Case Study
Web-based Survey Application built with Oracle Apex Survey Builder Application
Download Case StudyClient: Harmonic Inc.
Industry: Video routing, servers, and storage product development for video content providers.
About the Client
Harmonic Inc. is an American technology company that develops and markets video routing, server, and storage products for companies producing, processing, and distributing video content for television and the Internet. With 1700+ talented experts working from 20+ offices around the world and a vast customer database of over 5000 global media companies, Harmonic is leading the transformation for video, cable, and media companies, with more innovative, faster, and simpler solutions like Oracle cloud service- based premium video streaming, cloud-native software for private data centers broadcasting television and so on.
Product and Services
- Video production products (used to support video editing, post-production, and finishing)
- Video server products for channel playout (used to assemble and play out one or more channel systems)
- Video processing products (used by media companies, broadcasters, telcos, satellite operators, cable operators, and OTT operators to acquire and use different types and sources of video signals)
- Cable edge products (used by cable operators to deliver customized broadcast or on-demand and data services to their subscribers)
Business Requirements
- As part of Harmonic’s standard, quarterly compliance review and audit process, the company requests representation from their sales personnel regarding adherence to Harmonic’s Code of Business Conduct & Ethics Policies. The CEO and CFO of the company will rely on this representation letter, along with other review procedures, in providing a certification to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
- This representation letter, required to be submitted by each salesperson every quarter, consists of several assertions, expecting a YES/NO concurrence by the salesperson.
- An affirmative remark would be recorded as a “Yes, I agree” statement against the said assertion. If the salesperson finds any differences with a particular assertion, their remark would be recorded as a “No, I disagree” statement and a comment box to capture the reason behind the difference.
Business Challenges
Existing business structure involved capturing the representation letter from each salesperson by asking them to fill out the assertion form created in an MS Word document.
With the sales personnel strength being over 300, it was a tedious job to collect each assertion letter on time, before the end of each quarter.
It was not possible to ensure that each salesperson was filling out their own representation letter and submitting it properly.
It was not possible to force the salesperson to provide their comments in cases of differences with a particular assertion.
It was not possible to protect the assertion statements or even a completed/filled-out representation letter from alteration/tampering, as the assertion form was an MS Word document having a free-form text editing mechanism accessible to any person in the company.
The Business Benefits:
- The entire representation letter generating, distributing, gathering, and summarizing process was fully automated.
- The survey questionnaire shifted to the web application platform. It offered a variety of security checks and automation features that were previously impossible to implement within the MS Word document system.
- The survey data was gathered and stored in the Oracle database in real-time, providing direct insight into Harmonic’s compliance review and audit process management.
- With the Oracle Apex application to Harmonic’s Active Directory tie-up, salesperson identity management was easy to establish. It also enabled auto-capturing of the salesperson’s signature on the submitted survey questionnaire based on their login credentials.
The Solution
- The Solution focused on shifting the assertion form from the MS Word document into a web-based application that would offer the assertion form as a survey questionnaire. This application would be accessible to the Harmonic sales personnel over the internet, authenticate the user logging in to ensure the corresponding salesperson's identity, present the survey questionnaire without the possibility of alteration/tampering, and capture each response directly inside a table in the database.
- The survey questionnaire was built as a web form inside an application (at this moment referenced as the Survey Application), which was created using the Oracle Apex survey builder application Express tool, which is a fully supported no-cost feature of Oracle cloud implementation Database that provides the ability to natively access and interact with all the capabilities of the Oracle Database.
- The list of sales personnel was pulled from the Oracle Cloud Solution into the Apex application database. A mechanism was built for the Harmonic survey management team to launch the quarterly surveys by clicking a button that would simultaneously shoot emails to every single salesperson containing the link to their respective survey form.
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