Technologies

 

Kunde:	Mercer Alternatives AG
Applikation:	Mercer
Technologie:	Web2Py, Python , MySQL

Mercer Alternatives AG is an independent Swiss investment advisor for institutional investments in private equity, real estate and infrastructure. With more than 130 employees at its offices in Zurich and Nyon, Mercer is one of the leading providers of pension advice, investment consulting and solutions as well as advice on human capital and compensation management in Switzerland.

The company offers individual advisory solutions and collective investment vehicles, as well as investment controlling and reporting services.

soXes has developed an application for Mercer to calculate the total expense ratio, or TER (Total Expense Ratio). The Total Expense Ratio is a key figure that puts all administrative costs of an investment vehicle in relation to the assets under management.

The calculation basis (funds and their net asset value as well as investors and their units per fund) is imported from a central system via an import interface into the Mercer TER application. In contrast, the management costs are entered manually. Based on this data, the application calculates the total cost ratio per investor for their investments at the touch of a button. The results can be output as PDF or Excel reports and distributed to the investors. A user management function allows the distribution of roles with different authorizations.

The Mercer web application is programmed in Python and the data is managed in a PostgreSQL database.

soXes developed the initial web application in 2013 and since then has further developed the TER application in the context of change requests. In 2019 soXes received a refactoring order. The data model was fundamentally revised in order to better represent fund of fund structures (multi-level hierarchy) and at the same time the technology stack was updated.

With today's solution, calculations are more efficient, significantly faster and easier. This reduces the source of errors and enables significant time savings. The documents are now stored centrally and clearly arranged at the right place and are available at any time. In addition, the proportionate total cost ratio for an investor in complex investment structures can be calculated in the desired level of detail.

 

Kunde:	CelsiusPro AG
Applikation:	Celsius Pro
Technologie:	C#, .NET, Python, Web services, Mongo DB, Big Data, DotNetNuke

CelsiusPro is the leading provider of weather derivatives in Europe. CelsiusPro's products enable companies to protect themselves against weather-related risks.

In order for a business model of this complexity to work, a large number of components must interact: Weather data from hundreds of global weather stations must be converted into a uniform format and their retrieval must be made efficient. Statistics and probabilities of weather events are computed and prices are calculated based on them. Prices for the weather derivatives can be queried and purchased via a web portal. CelsiusPro employees also manage customers and products within this platform.

For this task CelsiusPro relies on a completely individually developed environment that seamlessly combines the .NET Framework with the programming language Python, which is well known from the open source scene. While the website and the back office system are programmed in C# and are based on DotNetNuke, the price engine and the system for loading weather data is based on Python. A web service, which allows the calculation of a price via internet, combines both languages even within one program. Python becomes IronPython (the implementation of Python in the .NET Framework). The system is freely configurable and allows the creation of new products, pricing engines and the connection of new weather stations.

Visit the website www.celsiuspro.com and see for yourself how a combination of the programming languages IronPython and C# covers the requirements of a state-of-the-art web application including a mathematically complex pricing engine. Within this project, soXes is responsible for the entire environment and continuously develops the platform further.

 

Kunde:	Inrate SA
Applikation:	Inrate SA
Technologie:	ASP.NET, MS SQL, Angular, KendoUI

Inrate is an independent rating company and evaluates the environmental and social sustainability of companies, institutions and countries worldwide. These ratings are used to create investment universes and theme indices or baskets that provide asset managers and financial service providers with a basis for making decisions on how to create sustainable and financially attractive portfolios and investment products.  

In close cooperation with Inrate, soXes has designed and implemented a new web solution to create the sustainability ratings and make them available to clients for online download via web account. An MS Access database was replaced by an MS SQL database with web front-end (Angular/KendoUI). The ratings are based on a complex versioned rating model that is scalable through Inrate. The rated investment universe is regularly updated via interfaces to MSCI and Thomson Reuters. For individual clients, data feeds for their core banking system (Avaloq) can be retrieved.

