995. This will give you an unlimited single WEB site license.
Call us today to order or to get a list of ISPs who are equipped to host SAFE. (The list is growing almost daily!)
Other Costs You Will Need To Consider
We hate to break it to you, but WebSAFE will probably not be the biggest chunk of money you dole out in order to provide a complete web solution and remote access. We’re not trying to be smug; just letting you know what you need up front. If you want to host your own web server with WebSAFE, you will need the following items with their approximate costs:
| A server computer with at least 64MB of memory. (It may or may not be dedicated exclusively to WebSAFE depending on your needs.) |
$3,500.00 |
 Microsoft Back Office® software for that server, includingNT 4.0 Server, 10 Client licenses, -Internet Information Server |
$2,295.00 |
| Monthly internet access fees from your ISP for each of your remote clients (5 remote users @ $20/mo.) | $100.00 |
| Monthly telecom and internet access fees from your ISP/phone company for your web site (ISDN) | $150.00 |
Remember that these prices can vary a lot depending on many, many factors (how many users you have, for example) that we caution you not to make too much of this. The above example applies to many of our customers, though.
Frequently Asked Questions
| What software do I need to run WebSAFE on my own Web server? |
1) WebSAFE
2) Microsoft Windows Server with IIS and ASP.NET enabled 3) A Static IP address 4) A domain name (eg. www.myformsbusiness.com) |
| But I don’t want the Web user to run the program in exactly the same manner as for my people in-house.
For example, I don’t want |
That’s why we have the Simple Accounting Security Extensions program. This allows you to change which menus, icons, buttons and so forth are on screen for every user who logs in to SAFE whether over the WWW or in your office.
To demonstrate our point this, click here to view two versions of the same data entry screen for a sales order line item; the first a view for a user in your office, the second appropriate for a remote customer doing on-line ordering. Note the simplified look of the second example. |
| How do I know I am getting the right components for my NT server? |
The easiest solution is to purchase Microsoft’s Small Business Server® software bundle. This includes all the NT components required to run WebSAFE plus Microsoft Exchange for e-mail and faxing and SQL Server for managing databases. |
| Where does the application run? | The application runs on the server. The user interface runs inside any Java-enabled browser. |
| Where does the data reside? | In any database accessible by the application. This can be on the Web server, or it can be at another location on the network. |
| What about security? Could someone break into our site? | WebSAFE enables the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) found on most Web servers. This is the encryption standard of the industry. It prevents unauthorized users from interecepting your data off the net. Also, our SASE add-on program offers data encryption to prevent users from copying data to their local machines. |
| Can we customize the look and feel of our web site? Can we prevent some users from accessing WebSAFE while still allowing them access to general information? |
Of course! WebSAFE appears just like any other link on a web page. Design your own web site and place your link to WebSAFE where you want it, or have our designers custom create a complete web site to your taste. We can design a consistent look and feel with advanced features that intelligently present WebSAFE to users who are supposed to have access but does not even display to those who are not! |
| How do I know I am getting a good deal from my Internet Provider? Access charges vary greatly | This is a tough one for lots of businesses as the market for internet services is still relatively immature.
If you host your own web server, we recommend that you strongly consider an ISDN or ADSL link from your server to your internet provider:
You must make certain that your internet provider supports these types of connections. We have heard all manner of shameless pricing on these types of services, however your first call should probably be to your local telco to see what they have to offer. We generally loathe dealing with these companies, but since they are ‘the phone company’, they should be able to provide reliable, if not, inexpensive service. We are pleased to be able to offer turnkey DSL service through Exelus Services. Please contact us for a quote. Also, each of these mega-corps have a web page devoted to their ISDN and ADSL services. If you would like competitive quotes, here they are: We can help you determine which carrier is best for your needs, but we cannot, ultimately, guarantee your results unless you purchase a complete server and installation from us. |
How We Can Help
If you’ve been concerned about the complexities of e-commerce, don’t worry! We can help get it all together for you in the following ways:
- We can sell or lease you all the hardware you need. As Authorized IBM and Digital Network Resellers, we have the expertise to get you installed and running the right way. We will pre-install and test WebSAFE so it’s ready to run the moment we flip the switch. And we’ll back our work with a three year warranty.
- We can provide the Networking Solutions you need to connect users in your office, remote offices, customers and salespeople on the road.
- We can set you up with an ISP if you wish to host WebSAFE remotely. We can pre-install WebSAFE on their server and take care of all the paperwork necessary to getting your WWW address.
- We can come to your site and provide comprehensive training on the use of WebSAFE for both your network administrator, office employees, and sales people in the field.