eCubator v.1.0

System Summary

Enetix Software’s eCubator application is a platform infrastructure system that can support multiple web applications at the same time, even if the applications are distinct in their nature and purpose. Among the possible configurations, eCubator-based web applications can be configured as content-managed websites, e-commerce systems with shopping cart and online payment methods, or web applications that encapsulate custom logic.

The eCubator system is more than a CMS (Content Management System); it can be used as a backbone for virtually any web-based system that needs flexible management. The most generic implementation of an eCubator-integrated system is a web application that has a custom designed frontend interface and is integrated with the eCubator’s data structure and development framework. This integration then allows the use of the eCubator system as an administration tool for the web application.

Technology background

This multitude of functional behavior is enabled by our framework, the Enetix Framework (currently at version 4.0). This is basically a code stack that is organized around a concept of functionality encapsulation and interoperability between the components built around this Framework.
The Framework stack is based on the .NET Framework 2.0 using C# language; its dynamic data access layer allows for compatibility with Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL Server and Oracle Server. This compatibility can be easily enhanced to support other databases as well by adding the appropriate DB wrapper module to the data access layer. The system’s middlelayer is completely independent from the database platform.
The eCubator’s presentation layer is developed using ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX enabled webforms, having an intuitive visual design.
The administration area of the integrated web applications use the common eCubator interface, but external custom forms implementing specific business needs can be linked into eCubator as well, if required.

Implementation Methodology and Modules

The eCubator system is implemented as a collection of submodules (over 100 submodules), which are organized in a set of hierarchical collections. These submodules are grouped in the following main modules as follows:

• Application module
• CM module
• Products module
• CRM module
• Sales module
• Reports module
• Security module

Having all these modules implemented in the eCubator system, they can serve most of the common websites, e-commerce websites and web applications. Since the eCubator uses a single common database for all web applications integrated with it, development and deployment of new applications is considerably faster than with most other commercial products with the same capabilities.
Also, if a web application is required to have custom logic that needs a different data structure, this data structure can be stored in a separate database, with the common data (security, content, products etc.) still stored in the eCubator database.
As new modules are added, the functionality of the whole system is improved. Once a module is added to the system, it can be made available to any web applications running under the eCubator system. Below is a description of a summary of the functionality of each main module set.

• Application Module
  The Application Module contains several sub-modules that are used to configure the web applications/websites integrated with eCubator, to define their module and administration menu structure, and to set all main configuration settings.
• CM Module
  The content management layer supports content manipulation and versioning for the end-users. It allows for easy online updates, maintenance and expansion of web application’s content, such as defining and configuring templates, adding frontend user controls, adding new pages, page content updates, menu management, article management, popup management, creating image galleries, email content updates, e-form creation and maintenance, file upload tool, RSS feed management, hit monitoring, reporting tools and so on.
  All of the CM sub-modules have built-in multi-language support.
• Products Module
  For e-commerce sites, a product management module is indispensable. This module provides functionality for defining multilevel product category hierarchy, adding, organizing, selling, and tracking products or services. Product attributes are highly configurable to allow virtually any type of product to be sold. For each application but even for each product category, customized attribute lists can be defined. This makes the Products Module a very flexible and robust subsystem.
• CRM Module
  eCubator implements a lightweight CRM module that works hand-in-hand with the Products and Sales modules, providing management for common customer data, but also for custom attributes that can be defined for customer data according to business needs.
• Sales module
  The Sales Module Provides the functionality for all order management and tracking needed in common web applications. The payment management, integrated with a shipping management module takes care of credit card payment authorization and capture.
  Also promotion code management and a mass email tools are available in this module.
• Reports module
  This module is used to define custom reports by end users. The user can create new reports, modify the structure of the existing reports, add filter parameters and change the reports’ visual layouts as needed. The report viewer submodule is used to run the custom defined reports, and the resulted data can be viewed in tabular, HTML and Excel formats.
• Security module
  A robust and powerful user and access group/role management functionality is implemented in the Security Module. Access roles can be defined on application module level, and for each module the View, Insert, Update, Delete, Print rights can be set.
  The security layer supervises the access of applications to the eCubator modules and also serves as the logical container of application data. As such, no application is aware of any data used by other applications unless specifically allowed by the eCubator security.

User Base

There are two user bases for this system: programmer users and application users. The former can use the eCubator system as a programming platform and build custom modules on the top of already existing modules; the latter can use web applications built on the eCubator system and perform maintenance such as adding new content and new pages, adding and managing products and customer orders, creating and running reports etc.

User Support

Enetix Software provides technical assistance during regular business hours for this product. This assistance includes both troubleshooting and general user help on functionality.
New users are trained to the system either by phone, or in person.

Integrated Websites

We have already successfully integrated several websites and web applications with eCubator. You can visit some of them, that are available on the internet, on the following links :