Since the application went live, soXes has been providing maintenance, support and individual development within the framework of a maintenance contract.

One of the main objectives of the new application was to enable analysts to further develop the rating model without IT support. This was achieved through an administration front-end that allows the analysts to adjust the several hundred rating criteria at any time.

Furthermore, completed ratings were to be available for publication in real time.

The ratings are worked on decentrally at several locations in Switzerland and abroad in parallel, which is ideally supported by the web technology.

 

Kunde:	instaSOLUTION AG
Applikation:	instaGUARD
Technologie:	YII, PhoneGap, Angular JS

In the course of various projects in the field of alerting and mobilization, it became clear to soXes that in the field of alerting there are many providers, but not many comprehensive solutions that are based on or support modern platforms. soXes therefore decided to build a comprehensive real-time alerting system. After a development period of more than two years, instaGUARD and thus the company instaSOLUTION was born. instaGUARD is a technologically top modern and innovative alarm system for emergency, evacuation, mobilization, threats and technical alarms. It is a new generation in alarm management.

With instaGUARD it is possible to trigger an alarm in real time in an emergency situation or, in the case of team mobilization, to notify your team within seconds. An alarm can be triggered at the touch of a button on the smartphone, by SMS, phone call, e-mail or key combination on the computer. The software is centralized, cloud-based on an Internet platform and is operated by the user via an external client application, which is installed locally on a mobile or fixed end device.
This enables the recipient to be contacted globally via all communication channels. This significantly increases accessibility and enables a fast response time. The alerting process is more efficient, faster and easier than with conventional systems.

Thanks to the alarm configurator, different alarm types can be pre-defined and triggered according to the emergency situation. These differ, for example, in the ringing tone, the recipient circle, the priority, the escalation level or the instructions for action. Alarms can also be triggered by an external system by connecting instaGUARD to an existing external system (e.g. fire protection system). Depending on the medium, alarms can be sent with different delays and the recipient can be requested to acknowledge them. If an alarm was triggered, it is possible to locate the device from which it originated.

In this project, soXes resp. instaSOLUTION implemented all the work from the idea to the design, the technical concept and the implementation.
soXes has extensive know-how in the field of real-time communication with different media and a variety of protocols and systems.

For more information please visit the instaGUARD webpage at www.instaguard.ch

 

Kunde:	Novelis
Applikation:	Novelis
Technologie:	SQL Server with ASP.NET MVC 5, Angular JS Framework

Novelis is the global market leader in the field of machining aluminium into customer-specific materials. For the production of aluminium in the automotive sector, Novelis has developed an individual solution by soXes specifically for production planning, price calculation and forecasting of the aluminium volume with interface to SAP.

Functions:

• Management of projects and aluminium parts
• Forecasting of aluminium volume, unit and project price
• Excel interface to SAP for import of effective bookings at project level, export of forecast at project level for subsequent re-import into SAP
• CRM for recording customer contacts with Outlook connection

 

Kunde:	Start Up
Applikation:	Payment Modul
Technologie:	.NET, C#, ASP.NET, Blockchain

In this project, soXes had the project lead for a young and successful start-up company in the field of cryptocurrency. A back office developed by a third party company was to be expanded cost-effectively and successfully. 

Within the scope of this project, soXes developed the payment module, which can be accessed via the web. The user then has the possibility to pay his bills via Bitcoin or Ethereum currencies. The data is transferred via an intelligent interface to the existing back office.

We at soXes have also developed the KYC (Know your Customer) module for our customer, where users can fill in their personal information and upload documents such as passport or ID. The admin can view the uploaded data from the users online and unlock the users.

soXes sat down with the third party company and defined the interface together in several meetings to enable a smooth integration into the existing back office.

The project was successfully implemented thanks to the in-depth knowledge of all parties involved in the area of crypto currency and IT. This enabled the young start-up company to take another important milestone in the company's success. 

