Three Musicians 1921. Pablo Picasso.
Oil on canvas, 80x74". Philadelphia Museum of Art.
PICASO ©
Scope and Purpose
PICASO© ("Pictures for CASO") was
designed and built internally for Xerox by GP&IM (Global Process &
Information Management) for the Corporate Accounting Services Organization
(CASO) in Rochester, NY. This suite of advanced applications is used to
process all the Accounts/Payable Check Requests for Xerox in the United
States. PICASO© consists of a set of interrelated
client-server applications which use electronic workflow tools to route
payment requests as scanned, digital images to the appropriate persons
and/or automated systems for ultimate payment to an authorized Xerox vendor.
Current Status
The system went into full production in the 1st half of 1995 and is currently
handling over 50,000 requests for payment per month. To date there
have been several million images stored in the database which are accessible
for immediate retrieval as required.
Best Practices Used
PICASO©'s multi-tiered, client/server architecture
ties together Windows-based clients which are used for both user interface
presentation and some local processing with Sun UNIX servers which host
the underlying RDBMS and workflow management systems. These clients and
servers are connected to each other via TCP/IP and also to several mainframe
systems for access to essential legacy data and online transactions.
Designed using object-oriented techniques and C++ from its very inception,
PICASO©
has
achieved over 50% code reusability. Wherever possible, "best of breed"
imaging, workflow, SQL database, legacy system access and user interface
libraries were purchased rather than "reinvented here". Since these frameworks
were typically supplied only with C language API's they were in turn wrappered
with GP&IM-written C++ classes to present a consistent, implementation-hiding
interface to the developers. Where preexisting components did not readily
exist, these functions were written in C++ from the ground up. All integration
was likewise done in C++, both on the client and server sides with some
UNIX shell scripting also required. In all PICASO©
consists of over 250,000 lines of Xerox-written code along with a few hundred
C++ classes.
As a testament to its advanced use of OO technology for building transaction
processing systems, PICASO© was chosen as a finalist
for a DBExpo ComputerWorld/Intel RealWare award.
Background
For more details on PICASO© you can also try these
links...
Please
send any feedback or questions to: tjm@cognosys.net