Training management system

Healthcare training providers modernise legacy application with our software development skills

Influential Software modernised a custom training management system to ensure security for sensitive data and fix its legacy code issues.

Executive brief

A modern training management system

Our client specialises in clinical training for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers. Influential Software helped the company overcome bugs and security flaws in its outdated training management system. This new training management software brought the following benefits:

Curious about how we modernised their training management system? Read on to learn more.

The full story

The challenge

Legacy software was costing the business

Having served dozens of NHS trusts and universities, our client is highly respected in its field. However, it was clear that the company’s back-office software was hindering further growth. Our client’s existing training management software had three interfaces:

 

• a cloud-based MySQL database, managed by the company’s IT administrator
• an iOS app, used by trainers to record attendance and attendee signatures
• an on-premises ASP.NET Web App, for back-office staff to input course data

 

Hosting the web app on-premises required costly and time-consuming maintenance by the company’s IT staff. The web app was also running on .NET 4.0, a version that Microsoft stopped supporting in 2016. This meant the framework was no longer receiving security patches or updates, which left it vulnerable to attack.

 

And our analysis of user security features threw up another issue: the encryption model was flawed. Instead of modern one-way encryption, the code used two-way encryption. This would have allowed an attacker to reverse engineer a user’s password using the code and the database.

 

And the final problem with this outdated code was lack of compatibility. The code needed updating before it could integrate with software such as Excel and SAP Crystal Reports.

 

In summary, the drawbacks of this legacy training management system were:

 

• high cost of software ownership due to on-premises hosting
• risk of security breaches caused by flawed and unsupported code
• difficulty integrating the application with today’s business software

The solution

Upgrading and extending functionality

Based on our reputation as high-value software developers, the company approached us to upgrade their training administration software. This consisted of rebuilding the iOS app and the API that it used to communicate with the company’s back-end systems.

 

We then provided ongoing support to fix bugs in the company’s legacy code, and add new functionality as needed. These customisations included UX improvements and new fields for business users. A more significant upgrade that we delivered was a feature that enabled customers to book multiple dates at once.

The benefits

Secure and flexible training software

This solution combined a number of improvements, from the app upgrade to bug fixes and feature enhancements. Our app and API upgrades ensured that the company was protected against attacks on its sensitive data.

 

Overall, the business benefits of this new training management software were:

 

• providing compliance and security against cyber threats
• overcoming the limitations of a legacy application
• giving the flexibility to extend functionality as needed

 

Going forward, the next stage is to migrate the company’s training management system to the cloud. As Microsoft Azure cloud experts, we have planned the migration and will be assisting the client with this move in the coming months.

Looking for a new training management system?

From training management systems to fintech apps and weather reporting software, we upgrade all kinds of technology. To find out more, visit our development page.