 

Kunde:	Testex
Applikation:	Testex ULU
Technologie:	ASP.NET, SQL Server, C#

TESTEX AG, headquartered in Zurich, is a privately organised, independent Swiss testing and certification company with worldwide operations since 1846 and specialises in the textile sector. The range of services offered extends from classic textile physical and textile chemical testing through analytical residue and pollutant analysis to the factual clarification of damage claims. As an accredited testing laboratory, TESTEX certifies all types of textiles. The most well-known certificates include Confidence in Textiles, Made in Green by OEKO-TEX®, Oeko-Tex® Standard 100, STeP by OEKO-TEX®, UV Standard 801, Eco-Passport, Product certification of PPE.

TESTEX's testing facilities are designed in such a way that a comprehensive test programme can be provided for all textile raw materials, intermediate and end products. In addition, TESTEX acts as a consultant on environmental and quality issues.

To make its processes even more efficient and faster, TESTEX wanted to provide seamless support for all processes from order placement and planning through to execution by means of a comprehensive software system. As part of this project, TESTEX asked soXes to implement this wide-ranging project, which could be divided into several areas.

The core of the UniLab solution consists of order entry, planning (forecast) and order execution for sales and production (single and batch processing). This also includes the process chain definition and checking the execution by means of checklists.

The customizable product design of all services (physical and chemical tests, assessments) in the sales process is possible, whereby the solution supports a wide range of languages and country-specific units of measurement.

UniLab supports the automatic processing of test data from the laboratory. Static as well as dynamic data and evaluations can be exported in a uniform form/layout to various file formats and data can be transferred in uniformly structured interface files to downstream locations for further processing. Key figures and test data can be individually adapted.

Statistical evaluations in the areas of finance, sales and production are based on a real-time transaction system.

Business process-specific documents can be created with a document creation system (Document Factory) based on the rich data sources. 

The development of UniLab is based on the .NET programming language using the Telerik framework.

The comprehensive IT solution has been successfully in use since 2016 and is continuously being developed. 

 

Kunde:	TUS - Telekommunikation und Sicherheit
Applikation:	TUS AIN
Technologie:	Graylog Cluster, Microservices, Redis Sentinel, Nginx, Galera Cluster, JSON, Push-pull Methodik, Data Loss Prevention, Split Brain Prevention

In the sixties of the last century, the then PTT was looking for strong partners to operate and finance an alarm transmission service in Switzerland. Securiton AG and Cerberus AG (now Siemens Schweiz AG, Building Technologies) took up the challenge. In 1968 they founded the interest group TUS Telekommunikation und Sicherheit. The pioneering spirit was rewarded: Thanks to constant technical innovations and considerable investments, TUS today presents itself as a modern and efficient multi-technology provider with brilliant future prospects.

TUS AIN (Automatic Intelligent Notification) was developed in order to bring the notification of system faults and alarms, which until then had mainly been personalised, to more modern technologies such as SMS, push, email, pager and automated voice call. In this way, a notification can be automatically sent by TUS AIN to the responsible alarm recipients and to the desired medium. If required, it can also be displayed and edited via a mobile app. A high-performance IP-based network is used to transmit the messages.

TUS AIN is supplied by the TUS alarmDispatcher system with information on the status of the subscriber terminals and their sensors and is mainly used as a notification centre that can be configured in great detail.

The following technologies and solutions are used specifically: Graylog Cluster, Microservices - including Log Service, Notification Service, System Monitoring (PRTG and others), Redis Sentinel, Nginx, Galera Cluster, JSON, Push-pull Methodology, Data Loss Prevention, Split Brain Prevention.

 

Kunde:	TUS - Telecommunications and Security
Applikation:	TUS alarmDispatcher
Technologie:	Graylog Cluster, Microservices, InputChecker, System Monitoring, Redis Sentinel, Nginx, Galera Cluster, JSON, Push-pull Methodik

In the sixties of the last century, the then PTT was looking for strong partners to operate and finance an alarm transmission service in Switzerland. Securiton AG and Cerberus AG (now Siemens Schweiz AG, Building Technologies) took up the challenge. In 1968 they founded the interest group TUS Telekommunikation und Sicherheit. The pioneering spirit was rewarded: Thanks to constant technical innovations and considerable investments, TUS today presents itself as a modern and efficient multi-technology provider with interesting prospects for the future.

