Technical details

Software environment

QuikPlan Schedule Expert is not just a software program; it is a complete IT solution. The software has been written in one of the most advanced software environments that delivers incredible speed, stability and scalability. The database engine used by QuikPlan Schedule Expert is a Sybase fully relational SQL database that is capable of handling many millions of transactions. The front end GUI has been developed in Power Builder and was chosen as the GUI for its very powerful features and total integration with the Sybase database and other third party software packages.  This combination of development environments has been used by the biggest global companies and high street banks for many years, so the technology we have deployed is probably the most trusted and scalable solution available.

Software deployment

QuikPlan Schedule Expert is deployed to our clients through a remote desktop connection from our dedicated servers hosted and managed by UKFast Limited who are based in Manchester. UKFast provide QuikPlan Limited with 24/7/365 onsite support for any hardware and operating issues that may arise which means that we can guarantee virtually 100% uptime for our service. QuikPlan Schedule Expert can be set up in minutes on any computer with a broadband connection literally anywhere in the world. This method of deployment makes QuikPlan extremely transportable and easy to network without any IT skills.

Managed service

We deliver a fully managed service with remote interactive assistance for your product with award winning technical support and training. Backups are done by us that include full server backups that are saved to a remote bunker in a separate location to the building the servers are housed. A second remote backup of clients database files are downloaded to a RAID 0 NAT backup server located at our office in Worcester. Daily backups to our standby server located in Manchester are at hand in the rare event of server failure. If a server does go down we can switch over to our preconfigured standby server for a speedy recovery.  Our servers are constantly monitored so if a component fails, UKFast technical engineers are alerted immediately. As most of the components on our state of the art servers are hot swap, our clients may not even notice that a component like a hard drive has been changed, such is the level of redundancy we adopt.

The architectural infrastructure of our QuikPlan fully managed IT solution

Total flexibility without the overhead of IT costs

The illustration above shows how our QuikPlan software management solution is delivered to the user. Our fully managed servers have been built and configured to run nothing other than QuikPlan and its supporting software. This means that QuikPlan will always run at its optimal performance without the risk of someone accidentally installing some incompatible software or even worse a virus. All of the aspects relating to the deliverance of QuikPlan to the client computer via a remote desktop connection are managed by us, saving you the investment in expensive computer hardware or IT support staff. Not only can this save a company considerable costs, it will also reduce the likelihood of unnecessary down time.

Supported operating systems

All that is needed to use and network QuikPlan is a broadband or decent 3G connection and a standard computer. The user connects to our server through a secure remote desktop connection giving the client the appetence that the software is actually running on their own computer. Remote desktop connection is standard on all Windows computers from XP onwards. For older computers Remote Desktop for Windows  can be downloaded free from the Microsoft website for use on operating systems from Windows 95 onwards. Remote desktop for Mac is available for OSX 10.4.9 or later and can be downloaded free form the Apple Store. Many other operating systems will run QuikPlan including Linux Ubuntu and Citrix MetaFrame.