One of the most important requirements of our web site (from a support point of view) was that it be easy to modify, even on a daily basis.  We did not want a static site, and we needed to allow for the special needs of come of our customer applications.  We think we've come up with a good solution - a site heavy in ASP, supported by a Commence database.  As quickly as we can make a change in Commence and sync it around, the web site can be updated with fresh data.  It works well!

For further information on what we've done, simply read down this page, or go directly to any one of the following topics:

Hosting:

Like most small companies, our first thought was to have our web site hosted by our ISP.  As soon as we started working with Commence integration on our pages, though, we decided to move things on to our site where it is much easier to work with.  Since full time Internet connections are now almost a given, the leap was not a great one.  We have had to come up to speed with firewalls, routers, protocols, and more, but that fits right in with our business plan.  We have had great success recently providing complete hosting services for Commence and SalesLogix database servers, and we are using the Internet heavily for FTP syncing.  So again, hosting our own web site fit nicely into our abilities.

Environment:

We are big Microsoft users, and see no compelling reason to move away from Microsoft technology for our web site.  We have Microsoft Internet Information Server running on Windows NT Servers, hosting multiple web sites.  We have two separate networks in place, an inside one for internal users, and a second one on the Internet side with our server machines on it.  Our firewall separates the two networks and monitors our Internet connection.

Our internal machines are a combination of Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows 98, depending on the requirements of each user.

Database Products:

We have numerous Commence databases in place that were just crying for Internet access. From our own strategic point of view, continuing with Commence made the most sense. We experimented with some ideas, ran into some road blocks, learned some ASP, and have pretty much settled on a game plan.  Learning Active Server Pages technology is as easy (or difficult) as learning VBScript.  From ASP, with access to the Commence API, you can do anything the API can do, and you can load data into a web page relatively easily.

Future projects will be a little more sophisticated, as we have a SalesLogix SQL Server database in place, and web access to this promises to be a little more industry standard.

Page Development:

As you might expect, we use Microsoft Front Page for our development.  It is relatively easy to use once you have grasped some web concepts, and provides many automation features.  It works well with the Commence enhancements we add, and we can access our pages for development from anywhere we want, inside or outside our network.

Home Page Design:

One of our early decisions had to do with how to handle different browser technologies.  After some testing and consideration, we decided to support only Microsoft Internet Explorer.  If you are interested in some of the rational behind that decision, then we have separate page with additional details.

We wanted our site to be reasonably dynamic.   Nothing turns a visitor off faster than a static site that never changes.  To enable this, we decided to link to some technology news topic, and have this loaded from Commence so that we have easy access and control of it.

When you hit our web site, ASP in the background displays the current date and time with the local weather.  These may seem like small things, but it at least gives you the impression that we are alive and well. 

One of the biggest reasons we've done things this way was to learn the technology.   We cannot sell nor support something we know nothing about, so we make sure we use the products we sell (DUH!). If you are reading this, hopefully it will help you better understand Commence, and get some ideas and projects started.