In line with this, the TUS alarmDispatcher, an integrated alarm management system for the systematic distribution of system faults, emergency calls and alarms, is designed and implemented using the latest technological possibilities. A high-performance IP-based network is used to transmit the messages.

The TUS alarmDispatcher is a switching unit which ensures that customer terminals (e.g. hazard detection systems) can send appropriate messages to designated alarm receivers (e.g. blue light organisations) within a few milliseconds while maintaining a specified persistence. Alarm receiving points include TUS AIN (Automatic Intelligent Notification) - the smart platform behind the alarmOBSERVER - or eAlarm (Swisscom's intelligent alarm receiving point).

At the same time, the alarm receiving point can send control commands (e.g. lock doors) to the alarm transmission points. Consequently, the TUS alarmDispatcher can function as a duplex.

In order to comply with the high availability and alarm technology compliant guidelines (EN50518, EN50136), the following technologies and solutions are used: Graylog Cluster, Microservices - among others Log Service, InputChecker, System Monitoring (PRTG among others), Redis Sentinel, Nginx, Galera Cluster, JSON, Push-pull Methodology, Split Brain Prevention

 

Kunde:	TUS - Telecommunications and Security
Applikation:	TUS BatchMerger (BTM)
Technologie:	.NET, SQL, C#

In the sixties of the last century, the then PTT was looking for strong partners to operate and finance an alarm transmission service in Switzerland. Securiton AG and Cerberus AG (now Siemens Schweiz AG, Building Technologies) took up the challenge. In 1968 they founded the interest group TUS Telekommunikation und Sicherheit. The pioneering spirit was rewarded: Thanks to constant technical innovations and considerable investments, TUS today presents itself as a modern and efficient multi-technology provider with interesting prospects for the future.

The TUS BatchMerger (BTM) is mainly used as a data supplier of the object configuration for the TUS Automatic Intelligent Notification (AIN) system. The object data comes from two different ERPs and three different locations in Zurich, Lausanne and Lugano. In the first stage of expansion, a UI is still being used for processing the object data, but this UI will be removed later. The object data can be enriched with additional information in the BTM or cleansed of superfluous information.

The ERP object data is loaded cyclically into the BTM and then prepared for processing in the BTM UI. All actions on the object data are historized in order to detect changes to the ERP data and then pass the adjustments on to BTM.

The BTM runs as a classic .NET MVC Client Server application with a MS SQL database server in the background.

With the introduction of TUS AIN, the change to the new media for notifications is completed, which is a great relief for TUS.

 

Kunde:	TUS - Telecommunications and Security
Applikation:	TUS TecTool
Technologie:	PHP, MySQL, Yii, Amphp Framework, Graylog, Angular 4, REST, Websocket

IG TUS Telekommunikation und Sicherheit, founded in 1968 by today's Securiton AG and Siemens Schweiz AG, Building Technologies, offers alarmNET services for the entire alarm chain in the context of building surveillance.

As a result of the discontinuation of the 2G mobile phone network at the end of 2019, 20,000 subscriber terminals installed at customers' premises will have to be replaced in order to ensure continued uninterrupted monitoring.

To simplify the processes, soXes developed the TUS TecTool for TUS, which supports the technician in replacing the old device and guides him safely through the migration in predefined process steps.

Thanks to the experience gained with soXes' proprietary instaGuard development, the customer was provided with both technical and business-related know-how.

The TUS TecTool acts as a central deployment tool for replacing the existing hardware. The technician on site is guided through the process and can control it simultaneously on various devices such as laptop, tablet or mobile phone.

Various security mechanisms prevent unauthorised persons from gaining access to the affected object or application (2-factor authentication).

The TecTool communicates with different surrounding systems and orchestrates the complete process of a migration as well as the testing of the newly installed end device.

