Feature Article              

illustrate inc bundles all ii engines and tools in a new ii Enterprise Solution for new business and inforce illustrations

illustrate inc is pleased to announce the availability of the Enterprise Solution for new business and inforce illustrations. With the Enterprise Solution, we have streamlined the way we do business and bundled our existing and new products into an integrated solution suite organized by Distribution, Developer and Training and Support components. This arrangement allows customers to have access to all components within the illustrate inc suite.

Before making this decision, illustrate inc conferred with our customers to get their feedback on the idea of bundling all of our solutions within the same package and offering a longer license period.  Our clients were all very pleased to see the Enterprise option and were more than receptive to the proposal. To date, three of our principal clients and partners have agreed to take up the Enterprise Solution package for a minimum of three years.

The Enterprise Solution Suite

The Enterprise Solution is much more than a bundle of integrated components.  It is a solution which allows our clients to upgrade and move to new products and technologies along with illustrate inc.  With the longer term commitments, the Enterprise Solution also ensures that all projects will be well-resourced, and is an assurance that illustrate inc will continue to move forward with Research and Development with full client support.

General availability for the Enterprise Solution begins in January 2007.  For more information, feel free to contact us at infoillustrateinc.com or call us at +1-416-626-6230.

Enhanced Testing Tools

New testing tools, an addition to the Enterprise Solution, are now available to illustrate inc customers.
 

As part of the ii Enterprise Solution's expanded lineup of testing tools, three new tools have been added to the suite:

Regression Tester: A utility that compares and highlights differences in reports generated by the Reporting Engines. The regression tester can select individual cases or work on hundred of cases simultaneously.  Once a benchmark has been established, the regression tester can run comparisons of changes to data, business rules and calculations against the benchmark. Differences are highlighted and a user can perform an acceptance test that will allow the changes to be uploaded and run as the new benchmark for testing.

Click here for a short two minute animated tour of the Regression Tester.

Test Grid: This comparison tool allows the user to test calculation changes to either the company's data file,  product specific calculations or calculation engine by comparing a series of developed cases.

SuperGrid: This new calculation comparison tool was specifically built for actuarial staff to begin writing and testing product rules in the early stages of a project while the GUI component of the system is still in the build stage.  The tool is based on a Microsoft Excel workbook with macros that can pass information from the Calculation Engines to Excel to compare and highlight anomalies from multiple sets of data generated by the Calculation Engines.  In line with customer requests, SuperGrid will also be expanded in the very near future to test and invoke the Report Engine.

Developer’s Corner

illustrate inc's development team has recently completed an internal project to incorporate .NET 2.0 technology into our time tracking system.  The project becomes a pilot of the new .NET technology to discover its stability, extended uses and benefits.  We hope that once we have analyzed the technology, we will be fully equipped to integrate it into our client solutions and provide full support.  The flexibility of .NET 2.0 provides ii with a much more fluid and efficient system.  Ultimately, our goal is to develop a deep understanding of the issues associated with and the benefits of moving the current product set to .NET 2.0.  

To date, the project has gone very smoothly and developers have found the learning curve to be quick. We have already been able to take advantage of the numerous technical advantages that .NET 2.0 has over .NET 1.1.  In addition, Microsoft has been very open about their keen desire to ensure that this tool is well-supported.  

Important Notice from Your illustrate Team

Recently, Microsoft announced the release of Internet Explorer 7.0 (IE 7) with plans to push this new version as a ‘high priority’.  Your current Internet Explorer will be updated via automatic updates in Windows XP over the next month.  Since the announcement, illustrate inc has been diligently performing  quality assurance testing on all of our products within this new environment.  As we reach our conclusions, we will inform all customers of our findings and recommendations.

Microsoft has also announced that Windows Vista will be broadly available as a stand-alone product or pre-installed on new PCs on January 30, 2007.  As with IE 7, illustrate inc will perform testing of the Windows Vista operating system and will notify clients when testing is complete.  If possible, please postpone your update to Windows Vista until we have completed our testing to verify compatibility and support with illustrate inc solutions.

Please direct any questions regarding Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 and Windows Vista to infoillustrateinc.com

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