Development of the new application for GESTIS-AMCAW (Analytical Methods for Chemical Agents at Workplaces)

Status:

completed

Aims:

AMCAW (Analytical Methods for Chemical Agents at Workplaces) is a web application for the maintenance and presentation of (international) measurement processes and information about which measurement ranges these methods cover. The application is used by laboratories and universities to obtain standardised analytical methods for certain chemical agents. The web application provides information about how the analytical methods are carried out and specifies the concentrations of the relevant substance that the analytical method covers. The method descriptions are entered by the analytical institutes from the relevant countries.

The current application has been expanded and added to over several years according to the requirements and needs of users and specialists, with a focus on functional expansion of the system and not on technical maintenance. As part of the project, the application is to be implemented in accordance with the current standards in order to increase maintainability and reduce any maintenance requirements for the future, as well to master the current challenges (e.g. adding new limit values or changing existing limit values) faced by specialists using the database. The existing web application is to be re-conceptualised and implemented while taking the other systems of the GESTIS (information system on hazardous substances) topic area and their dependencies into consideration. The scope of functions of the existing system is to be retained as part of the re-conceptualisation process, while additional options for specialists to update the contents of the database are to be added and functional expansions (e.g., extended search functions) are to be implemented.

Activities/Methods:

As part of the project, a new web application for the maintenance and presentation of (international) analytical methods and measurement methods for hazardous substances is to be conceptualised and implemented. The architecture of the software corresponds to that of a modern web application and comprises an Angular front-end framework, a Spring back-end framework and an Oracle database.

The four-tier architecture approach was used. Each of these tiers has specific duties. To build a clean structure, components of a higher tier can only use components of the same tier or the tier immediately below it.

The following tiers are defined:

1. Client: User interface of the system, i.e., front-end dialogues. This also includes any peripheral systems (such as adoption assistants or other fat clients) or smartphone clients.
2. Service: Publishes the functionality of the system externally for clients, batches or neighbouring systems; façade pattern which is usually also home to central transaction and fault handling.
3. Business logic: The actual business logic with which the applications of the specification are implemented.
4. Data access: Encapsulates the read and write access to data from the database (persistence). Technical cross-section server components cannot be assigned to any of these tiers and are in principle available in the three tiers service, logic and data access.
5. Based on the respective development cycles, the software will undergo several intensive tests in line with usual market methods and standards, carried out both internally and by experts of the application domain.

The specified project hours are based on the hours required for content-related, technical and organisational support of A1.1 and A2 in the context of a student project. The actual number of development hours by trainees/students amounts to 1,800 project hours.

Results:

The developed system makes it possible to display and maintain (international) analytical methods and measurement methods for hazardous substances. The architecture of the modern web applications comprises an Angular front-end framework, a Spring back-end framework and an Oracle database.

It includes the existing data from the legacy system and presents the data in a structure that is specific to the query.

In the scope of the project, not only were the initial functional requirements able to be implemented, but the necessary changes and additions that came up in the further course of the project were also able to be implemented. Technical and functional tests were successfully performed, documented and passed. As soon as the current migration of existing data was successfully completed, the system went live at the start of 2023.

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