An EASA system enables an organization to create simple, web-enabled tools that automate and simplify the use of existing software and data, such as spreadsheets, databases, or other third party applications.

Published on a corporate Intranet, these custom applications my be made available to anyone at the organization via a web browser. EASA empowers a wide range of personnel at an organization, giving each of them simplified access to software that might lie outside of his or her skill set.

EASA amplifies and transmits the experience, knowledge and best practices of the experts within a company to the rank-and-file decision makers. EASA contains Authoring tools that enable specialists in a commercial software application or an in-house code to create and publish an application with a simplified, web-accessible interface.

The Author Guide teaches an Author how to create and publish a custom EASA web application called an EASAP.

• Web Browser Access
  A User may access EASA via a web browser across an organization's LAN or even across the Internet.

• Application Library
  EASA Applications or EASAP's are stored in a central repository.

• Results Library
  The output from an EASAP is stored in a central repository.

• Authoring
  A specialist Author captures knowledge, expertise and best practices within an application.

• GUI Generation
  The EASAP Builder streamlines the creation of an easy-to-use graphical user interface.

• Integration with Existing Systems
  EASA interacts with existing software tools, databases or may be embedded via a special URL or Web Service calls

• Queuing
  EASA includes a queuing system to maximize utilization of software licenses and computing resources.

• Low Bandwidth
  EASA requires minimal bandwith by using internet protocols; mobile devices and network access is supported.

EASA defines three roles:

• User
• Author
• Administrator

A User may operate a published EASAP and access output via:

• Application Library
• Results Library

By default all accounts include User-mode, for more info see the User Guide.

An Author is responsible for creating, testing and publishing an EASAP, for more info see the Author Guide.

An Administrator will install, configure and maintain the EASA system, for more info see the Administrator Guide.

The default login:password ('author':'author') includes Administrator access, for more info read Users, Groups and EASAP categories.

An EASA web application, or EASAP, is a simple web-enabled application to drive:

• A software package
• A batch script
• An in-house code
• A database process
• A live Excel spreadsheet computation
  …to name only a few….

An EASAP is created by an Author who is a specialist of some kind and uses computer software to fulfill a role. An Author will need to gain expertise and familiarity with the EASAP Builder, EASA's development environment.

Any EASAP generated using EASA’s Authoring tools will have a similar look-and-feel. Once a User has mastered the use of one EASAP, learning to use another EASAP is straightforward. The figure below shows an example of a typical EASAP GUI. In this EASAP functionality is specified by an Excel spreadsheet which takes a few inputs and generates a graphs and tables as output.

In addition to being simple and easy-to-learn, an EASAP should also generate useful results for a User. 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 the User is an integral part of Authoring an EASAP.

An EASAP may allow a User the ability to effortlessly submit multiple runs as a Parametric Study. The User specifies a sequence of multiple explicit values for inputs and multiple runs are then queued and processed 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.

In addition to an entirely browser-based EASAP GUI, an EASAP may lauch a local temporary spreadsheet interface or in EASA parlance, an Excel Client which allows saving new or modified data to a database from within Excel via the EASA Ribbon.

Read more about the Excel Desktop Client