Web Applications

The Vanguard System™ is a tool for building powerful Web-based decision-support systems ranging from Wizard-style help desks to high-end, predictive analytics applications. You can publish these systems as live applications on the Internet or on your corporate Intranet. This makes it possible for users anywhere in the world to run them remotely.  What's more, users don't need any special software other than a standard Web browser.

Add Interactive Applications to Your Site

Turn your static Web site into an engaging, interactive tool.  Vanguard interacts with visitors by asking questions and dynamically individualizing Web pages.

Part of what makes Vanguard unique is that it allows each Web site visitor to interact with his/her own session running on a Web server - this is like having a separate sales representative for each visitor who enters your site. The Wizard-style applications you build easily guide users through a decision-making process.

Using Vanguard, you can add intelligent, interactive applications to your site, such as automated help desks, that assist in:

• Finding the right products;
• Cross-selling related products;
• Closing marginal sales opportunities;
• Providing after-sales support.

Use for Customers and Employees

Using a simple series of questions and answers, the Web-based applications you build can help your customers determine which of your products best meet their needs, or quickly get help from an interactive help desk.  Used in-house, your employees can run custom analytical applications that help them make better decisions, or allow them to enter data directly into your corporate Intranet to publish real-time, graphical information for use throughout your company. In fact, you can build models or applications that are useful in real-time reporting over your corporate Intranet such as models that monitor production data and prepare up-to-the second graphs of key production indicators.

Vanguard Retains Visitor Sessions

Without the Vanguard System, communication between a Web site visitor and your Web server is traditionally stateless. That is, your server does not keep any information about a visitor from one request to the next—it just serves up pages. With the Vanguard System, visitors enter into a session with your server and each session can be retained for reference during future sessions with that visitor. Information presented to a visitor during a session is dependent on all previous activity with that particular visitor. This allows you to build Wizard-style applications that guide users through a decision-making process.

Fast, Cost-effective Application Development

Building server-side scripts the way the Vanguard System does is far quicker and much less expensive in terms of development time than CGI programming, Active Server Pages, and similar methods of server-side scripting. This speed and low cost makes it possible to build applications that change frequently. In addition, the Vanguard System's efficiency allows you to build complex systems such as medical diagnostic tools—applications that simply cannot be built using traditional Web development tools.

To ensure speed in building scripts, the Vanguard System uses an enhanced version of JavaScript^® as its core programming language. This allows you to use the same language for both server-side and client-side development of active Web content. You can begin scripting without having to learn a new language; and, you can freely move components you have developed between the server and client environments without re-coding.