Latest revision as of 15:18, 25 April 2018

1 Overview

bxp is a very extensible and flexible platform but it can sometimes be hard to visualise how all the bits fit together. This start here is designed to show you how bxp is brought together and how you can explore its expansion. In order to explain bxp we use an analogy to help everyone understand what we do.

Imagine you want a build a house. This house is going to be custom built to give you your perfect space for what you want to do.

bxp is the house. What you want to do is run your operation, your way.

The challenge with building a house is not every house is the same and they all have very different purposes and very different people living in them.

2 Building a house

Different people are involved in building a house with very different skill sets. Like everything in life there is a wonderful blend of skills and talents where some people can do more than others and some are better in areas than others. So we need to divide up the areas into generalities for discussion purposes:

• The customer: The person who has the idea and is the one funding the project.
• Architects: The people who visualise the idea
• Builders / Engineers: The people who turn vision into reality
• Interior Designers: The people who transform the inside of the structure

You are the customer. Its your money, how can we help you realise your vision?

All n One are the engineers (i.e. Software Developers). We have been engineering solutions since 2005 with staff working on the team building since the 1980s. We are very good engineers. Computer software lets us do something real world engineers can't do. We have pre-built houses. We can literally in less then 30 minutes construct an entire new house from a template. The houses are bxp systems.

When buying a house some people have very specific ideas of what they want, others are happy to buy something already built. Most of All n One's customers are happy to see what we have already built but we can also facilitate very custom designs. Our pre-built template approach greatly reduces cost.

We have knowledge of the workings of all the areas and can provide objective support in all areas.

3 What rooms

bxp comes with a number of pre-built modules. Each module is collection of functions. Think of a bathroom and a bedroom. Both are rooms but the facilities within each are very different. You expect water facilities in a bathroom but large storage space facilities in a bedroom. Once the connections and facilities are there then the "look and feel" of the room is what becomes important.

bxp has many modules. You decide what you need to be able to do functionally and we'll pick out the rooms (modules) for you. Some rooms feature more often than not.

• The front door and security: System Access Management
• The kitchen: Form management for building data storage and where most activity happens and keeps all the people in the house going
• The library: eCourse for building books and storing information
• The hall / lobby: Inbound contact for capturing, managing and dealing with people contacting inward to your business
• The study: Outbound contact, where you ring, email or social media out to your customers
• The bedroom: Data Profiling, where all the vital information is disseminated and reviewable
• The games room: Gamification capability

If you prefer to choose your own, then by all means. The_Modules_of_bxp Every system must have System Access Management for user management purposes.

4 Building your house

The most important part is that you know what you want. The greatest challenge any architect, engineer or interior designer faces is ensure that they are able to realise the dream of the customer. The more detail and specific a customer is, the more exact the delivery can be. If you don't have an idea yet, that's not a worry either. Samples and examples exist already to inspire you.

Lets start with an example build. You want somewhere you can send your staff. This construction has to provide certain facilities to help them do their job. You want it to look fairly reasonable but you don't want to pay the earth. You're not 100% sure how it's going to work, so you want the flexibility to try different things.

If this was house building and you were visiting a foreign country, you wouldn't necessarily initially build a house, you might stay in a hotel or rent somewhere to get an idea. bxp can facilitate a temporary stay.

So you do your stay, you now have an idea of what rooms and facilities you generally want. Some "might be nice to have"'s, others will be "need to have". This usually manifests in a one or two page requirements document which you can email to the bxp team and we'll interpret and build against using our pre-built templates.

From the prototype that is built (a fully working model house). You get to do your viewing. Is this what I want... can I change this... ohh I never thought of that. bxp can go through a number of iterations of change.

To give an idea of time scale:

• 30 mins to build the house (create a system and select the modules of the system)
• 2 hours introduction / guided viewing
• 30 hours of initial system set-up and support to ensure that your prototype is exactly what is required.

5 Style

Style to some people is vital, to others a couch is a couch. The All n One team recognising this have made is possible for two different groups to influence how bxp is constructed.

There are many discussions of job titles for this area which rage around the internet. For example Link

5.1 Architects

If you have a vision in mind for how you want your house to look, the first port of call for most people is an architect. Going down this route, as per a house, is usually quite a costly experience, however if there is a specific target in mind it is very doable.

bxp has a default style. Like quite a lot of buildings, the walls are painted magnolia. This isn't for everyone but most people are ok with it. System_Settings_-_Template

For bxp an architect is a graphic designer, web designer or a UI (User Interface) designer. Like any designer they present different look and feel depending on their style. Screenshots_from_bxp#Logins

If you want to get out and out stunning, bxp can facilitate this too. bxp is built with two major components which can be completely stylised.