In case of a problem, the technician is accompanied during the semi-automated rollback to the original state.

The user interface remains clear and user-friendly despite the wealth of information provided.

After completion of the work, the protocol of the work and tests carried out is automatically sent as a PDF file to the technician as well as to other defined recipients. In addition, TUS' own ABACUS system is updated during a nightly status comparison.

Via the back office, the client can check the status of an order at any time or even adopt it to the greatest extent possible. Text adjustments, parameterisation and configuration of the TUS TecTool can be carried out simply and intuitively by the administrators.

Of course, all actions are logged and are available to the client via the back office for evaluation via Graylog. Not only the log data of the TUS TecTool is entered, but also that of the primary peripheral systems. This provides a quick and seamless overview of all connections and processes in connection with a migration in progress or completed.

The project was based on the specification developed in several workshops by the client and soXes.

Thanks to the agile and SCRUM-based approach to the implementation, changes to the specification could be implemented promptly and without far-reaching cost consequences.

The short sprints allowed a flexible and immediate reaction to changed constellations and extended requirements of surrounding systems.

The introduction of the TUS TecTool enables the technicians on site to carry out a guided replacement of the old components. This also reduces the telephone support effort required by the customer to a minimum. The standardised process guarantees uniform execution of the migration work.

Whereas in the past, technicians had to perform a number of actions manually and with telephone consultation, the TUS TecTool enables automated switching of peripheral systems and displays the test results clearly and comprehensibly in the application. 

The TUS TecTool has also been designed so that it can be used and adapted for further processes after the migration phase is complete.

 

Kunde:	Wiegand AG
Applikation:	Wiegand
Technologie:	JAVA, SOA, SQL, Java Script, Angular JS, Python, Phone Gap, Mobile, Unit Test, Build Server

Wiegand AG, based in Bülach, specializes in drug management and hospital logistics. It develops concepts for medication processes, storage and transport of medication and consumables in hospitals and homes.
 
In a comprehensive IT project of more than 2 years duration, with a team of 7 developers, Wiegand AG has commissioned soXes to develop a secure, fast and reliable system that ensures the management of medication in hospitals. This comprehensive system is based on four pillars: WMCC (central management server) WMPS (directional station), WM5R (mobile device for dispensing) and the MedManager Cockpit (WMCP)
 
The WMPS straightening station is primarily concerned with the electronic support of the set-up or preparation of medication. Via 2D barcode readers, all medications for straightening are identified and managed - including LOT and expiry dates, if available. Step by step, the straightening station guides the nursing staff both when straightening medication into the distribution dispenser and when providing individual medication. The electronic prescription provides information about the medication, preparation and dispensing. Straightening and dispensing activities are compared with the time axis. Traffic light functions signal the urgency status of the activities.
 
WM5R is a mobile app that runs on various operating systems and devices. It ensures that medication can be traced back to the patient's bedside, thus ensuring traceability and medication safety by allowing the dispensing process to be logged directly at the patient's bedside. The WM5R app implements the 5-R rule: right patient, right drug, right dosage, right application, right time.  Both the entries from the WMPS and the WM5R are automatically fed back into the hospital system.
 
The WMM environment can be managed with the web application WMCP Cockpit. In addition to user and group administration and an overview of patients and prescriptions, this includes a very large part of logistics. The entire supply of the pharmacy and central warehouse as well as the ward can be monitored and coordinated via WMCP. The staff has an overview of the stock levels of all wards everywhere and at any time via a web-based interface. Orders are automatically triggered or manually released and transmitted to the purchasing system. Thus, every material movement is automatically saved (date, user, patient). Evaluations per package, LOT, expiration date, etc. make it possible to trace the movements in detail. The automatic ordering procedure is a central component of this solution and is implemented based on three principles:
1. directional station: according to the dispensations (consumption), the system determines a forecast of the future demand for a drug.
2. kanban: orders are automatically triggered when stock levels fall below a certain level.
3. autoinventory: special cabinets with scales, especially for consumables, allow a completely automatic warehouse, which determines the stock and the necessary orders by weight.
 
