Case Study: TKO/Real Estate Advisory Group Tenant Search (Web based application)

TKO/Real Estate Advisory Group is located in New Jersey. They specialize in commercial real estate, both as an Internet portal and as a publisher of print publications. One of their products is the Tenant Search, a tool for commercial brokers to simplify leasing space. Tenant Search is available on CD or online, the database contains over 7,000 retailers and their expansion plans including details such as where they are expanding, size of space needed, preferred contacts etc.

TKO’s owner Ted Kraus approached Eagle Systems USA, Inc. with the idea of creating a new reliable and scalable web based application allowing customers to access Tenant Search through the Internet.
He was interested in an easy to use:

• wizard based user interface simplifying complicated search criteria
• ability to save search results in a file and download it to the users’ computer
• tenant search alert option that automatically emails most recent updates to the customers
• comprehensive easy to read reports
• ability to create form letters

After reviewing TKO’s wish list Eagle Systems USA, Inc. created web based application running on Windows 2000 Server (IIS 5) and using Microsoft SQL Server 2000 for data storage. Microsoft Visual Studio was used for development.

Benefits of the web based approach:

• Up to the minute info, database is updated directly on the website by the researchers and is instantly available to the clients.
• Daily emails send to the clients on updates to retailer’s profiles.
• Automatic membership expiration reminders generation send via email.
• No media cost – CD, postage, handling.
• CD images auto created daily.
• Compatible with major browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator)
• Technical support virtually eliminated.

Technologies used: Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP), Microsoft .NET, Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft Visual Studio.