Diamed.ca

Client Diamed Lab Supplies Inc.

Project diamed.ca
Circa 2000 06

Statement of Problem
Diamed, a Canadian distributor of lab supplies, relies on it's paper-based catalogue for marketing and sales. The website version of the catalogue had been created but was two years out of date when The Last Byte was called in. Our task was to find an efficient way of keeping the online catalogue up to date, and as much as possible, in synch with the paper-based version.

Solution
The Last Byte designed a database to capture the product information (item number, name, price, quantity discounts, etc.), as well as the catalogue information (which items are on which page, images, ancillary text, colours, and so on).

To populate that database, we designed and built a front-end program which allowed us to enter and maintain the data easily and efficiently.

Finally, the program was used to generate the actual HTML pages, based on the existing website design, using the data entered. So, when the data is changed, the website can be updated in a matter of minutes. In the end, the website was more up-to-date than the paper-based catalogue, as it was updated much more frequently.

Features	Benefits
Databased description of products.	Quickly and easily apply price changes, either individually, or across the board. Quickly and easily generate new formats for other catalogues. (The Diamed catalogue appears on the University of Calgary online catalogue.)
Databased description of catalogue.	Quickly and easily generate updated versions of website. Quickly and easily change format of website (i.e. fonts, colours, etc.)

Tools and Technologies
Delphi 5, Advantage Database Server, HTML, Java Applets, PERL