Technical Architecture

Overview

ContractExpress DealBuilder is the core document assembly engine at the heart of the ContractExpress family of solutions. ContractExpress DealBuilder is responsible for two main tasks. The first task is to compile and present a dynamic questionnaire for a template published to the ContractExpress DealBuilder template repository and to collect the answer set from the user’s interaction with the questionnaire. The second task is to assemble an OpenXML based .docx document by applying the answer set to the underlying template to assemble a document.

Technology

ContractExpress DealBuilder consists of a web application built on Microsoft ASP.Net 4.0. In addition to the web application, ContractExpress DealBuilder exposes a number of interfaces as Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services and as ASP.Net web services (.asmx).

The web application is deployed on all currently supported Microsoft Windows Server operating systems: Windows Server 2003 x86 / x64 using Internet Information Services 6; Windows Server 2008 x86 / x64 using IIS 7; and Windows Server 2008 R2 using IIS 7.5.

The ContractExpress DealBuilder template repository resides on a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or higher database server.

Integration

ContractExpress DealBuilder can be integrated with other Line of Business applications and Document Management Systems. Templates on the ContractExpress DealBuilder system can connect to your Customer Relationship Management system to pull customer information into the generated document.

As ContractExpress DealBuilder generates native Microsoft Word documents, these documents can be checked into your Document Management System simply using Microsoft Word. For those customers who require server-side integration with automatic profiling, ContractExpress DealBuilder provides a rich Application Programming Interface (API) to support these scenarios. The ContractExpress DealBuilder document assembly application has been integrated with leading Document Management Systems such as Autonomy iManage Worksite, OpenText eDOCS DM, EMC Documentum and Microsoft SharePoint.

Customization

ContractExpress DealBuilder includes the ability to customize the look and feel of the application with custom logos and custom color schemes.

Open Standards

ContractExpress DealBuilder creates documents in the Office OpenXML file format. The Office Open XML specification has been standardized by Ecma (ECMA-376) and also by ISO / EIC as ISO/EIC 29500. The inherent programmability of Open XML makes it incredibly fast and reliable to generate documents server-side, but unlike proprietary XML based document assembly systems, documents generated by ContractExpress DealBuilder can  contain all of the sophisticated styling and document features supported by Microsoft Word.

Alternative Formats

In addition to native Office OpenXML file formats, ContractExpress DealBuilder supports the creation of documents in .DOC, .RTF, .HTML and .PDF file formats through the use of the ContractExpress Word Automation web service. The Word Automation web service can also be configured to automatically update Word fields such as Table of Contents prior to opening the generated document, or even run your own custom macros to perform some post-generation customizations.

Scalability

ContractExpress DealBuilder can scale vertically and horizontally. A greater throughput (measured in documents per minute) can be achieved through adding further CPUs, Cores or vCPUs to your server. Further scalability can be achieved through distributing ContractExpress DealBuilder across a number of load balanced servers. ContractExpress DealBuilder support NLB clusters as well as hardware load balancers.