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1) What does RatchetSoft do?
RatchetSoft is dedicated to helping clients achieve two (2) basic objectives:
- Increasing operational and technological productivity from their IT capabilities.
- Leveraging a higher and faster return on investment from their IT applications.
2) What kind of products or services does RatchetSoft provide?
We provide a combination of complementary products and services:
- Products: Our Ratchet-X product is a very innovative XML-based desktop integration software product. Its unique purpose and advantage is the ability to simultaneously empower user self-sufficiency while liberating IT staffs. This is accomplished by allowing customization and changes to current applications without the need to access the source code or programming. f
- Professional Services: Complementing our Ratchet-X software product is a team of experienced technology and business professionals. This team 1) provides implementation technical support for the Ratchet-X product; 2) offers systems integration consulting, independent of our Ratchet-X product; and 3) provides business project management services and best practices advice for improving operational productivity and business process improvement.
3) What kind of Professional Services (PS) does your company provide?
RatchetSoft provides an experienced team of professionals with cross-functional skills in both technology and management practices. The Ratchet-X professional services team focuses on three areas of client services:
- Product Support: Implementation and Support for the Ratchet-X software product
- Technology Consulting (from systems planning to programming)
- Management Support (best practices and advisory services for the operational integration of technology, from strategy through process analysis to execution)
For more information regarding our professional services offering, click here.
4) What is Ratchet-X?
Ratchet-X is a desktop application integration platform that allows software users to add new features and integrate external data sources into existing applications without requiring changes to those applications. Ratchet-X empowers uses to get the most out of the applications they use by getting those applications to perform more of the tasks and deliver more of the information required by the end users of that information. The power of Ratchet-X is its ability to do this in a highly cost-effective manner without IT intervention.
5) How does Ratchet-X work?
The Ratchet-X platform is comprised of three components:
- Appspaces
- Ratchet-X Commander.
- Plug-ins
Appspaces, created via our Ratchet-X Appspace Editor, are XML files that tell the platform:
a) how to identify specific application screens; b) which pieces of data can be found on those screens; and c) what those pieces of data mean from a semantic perspective.
Once an appspace is created, it gets registered with a desktop application called the Ratchet-X Commander. Commander sits in the Window’s system tray waiting for you to navigate to any screen cataloged in registered appspace file.
Once you navigate to a cataloged screen, Commander places a notification button in the application screen’s title bar. If the user clicks on the button, he/she will be presented with a list of the functions Ratchet-X can perform from this application screen.
All the functions presented in the list are provided by plug-ins. Plug-ins are collections of services, data sources and applications that are developed with the Ratchet-X SDK (software development kit) and registered within a given user’s Commander installation.
Ultimately, Commander matches application screen contexts (the semantic meaning of the data contained within) and the capabilities of registered plug-ins. For a more in depth description of how Ratchet-X works, click here.
6) What kind of applications can Ratchet-X integrate with?
The power of Ratchet-X is in its flexibility. It allows users to integrate from one application to another within the same user desktop.
In addition, it supports “integration paths” to and from these other sources:
- External Web services
- Internal web services
- Database query (SQL; Oracle, Access)
- Proprietary API (ERP system; legacy system)
- Hard-copy forms
- Electronic form (e-form PDF or OCR-scanned document)
- An external web page
- EDI transaction set (e.g., EDI 850 Purchase Order)
To see a graphic overview of these capabilities, click here
7) Are there any kinds of technical limitations to using the product, such as incompatibility with operating platforms, ERP systems or programming language?
Ratchet-X was designed to work with most applications and web sites developed since 2000. In order to run Ratchet-X, you must be running Windows 2000 services pack 4 or better and have the version 2 or better of the .NET framework.
8) How is Ratchet-X different than other systems integration software and solutions?
Generally, integration solutions require one or more of the following:
- access to source code
- access to a proprietary API or
- access to a bulk import/export facility.
Unfortunately, most applications running on users’ desktops do not provide any of these types of integration access. This being the case, the only way to extract data from or inject data into these “black box” applications is via the one accessible interface we can always count on to be present – the user interface.
Since Ratchet-X integrates with applications through the user interface, most application can be integrated with without requiring changes to the application. This is what makes Ratchet-X truly a unique integration solution.
9) What about integration with ERP systems such as SAP, JD Edwards, etc?
