This project implements an extranet, also called an extended intranet, which is a special version of an intranet that gives limited access to web users outside the company via the public Internet, specifically those customers that have been authorized by the company to use their web-based customer services. Web-based customer service can deliver information products to customers on demand and provide powerful visually-driven interactive assistance without requiring human intervention.
There are two major processes: the production cycle and the customer service cycle. The production cycle uses a traditional two tier client/server architecture in which specially-equipped Windows clients update the relational database. This approach is used because there are extensive data validation requirements and the clients' direct database connection facilitates dynamic validation through tight data binding with database. The customer service cycle takes the opposite approach because the company has no control of the clients, which could be any web browser on any machine on the Internet. The web server starts out assuming the lowest common denominator, HTML-only client, but can also support more sophisticated interfaces if requested.