SODA System for Abacus and ACC

The SODA (Supervision Online Database Application) system is an online database used by over 50 clinical supervisors from Invercargill to Whangarei, and by ACC managers across the country. Data entered is used by both Abacus Counselling, Training & Supervision Ltd and the Accident Compensation Corporation.

The benefits of making SODA an online system are considerable and include:

• Secured data entry by staff using any modern browser (e.g. Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer)
• Always up-to-date reporting and invoicing
• Instant upgrades without having to manage over 80 individual installations
• Built-in documentation
• Scalable - easy to grow the system as the users increase (without any costly or complicated license implications)

Grant Paton-Simpson developed SODA to be a cross-browser compatible, standards-compliant web application. The system does not rely on Javascript to function and is therefore suitable for corporate contexts where security policies prohibit Javascript. In summary - it just works.

Because SODA uses the highly-regarded Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (and Firefox) technology stack it is portable and does not lock the clients into any particular vendor or licensing arrangement. The result - flexibility, control, and lower costs.

SODA includes data entry screens (using server-side validation):

and reports. Access to reports is controlled by fine-grained security privileges. Reports include both graphs ...

and tables:

Even the longest tabular report can be printed from a modern browser because of the use of a separate print CSS file. There is never any need to create separate printed version of reports (which costs time and money).