Visual DataFlex makes business application development easy

Josery Textiles Ltd, and its retail business Welbeck Sports, are a pair of small, family-run businesses specialising in leisurewear fabrics and made-up garments such as sweatshirts and polo shirts, especially with custom embroidered or silk screened logos.

Through the 1980s they had a simple home grown DataFlex V2.3b application but by 2000 this was running out of steam. In particular the product range exploded from a handful of identifiable products to thousands. The old system had an over-simple database structure and problems in running the old DOS application under Windows. After having a good look at the sales and CRM software packages available Sue Jones spent a while experimenting with Visual Basic and Access, but while these undoubtedly are very “clever” for visual elements, even after having gone through the training package Sue felt she had got no-where with being able to handle data.

After experimenting with a Visual DataFlex evaluation, Sue started to design a customer tracking system and had two sessions of one-on-one mentoring at Asckey’s premises. Over the next year Sue completed the customer and samples tracking system and a pricing system, with no further help from anyone. The work included transfer of data from the old system, and defining routines for updating the price list from manufacturer-supplied spreadsheets. (Sue has a science degree, but is not a computer-trained person. Her only contact with computer programming was a short course whilst at Cambridge University, with punched cards and Fortran, enough to put anyone off for life!)

Sue says “Compared with other Windows software I looked at, Visual DataFlex provides far better searching facilities. With VDF I can search on any combination of name, address, postcode and account reference fields just by clicking on the appropriate column heading.“

Of the overall development, Sue says “Visual Dataflex has been central to allowing us to alter our business in a changing world. We really needed to run our business the way we felt it should be run, and nothing else seemed capable of letting me as a non-programmer, build a computer system to support that. VDF did”

The UK textile industry has had a hard time over the last few decades, and it is nice to see that a small company specialising in high quality service can still thrive in an industry dominated by cheap imports from the third world.

For the complete story click here