The Wiegand drug management system is based on the Java programming language with a PostgreSQL database in the background for WMCC and WMPS. The WMCP was implemented with Python on the server and AngularJS, Bootstrap and HTML5 on the frontend. The WM5R app runs under Phonegap (Apache Cordova) on all major mobile platforms. Throughout Switzerland, the system has already been successfully implemented in several hospitals and connected to the local hospital information and prescription system, while maintaining the HL7 (Health Level 7 an international standard for the exchange of data between health care organizations and their computer systems) standard.

 

Kunde:	instaSOLUTION AG
Applikation:	instaSOLUTION
Technologie:	PHP, Python, Angular, .NET Core, Percona Cluster, Redis, Graylog Cluster, High-availability systems, Maria DB, JSON, Java Script, Lora, REST, Microservices

instaSOLUTION AG offers a modern and efficient communication and management solution in the areas of alerting, crisis management, mobile collaboration, messaging and IoT. With our modular, highly secure and flexible connectivity platform instaCORE we connect what needs to be connected. The instaSOLUTION app is highly performant, modular and based on microservices.

It combines 5 solutions in one: 

1) instaGUARD is a security solution that helps you to successfully manage critical events, thus increasing the protection of people, buildings and systems. We hereby support companies in the areas of personal security, mobilisation, technical alarming and IT-alarming. instaGUARD is a virtual alarm server.

2) instaCRISIS is an emergency and crisis management solution which provides additional security in exceptional situations. After the automated alerting of the crisis management team, the members have access to the emergency plan, role-specific documents and todo checklists on a mobile basis - also for collaborative use with encrypted group chat.

3) instaCOLLAB is a mobile collaboration solution, with which mobile documents can be distributed in addition to an intelligent chat. Thanks to standardised communication, reduced to the essentials and automatically evaluated, time is saved. Mobile surveys, trainings or quizzes can be started here. Simple to use, encrypted, effective.

4) instaMESSAGING is the solution when it comes to communicating via different channels using a simple interface - App, SMS, Text2Voice, Paging.

5) instaIoT is an IoT (Internet of Things) solution which, by linking the physical and digital worlds, makes it possible to make a large number of processes in an organisation more efficient, effective and transparent.

 

Kunde:	SolExperts AG
Applikation:	GeoMonitor 3
Technologie:	Json, WPF, TDMS and C#

SolExperts AG is a recognized Swiss company that participates in renowned projects worldwide with geotechnical and hydrogeological instrumentation and field tests. The activities of SolExperts AG are in the fields of tunneling, hydraulic engineering, special civil engineering, wind energy plants and in research projects for nuclear waste disposal as well as for the sequestration of CO₂.

The main activity of SolExperts AG is the monitoring and evaluation of the collected data. For this purpose, it operates a technical monitoring software, which utilizes information about connected devices, their parameters, alarms and functions. This information is organized and interpreted in JSON format. SolExperts AG commissioned soXes to create a new, more intuitive user interface for the application in order to be able to offer it to its customers as independent software.

In the first step of the project, the software was analyzed in detail. Due to the lack of a clean documentation and the high complexity of the tool, a re-factoring of the software had to be done. For this, a specification for the further procedure had to be created in an elaborate next step. The specified functions were discussed in detail in a subsequent UI workshop with SolExperts AG and the design experts from soXes. With the help of these inputs, a UI concept could be created and subsequently implemented.

For the implementation of the JSON tool the programming language C# was used. The back-end logic of the desktop application was implemented with the .NET framework and the user interface with the WPF class library. The basic building blocks of the project are so-called JSON files, which are interpreted and manipulated by the application. The tool also provides an export function to the TDMS file format, which is used by SolExperts AG to display the information graphically.

By creating a clean specification and then re-factoring the tool, SolExperts AG gained deeper insight into the complexity and depth of the application and now has a user-friendly and intuitive application with the new UI design.