D-Motivatie Achieved dynamic MS Word document generation in SaaS solution using Aspose APIs

About D-motivatie

Hyubrid SaaS product logo

Hybrid SaaS is a web-based internet application developed for SME. By using Hybrid SaaS, organizations can easily manage business processes as customer relations management, project management, time registration, and billing.

Hybrid SaaS is developed by the Dutch company D-motivatie (translation Digital-Motivation). D-motivatie is an ICT company specialized in systems controlling and developing software applications. There have been numerous occasions when D-motivatie was approached by different costumers who had the need for a good and simple CRM application. By this request, D-motivatie started to develop an application named Hybrid SaaS. The goal was to develop an application that is easy to understand and can be operational within many industry sectors.

Hybrid SaaS is a so-called SaaS solution, where software is stored external instead of local. This has several advantages for organizations like: no expensive investments in hardware and software, up-to-date software, flexible user management. Organizations only pay a monthly subscription which is much lower than similar products on the market

Nowadays, we have a number of Hybrid SaaS users and they are very satisfied with the functions which Hybrid SaaS offers.

Requirements Scenario

In order to satisfy a major requirement from our product to generate Word formatted documents, we required a tool that would allow us to operate without the restrictions of Word Automation.

The worksheet generation engine needed to be able to:

Solution Implementation

We used Aspose.Words for .NET to make calls to the Word document and populate the fields necessary. We were able to bring in the record information from Microsoft SQL 2008 and place the data information within our document. Once the document was created, we displayed the information to the browser using the PDF format.

From a user perspective, Hybrid SaaS simply uses an Export/ Create button on the menu. So once it is clicked, the content is recreated as an xls(x), doc(X) or PDF file and then opened for viewing in Office or Adobe.

Benefits

It wasn’t necessary anymore to install software programs like MS Office or PDF-writers. The system also became more stable, and much quicker. In a very easy way, standard documents can be downloaded, adapted, and uploaded as a template.

Our system became more maintainable than it was before and we’re not concerned about our ability to handle new documents as they’re created.

Benefits:

  • Increased speed of development;
  • Better document model for interacting with Microsoft Word documents;
  • Reliance on Microsoft Word for interacting or printing documents is removed, it’s only required for creating templates, so reduces licensing costs for customers;
  • Easy conversion of formats, from plain text to HTML, PDF and xps.

Future Implementations

No future concrete implementations planned at this time. However, we expect more needs in management reports/ information. Lots of organizations need to have accurate information of their business. For example, information about financial statuses, debtors, registered work time of employees etc. To generate sheets with all the information from the database, we need the have component which can create these form quickly. Aspose.Words for .NET will be a tool for it!

Conclusion

D-motivatie is excited to save time and money using the Aspose product. Furthermore, we expect to have a more stable system with the help of Aspose. We are thankful for the generosity of the Aspose organization in offering a discount on their product.

Preview of main screen of SAAS system

Above the main (start) screen is showed. All users get there own username and password. By using a browser, which is stored locally, they get access to the application.

Preview of various business type documents

Organizations can upload their own business templates. Different templates can be saved like Letters to organizations, invoices, reports, order forms, etc. The figure above shows all the different business letters templates, which a user can choose to send for a business relationship.

Preview of information filled in template

Once the user has selected his type of template, the template shows up. All the information which is requested from the database by using field names is populated in the template. If necessary, the user can add additional information. Once the user closes the file, the application automatically saves the file to an appropriate folder.