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comQuest (Server) Preferred Hardware System Requirements:

• 32 Bit Intel Xeon with up to 2 MB L2 Cache or equivalent
• Dual-Core 2.8 GHz or better, 800 MHz front side bus 2 MB L2 cache (per core)
• 4 GB RAM or more (8GB for larger installations)
• 5 x 72GB RAID 10 SCSI Hard Drives
• 100 GB for comQuest application data, however depending on data being gathered from across the business, the data requirements on the database may grow over time. This is assuming 500 users and numerous attachments
• A dedicated server will provide more control and performance but is not a requirement.

comQuest (Server) Software System Requirements:

• Microsoft Windows 2003 Server with SP1, Small Business, Standard or Enterprise Edition or later
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or later
• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 or later
• Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 or later
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later, or Firefox v2.0 or later
• Microsoft Active Directory Service (optional)

comQuest (Client) Minimum System Requirements:

• Internet Explorer 6.0 or later, or Firefox v2.0 or later

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There is no set bandwidth requirement for comQuest. However, the efficiency of the application depends on the network infrastructure. This is a pure html solution with no ActiveX or Java controls. Only impact on bandwidth could be size of upload files

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Yes, comQuest is a three tier application.

comQuest is written in Microsoft’s .NET Framework using C#.

comQuest also utilises NO ActiveX or Java controls to deliver browser/client side functionality; everything is pure HTML.The comQuest Server manages, enforces and administrates the business rules relating to the operation of the application and facilitates communication with the comQuest Database. All services are based on the server. The The MS SQL Server can be a shared corporate server. SSL is used for encryption. 
comQuest will run on "virtual servers". 

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comQuest can handle thousands of concurrent users (performance dependant on hardware specifications). This is limited by licences both for comQuest and MS SQL Server. Obviously the hardware and space provided is the limiting factor for comQuest. The specified server should easily accommodate 1500 users

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comQuest will facilitate as much data as your current, and future, computing infrastructure will allow. This is not a transaction processing application so volumes are not massive in respect to performance. There should be no delays in data accees/entry as there is very little processing performed as part of the application. No degradation should be observed as users and volume increase as this is purely a data capture application.

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comQuest provides a Single Sign on option that integrations with Microsoft Windows Active Directory to authenticate users logging into the system. User can be setup directly in comQuest or imported from ADS.

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comQuest doesn’t interface into any other existing data or source systems as there is no need for this based on the types of data requested (other than Microsoft Windows Active Directory Services). As the data requested and supplied is constantly changing, building interfaces into operational systems cannot be justified, nor is it needed for the volume of data that is to be captured. The complexity and security issues that would be encountered in building such interfaces cannot be justified.

Building interfaces for pieces of data is costly, time consuming and cannot adapted to constantly changing needs
The database schema is available should there be a need to “import / link” to source data or export / report data from other toolds.

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a. Authentication, access control, account management, password management
Users can be link to ADS.  Within comQuest users can be added that are not in ADS and assigned password.  Typically a user is locked out after 5 unsuccesful attempts.  The administrator can unlock, reset user through the Admin front-end.  User maintenance is a key function as this determines what questions / business units are allocated.

b. Event logging, log management, auditing
comQuest logs all system events. This includes signing on and off the system, any responses to questions, or any work performed by the Administrator.  A full audit trail is available.

c. Data validation, sanitization, integrity checking
Data can be validated against some basic rules eg: Miximun value must be > 10, only numeric values. Text data can be spell checked. Once data is signed off, it is locked and now read-only.

d. Client/sub-component security
comQuest uses secure login name and password, Windows Authentication (for defined Domain Users) as well as secret question/secret answer logic.

e. Data encryption (database, intra-application)
comQuest uses secure 128-bit SSL encryption technology between the client and the server.

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comQuest is licensed on a named user basis and by role.
There is no restriction on the number of business units, questionnaires, questions or applications within comQuest.

There are a number of roles in comQuest, and these include:
Contributor: The contributor’s role is to input responses to questions and statements that have been presented to them. This can include numeric, non-numeric and supporting files.
Manager: The Manager can assign users to Business Units and Questions and does the first level sign off.
Approver: The approver’s role is to review responses from other capturers and to finallysign-off on information being submitted.
Administrator: The administrator’s role is to manage the system. This can include user management, password resets, questionnaire development and maintenance, and version control.
Reporter: The reporter’s role is to access ad-hoc, real time and frequent pre-defined and filtered reports. This can include a dashboard of the status of responses, as well as accessing responses from within comQuest.
Auditor: The auditors’ role in comQuest is to access a read only copy of the user answers and system logs. These logs are date and time stamped. The Auditor can lock the questionnaire as Audited so it can never be changed
Public: The public user role will enable publishing of reports to the web, or through to a public site where a completed report can be viewed.

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comQuest uses a Questionnaire hierarchy to gather the data from a capturer. The questions are structured into question groups that are assigned to business units and  to users. Thus a user will only see those questions that below to them for a particular business unit.

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Any type of data can be captured or displayed. Examples are :
 

• Numeric data – min / max, format of data
• Text – with formatting and up to 64000 rows for response
• Multiple Choice – Yes / No / Maybe
• Multi Choice – Select 1 or more of the following : Red, Yellow, Blue
• Single or Multi column Grids with ability to add rows
• Comments boxes for Information
• Links to help files
• Images for formatting
• Attachments

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There are standard reports that can be run that will print the answers as they were answered in PDF or Word.
In addition, there is an intergrated report writer which can be used to create more fancy and summarized reports. These can then be run as standard reports.
There is also a modeling report writer that uses Excel to present and format the data. The benefit of this report writer is that it gives consolidation capabilities, is very easy to use. Most importantly it uses Excel as the front-end which makes reporting very powerful and user driven in that no learning is required.
All reports are dynamically linked to the database so no coding or SQL knowledge is required. Once templates are setup they can simply just be refreshed.
This also enables Dashboard to be created ie: to distribute the results in PowerPoint, PDF, Work but have it dynamic

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Alerts are setup to trigger on events (these are user defined per application). The alerts will be sent to relevant users if a questionnaire is :
• Due in a certain number of days
• The questionaires is late / overdue
• New questions have been created
• A questionnaire has been signed off / Rejected
These alerts are send to a users email which is defined in the configuration