Turning a Desktop Application Into a Web Application

A desktop application is made web-based by rebuilding its screens to run in a browser and moving its data to a central database. Users then sign in from any PC, tablet or phone with nothing to install. Remote desktop and similar tools give remote access to the old program, but they are a stopgap: the real fix is a web application.

Signs this is your problem

• Remote staff use remote desktop, or email files to someone in the office.
• A second office runs its own separate copy of the system.
• Moving to new PCs is delayed because of one program.
• Customers call to ask for information they could look up themselves.
• Field staff write things down and enter them when they get back.

What being tied to the desktop costs you

• People must be in the office, or connect through a slow remote session that only some of them can use.
• Every PC needs the software installed, and every update means visiting each one.
• New computers and Windows versions cause breakages that have nothing to do with your business.
• Customers, vendors and field staff are locked out, so information reaches them by phone and email.
• Other offices keep their own copies, and the copies drift apart.

Stopgaps and the real fix

Remote desktop or a hosted desktop. Staff connect to a PC or server that runs the old program. It works, more or less, for a handful of people. It does nothing for phones, for customers or for the age of the software.

A web application. The program is rebuilt to run in the browser against one central database. There is one copy of the software and one copy of the data. Updates happen once and everyone has them. Access is controlled per person, and the same system can show a customer their own orders and a manager the whole picture.

What changes for your users, and what does not

The good parts of the old program are kept: the same steps, the same terms, the same reports. We rebuild what people know and then improve it, so the first day feels familiar. What changes is that it works from anywhere, more than one person can be in the same record area at once, and nobody has to ask IT to install anything.

How Keene Systems handles it

1. We review the application and how each group uses it. Including what they wish it did.
2. We design the web version and its database. With security roles for staff, managers and outside users.
3. We rebuild in short cycles. Most-used screens first.
4. We migrate the data and switch over. The desktop program stays available until you no longer need it.

The next step is a short, no-pressure conversation. Book a call with Lance Keene or use the form on this page.