• Style Sheet: This allows the architect to decide completely fonts, colours, backgrounds. Custom_CSS
• Interface bars: This allows components to be shown / not shown to facilitate the design on a system or user by user basis. Interface_Bars

The architect and engineer will usually bounce off each other to figure out what can and can't be done.

It is important that the customer choose a designer that is compatible with their taste. Viewing previous work / portfolios greatly adds to this process. Here are some examples:

Design Houses

• http://www.continuum.ie/what-weve-done
• http://www.bluesunsoftware.com/
• https://www.simplyzesty.com/home
• http://www.rossul.com/
• http://www.rareview.com/work/

Freelance options

• https://www.freelancer.com/work/design-user-interface/1/
• https://www.upwork.com/i/howitworks/client/
• http://www.peopleperhour.com/freelance/ui+design

5.2 Interior Designers

bxp allows a client to make their own design changes. You can paint your own walls a specific colour. You can move in your own furniture as you need. Doing D.I.Y. definitely keeps the costs down. If you have skilled graphics people, coders or other talented people already on crew you can literally make worlds of difference. This exercise we refer to as Interior Design. You are putting material within the framework of the system, which you have styled.

Interior Designers for bxp come in a number of forms:

• eLearning content developers: This group make stunning interactive eLearning material which can be delivered and monitored through bxp
• JavaScript and MetaData developers: This group make the system perform very custom functions which can save 100s of person hours of work
• Website developers: This group make public websites far away from bxp, but store all their data in bxp securely
• Mobile app developers: This group make apps for mobile phones which store data securely in bxp
• Phone system integrators: This group make phone systems do amazing things and save lots of manual operation by leveraging technology

The All n One team have skills in all these areas, but there are companies out there who specialise in these areas. We can work with these groups and facilitate the realisation of your vision.

If you have the skills in house you can just do it yourself

• eLearning Scenario_-_How_to_build_eLearning_content
• JavaScript Category:Topic:JavaScript
• MetaData Module_-_MetaData
• Website integration Scenario_-_bxp_as_a_secure_Website_Data_Store
• Mobile app integration Bxp_API_-_APP_API
• Phone Systems Scenario_-_bxp_Integration_with_a_Phone_System

Examples of interior designers:

• http://logicearth.com/
• http://www.bluesunsoftware.com/
• http://www.cornerhouse.ie/index.php/services
• http://www.continuum.ie/what-weve-done
• https://www.simplyzesty.com/home
• http://www.feedhenry.com/

6 Where to begin

We provide a sample plan to help you decide what you'd like to do.

Discuss internally the following:

1. Write a list of all the things you need the system to do.
2. Write a list of all the things you'd like to have.
3. Prioritise the list
4. Send that list to All n One

From this we can create a demonstration prototype:

1. We will organise a meeting / webex to show you what we can do
2. We will present you with more material to explain how we do it
3. We will explain what comes with the package
4. We provide you a prototype to play with

Once you've played with the prototype you'll have a better of idea of where you want to go. The second meeting you'll know what is possible may have further questions which need answering. All functional elements at this stage will have a price. We put the system in place.

There is enough information available in this Wixi that if you had the skills in house you can completely tailor your system as you require.

If you prefer to get professional external support then the next choices are Architecture and Interior Design.

If you want to style the interface: You decide on an architect and All n One work with them to create you a concept. All n One are not responsible for the costs of the designs and these will be done directly with you, with advice from All n One. This way you already have a system, they're just refining the look and feel. This greatly reduces risk.

If you want to have content styled / built: All n One will review and present our internal capability and if outside our skill set will provide potential suppliers based on a supplied quote. All_n_One_Project_Development_Approach

7 Styling tools

Any tools we bump into in bxp we always want to share if they're really useful.

If you have the rights to use a font, why not include it in your bxp. Font Converter creates all the browser compatible versions of your font for the various browsers. https://transfonter.org

If you have beautiful graphics then you might want to make them an interactive image with areas that can be clicked to bring you to other parts of bxp. This is where Image Map is really helpful. Very easy to use interface and very quick to get things perfect https://www.image-map.net/

8 Support

If you want support in any area, the All n One sales team would be delighted to support you and provide advice wherever we can. Give us a shout on +353 1 429 4000 or email us at support@bxpsoftware.com