Our client, The National Football Players Association (NFLPA), approached us regarding the development and implementation of a new player management system called PA.NET. AIS accomplished this project by managing the engagement in two phases: An envisioning phase to gather and define requirements and develop a roadmap for the reengineering initiative, followed by an implementation phase to support the development of a PC, tablet and mobile phone application design to ensure accessibility across multiple platforms and increase mobility and efficiency.
Background
The National Football League Players Association is the union for professional football players in the National Football League. Established in 1956, the NFLPA has a long history of assuring proper recognition and representation of players’ interests. The NFLPA has shown that it will do whatever is necessary to assure that the rights of players are protected—including ceasing to be a union, if necessary, as it did in 1989. In 1993, the NFLPA again was officially recognized as the union representing the players, and negotiated a landmark Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFL.
The Challenge
The NFLPA uses PA.NET as its flagship application to deliver services to its members. This application used Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 with a custom-built front end that was written in Java. The front end was split between two layers: a Java object layer that would access the database using various frameworks, and a web layer written with JSP.
The majority of the business logic was stored in several of the 844 individual Java classes, which would then call and parse information from the PA.NET database and display it on an internal website accessible only by staff and a few associated members of the organization. Upon analysis of the application, it was determined that the NFLPA required a newer, more efficient version of the PA.NET application in order to meet the organization’s ever-evolving needs.
Over last 10 years, NFLPA’s business processes and application needs changed. The users of the PA.NET system required additional features and performance improvements. In addition to that, the Java-based PA.NET system became harder to maintain as we continued to add more complex features.
Solution
Given the complexity of this endeavor, AIS determined that the best approach would be a multi-pronged approach wherein an envisioning phase would be utilized to gather requirements and design a newer version of the application. We approached our client with an envisioning service offering as the first phase of this project.
For AIS, envisioning allows our team to not only determine requirements, but also identify critical risks, define application architecture and develop informed estimates and a sound project plan. Clients also get to “try out” our services with a low-cost engagement, and the findings of this engagement often become the basis for the statement of work (SOW). Based on the outcome of this phase/engagement, the second phase would cover implementation of a new version of the PA.NET application using requirements and design completed during the envisioning phase/engagement.
Our team started with the analysis and design of the application. This phase of the application included meetings with NFLPA stakeholders, documentation of expected functionality, development of potential mobile views, analysis of the legacy application code and services design. Based on the findings, AIS was able to redesign the application and develop a road map for implementation of the project. During the second phase, AIS successfully developed and deployed the new PA.NET application for PC, tablet, and mobile functionality. Part of the build phase included support and knowledge transfer to NFLPA stakeholders.
Business and Technical Achievements
During its extensive history, the NFLPA has shown that it will ensure that the rights of players are protected. The organization’s stakeholders make every effort to ensure the success of the organization as it forges ahead in its endeavors to keep pace with constantly changing technology. In response to those efforts, AIS delivered a modern and responsive website with a more efficient PA.NET application that:
- Provides access to information needed by all staff members to make informed decisions
- Provides seamless access to corporate tools on the go
- Improves process efficiencies
- Allows technical staff members to create and share reports
Features of the application include:
- Responsive and mobile accessible views
- Web 2.0 features
- Visualization tools
- Data integration for supporting external data needs
- Seamless data migration from previous version to new version
Technology
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012 sp1
- Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services 2012
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 update 3
- C# .NET 4.5
- MVC4
- REST API
- JavaScript & various libraries such as jQuery, Kendo UI, etc.
- HTML5
- CSS3
