EASA enables your organization to create simple web-enabled tools that automate and simplify the use of your existing software and data, such as spreadsheets, databases, and other third party applications. Published on the corporate Intranet, your custom applications can be used by anyone in your enterprise using only a web browser. EASA therefore provides people in your organization with simplified access to software they might not otherwise be able to use.

It also gives them the experience, knowledge and best practices of your company’s experts. EASA contains “authoring” tools that enable specialists in commercial software applications or in-house codes to create and publish the Web-enabled applications mentioned above. This guide is aimed at providing information and instructions for “Authors” to help them successfully create and publish their own applications using EASA.

EASA® enables your organization to create simple web-enabled tools that automate and simplify the use of your existing software, such as mission-critical in-house codes, or commercial applications including spreadsheets, databases and other third party applications.

Published on the corporate Intranet, your custom applications can be used by anyone in your enterprise using only a web browser. EASA therefore provides people in your organization with simplified access to software they might not otherwise be able to use. It also gives them the experience, knowledge and best practices of your company’s experts.

The key features in EASA include:

Web Browser Access

Users access EASA via a web browser and therefore EASA can be made readily available to just about anyone within your organization. In addition, EASA can be configured for Internet access all via a web browser for users external to your organization, such as customers, partners, suppliers, etc.

Application Library

This central repository for EASA Applications, also known as EASAPs, consolidates storage of software tools in your organization.

Results Library

This is another central repository for your organization’s information that consolidates storage of results generated by your organization’s use of EASAPs. In addition, the results library allows users to view results of other users, which can avoid duplicate work.

Authoring

EASA contains tools that allow your specialists to ‘author’ EASAPs. In the process, your specialists will be capturing their knowledge, expertise and best practices within these applications, thereby facilitating consistent, high-quality processes throughout your organization.

GUI Generation

EASA’s authoring tools create easy-to-use graphical user interfaces that simplify the use of complex underlying software while allowing the focus to be problem specific.

Results Processing

Reports generated by EASAPs and stored in the Results Library can be tailored by the author to meet the specific needs of your organization.

Integration with Existing Systems

EASA contains capabilities for interacting with existing software tools and systems that may already reside within your organization. EASAPs can be configured to interact with databases that may be integral to other systems. Also, EASA content can be embedded within other software applications via special URLs and API calls.

Queuing

The queuing system in EASA manages the running of EASAPs and will efficiently make use of your software licenses and computing resources.

Low Bandwidth

EASA was designed to be run over the Internet and therefore the amount of information exchanged between a user’s computer and the EASA system is kept to a minimum. Thus, connection to EASA via cellular networks is possible.

There are three types of potential EASA users, also known as EASA Roles. All users of EASA will be required to have an EASA account with a user name and password. The role of a user will be determined by their user name and the EASA system will automatically know a person’s role or level of access once they have logged in to EASA. These three roles offer different levels of access to the EASA system and its functionality. The roles are:

An EASA Administrator is primarily responsible for installing and configuring the EASA system. An Administrator will have access to both Administrator and User mode.

An EASA Author is responsible for creating and publishing EASAPs for use by the rest of your organization. Author access to EASA allows both Author and User mode.

Note: A person can be both an Author and an Administrator and is then allowed access to all three modes, User, Author and Administrator.

A User as the name implies, uses the EASA system. This means they will make use of the tools available in the Application Library and the information available in the Results Library. By default all accounts in EASA always have access to User mode. In most organizations, the User role will be the most prevalent for people with EASA accounts. For more information on setting up User accounts in EASA, see Creating New User Accounts.

An EASA Application, or EASAP, is a simple Web-enabled application to possibly access databases or drive single or multiple underlying software packages or in-house codes. EASAPs are created by EASA Authors who are primarily specialists in application software, but who have also been trained in the use of the EASAP building tools found in EASA. All EASAPs generated using EASA’s authoring tools will have a similar look-and-feel to their graphical user interface (GUI). Thus, once users have mastered using one EASAP, learning to use another EASAP should be very straightforward. The figure below shows an example of a typical EASAP GUI.

In addition to being simple and easy-to-learn, an EASAP should also generate useful results for its users. The popularity of an EASAP may depend to some extent on its ease-of-use, but ultimately, the value of an EASAP will be measured by the quality of the results it generates and inserts in the Results Library. Therefore, defining the report structure and format for presenting results to users is an integral part of an EASAP.

EASAPs can also provide the benefit of making submission of multiple runs a simple task for users. A Parametric Study allows a user to specify multiple explicit values for inputs and multiple runs are then generated from a single EASAP submission. EASA provides special tools and content within the Results Library for aiding users in analyzing the results from the multiple runs (see Parametric Study).