Since Ratchet-X integrates with the applications through the user interface, there is nothing functionally inherent to ERP systems, or any other application class for that matter, that would cause an incompatibility. If you have compatibility concerns about your application, give us a call and we’ll send you our Ratchet-X compatibility testing tool.
10) Aren’t there plenty of software products that can do the same thing?
No, since most integration solutions require one of the integration access methods listed above, there are very few – if any – products we know of on the market that can do the kinds of integrations across as many applications as Ratchet-X can. This is why our clients turn to Ratchet-X for their integration solution.
In addition, other approaches that try to replicate Ratchet-X result in costly efforts, delayed implementation and just one more project to add to an already burdened IT staff.
11) How is Ratchet-X being used?
Ratchet-X is being used in a number of different ways to accommodate our customers’ specific integration challenges. Ratchet-X has been used in numerous industries and can be used by any business function within any industry where users need improved access to data and information to increase their productivity.
12) Do I have to reply on RatchetSoft to build my appspaces or can I build them myself?
Absolutely not. Our Appspace Editor application allows you to create your own appspaces for all your applications. However, our professional services team is always ready to lend a helping hand if you need it.
13) What does Ratchet-X cost?
Ratchet-X Community Edition (the version you can download from this site), is free. Please note that this Community Edition is sponsored so it may display targeted sponsor messages based on usage context. In addition, you can only access plug-ins that are hosted on Ratchet-X Online. If you’d like to upgrade to our enterprise version, contact us for details.
14) What’s it take to implement the Ratchet-X product?
Ratchet-X is easy to implement. All you need is access to the application you want to integrate and a clear definition of what features and data you want to add to the application. Then you can either build the plug-in to supply those functions or you can purchase a plug-in from RatchetSoft or any number of third party plug-in providers.
For an in-depth review of examples for how clients are using Ratchet-X, click here.
15) What kind of product support do you provide?
RatchetSoft provides a number of different support channels to accommodate our customers’ specific needs. These channels include:
- Phone
- Email
- On-site training and implementation
- Community forum
- Documentation
- Blog
16) What is required of the client’s IT team to implement and support Ratchet-X?
If you plan on building your own plug-ins, you will need a developer to program the plug-ins. However, if you are using a pre-configured plug-in supplied by RatchetSoft or a third party plug-in provider, you can implement Ratchet-X without the involvement of IT. However, since IT is responsible for supporting the applications running on you desktop, we recommend IT be made aware you are implementing Ratchet-X – especially since they will probably find other places within the organization where Ratchet-X can help other users.
17) You mention that Ratchet-X is “user-centric software” that allows “user self-sufficiency.” What does that mean?
Every day you are asked to do more and more with the systems you already have. In some cases, we are using applications that can’t be changed. In other cases, the user organization may lack the requisite skill sets or IT resources to enhance applications that can be changed. In both scenarios, Ratchet-X is a very cost-effective and technically viable way to get the applications we use to do more of the tasks we need to do. Since Ratchet-X allows you to tailor software to your requirements, you become more self-sufficient and the software you use yields a productivity gain rather than a productivity drain.
We believe that “user-centric” software is the wave of the future in IT. to us, it means two things:
At a strategic level, it is the belief that business requirements should drive software capabilities - and not the other way around. At a technical level, it means software that is designed around the ability for business users to easily get the information they need when they want it and how they want it.
Every day...
18) How can a user add application functionality without getting into its source code with the help of IT?
Since Ratchet-X integrates new application functionality through the user interface (rather than through traditional integration channels such as source code, API or import/export facilities), Ratchet-X makes integrating new functionality a snap. Using our wizard-based Appspace Editor, all you need to do to add new functionality is map your screen fields to the inputs and output of the plug-ins you’re integrating and you will be good to go.
19) Is Ratchet-X difficult to learn?
Absolutely not. Our Appspace Editor makes creating appspaces a snap. With regard to creating plug-ins, our SDK is easy to use and can be implemented using your development language of choice. However, keep in mind that creating plug-ins does require some degree of programming skills.
20) By making users self-sufficient will this result in a loss of control and compliance by IT?
No. Since plug-ins are generally created by programmers, the plug-in layer of the architecture is a natural place for organizations to maintain control and order.
21) Making users self-sufficient sounds great, but does this turn them into a de facto IT function?
No. In fact, making users more self-sufficient with regard to custom integration requirements free IT to supply more of the “value-added” services it provides.
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