Proven reporting on our way to the cloud

Company: Seelig Software Solutions GmbH
Solution: MegaDent OfficeManager / MegaDent Cloud
Industry: Software for dental laboratories
Application area:Billing, administration and fully customizable reporting
Product: List & Label Cross Platform
Website: https://www.megadent.com

More than 30 years of industry experience

For more than 30 years, we have been developing and selling the MegaDent OfficeManager, a billing and administration software for dental laboratories.

Our industry is specialized and demanding: the software has to reliably cover the entire process, from the order and the recording of services rendered through to invoicing, analysis and statistics. From the very beginning, our aim was therefore to develop a solution with a high level of professional depth that at the same time remains easy for users to operate.

I am Michael Seelig, owner of Seelig Software Solutions GmbH and also responsible for software development. I run the company without any additional employees, while sales are handled by an external business partner.

The original generation of the MegaDent OfficeManager was developed in Visual Basic and was therefore a classic Windows desktop application. With MegaDent Cloud, we are now creating a completely new, web-based solution on a modern and platform-independent technological foundation.

Reporting with List & Label since 1995

Flexibly designable forms were part of our concept as early as our first product development back in 1993. At that time, we initially developed our own rudimentary WYSIWYG form designer.

It quickly became clear, however, that an in-house development would not be able to meet the growing requirements in the long term. Instead of investing more and more development time in a reporting component of our own, in 1995 we opted for List & Label 3.0.

Since then, we have used List & Label everywhere reporting is involved in our software. Over the years, we have built our own framework on top of it. Our users can not only use the standard layouts provided by the program, but can also design individual templates for every report type – for example for:

• Invoices and quotations
• Statistics and lists
• Delivery notes and job tickets
• Other customer-specific documents

This freedom of design has been an important part of our product for decades.

From a Windows application to the cloud

Our previous Visual Basic solution was functionally mature and very popular with users. With the growing trend toward the cloud, however, requirements became more important that could no longer be sensibly implemented with a classic Windows application.

These include above all location- and platform-independent access as well as the option of connecting a customer portal. In future, this portal will allow dental laboratories to involve dentists directly in the order process.

Such a scenario was not feasible with our previous architecture. We therefore decided to take a fundamental step: a complete redevelopment – away from a locally installed, platform-dependent desktop application and toward a web-based cloud solution.

The requirement was clear: in future, MegaDent should be available without local installation and independently of the operating system used.

Continuity instead of a completely fresh start

Thanks to our decades of experience with List & Label, the bar for a reporting tool was set correspondingly high. Alongside platform independence, a genuine WYSIWYG designer was a key criterion for us.

When combit presented List & Label Cross Platform, this was exactly the technological step we needed for our new product generation. It allowed us to keep List & Label as our reporting tool in the platform-independent cloud solution as well.

The major advantage for us: we did not have to start from scratch with reporting. A substantial part of the know-how we had built up over decades, as well as many existing layouts, could be carried over into the new generation.

Reporting in MegaDent Cloud

In MegaDent Cloud, our users manage the report layouts centrally by form type. These include quotations, cost estimates, invoices, statistics and lists, for example.

At present, we still edit the layouts with a locally launched variant of the List & Label Designer integrated in .NET. The actual rendering, however, already takes place server-side with List & Label Cross Platform.

This allows us to combine the familiar workflow of individual form design with the new cloud architecture: the layouts are edited in the designer, managed centrally and then rendered server-side.

The generated documents can be opened directly in MegaDent Cloud as PDFs. One concrete example is a multi-page collective invoice. It includes:

• a breakdown of the individual invoices,
• the consolidated invoice amounts,
• payment and cash discount information,
• and a Swiss QR-bill with a payment receipt.

The example therefore shows very concretely how List & Label Cross Platform is used in our application and what professionally demanding documents we produce with it.

First experiences in the pilot phase

MegaDent Cloud with integrated List & Label Cross Platform is currently in pilot operation at two dental laboratories. Both laboratories previously worked with the classic MegaDent OfficeManager version for many years.

One of the bigger changes for users concerns not so much the forms themselves as the output process. Whereas in the desktop application printing was often done directly, in the cloud PDF documents are primarily generated.

List & Label Cross Platform handles the rendering cleanly and quickly. In day-to-day operation, too, the solution has behaved stably in our experience so far.

The designer as the current transitional step

List & Label Cross Platform already covers a large part of the classic product line. Individual details, however, have not yet been fully implemented.

The designer currently in use does offer the option of restricting the available functionality to the features supported by Cross Platform. Nevertheless, in individual cases the display in the designer and the subsequent rendering can still differ.

Our next big wish is therefore a web designer based entirely on List & Label Cross Platform. This would allow us to do without the local .NET designer component in future and to offer form design fully platform-independently in the browser as well.

For our cloud solution, that would be the logical next step.

Collaboration in the early adopter project

During development, we occasionally came across functions that were not yet covered or minor bugs. In each case, these points were investigated quickly by the combit team and resolved promptly.

It was particularly helpful for us that prerelease patches were frequently made available. This allowed us to test new approaches directly in our project and give immediate feedback.

At no point did an unresolved issue with List & Label Cross Platform cause a lasting delay in development. For a small company like ours, this reliability is particularly important.

“Whatever comes next: with combit we have a support team that almost feels like part of our own project team.”

Our most positive experience was therefore not so much a single feature as the collaboration itself. The feeling of working together with the manufacturer on the maturity of the product gave us the confidence we needed to take the big step into the cloud on this basis.

Our roadmap

In the short term, we want to extend the current pilot operation to further laboratories. After that, MegaDent Cloud is to be made available step by step to our entire customer base.

List & Label Cross Platform is firmly established as the reporting foundation of the new solution.

In the medium term, we want to cover the complete range of forms and analyses with it. This includes, among other things:

• Invoices
• Quotations and cost estimates
• Delivery notes
• Job tickets
• Statistics
• Lists
• Other individually designable forms

Our goal is to give users back the full design freedom they know from the desktop application in the cloud as well.

As soon as a fully fledged LLCP web designer is available, we want to switch to it and replace the .NET designer currently in use. Form design could then also take place entirely in the browser.

Conclusion