hana - work, webcraft, examples michael micheletti

hana - work, webcraft, examples  entrinumber

Entricom's entriNumber software was created to help CLECs and Telcos manage their telephone number resources.  This huge web-based application was developed in a great burst of activity by a feisty development team.  This was an all-new application for the company; I designed the page layout and first working prototypes, and developed many of the JSP pages and servlets. 

Click on an image below to see a full-size version in a new window.

entrinumber home portal This is the entriNumber home portal, showing all the modules available at the time.  There's a lot of stuff under the surface; some sections went several layers deep.  The left side navigation bar was built dynamically by a security-conscious Java module reading from an XML data store.  If the application looks structurally a bit like the Bahá'í Prayers website, it's intentional.  This model of dynamic navigation on the left, bold page titles and content pushed clear up to the top of the screen works well on sites with many pages of difficult material.

entrinumber utilization Here's a typical entriNumber screen; this one shows historical utilization of phone number resources.  The top frame in the content portion displays search criteria, the bottom shows results.  The links lead to edit panels.  There were dozens of screens structured like this, some with multiple edit parameters, a dozen search criteria, elaborate lateral navigation.

entrinumber block results screen The block management portion of the application was intended for use by telecom companies who needed to allocate blocks of 1000 phone numbers at a time.  Various agencies keep track of which company has what numbers; phone numbers are something of a vanishing resource in this day of cell phones, modems and beepers.  Note that the left nav bar is collapsible down to the narrow configuration shown here.  This was needed due to some of the double-wide result sets returned in the search screens.

entrinumber subscription version results screen The subscription versions screen is something of a control panel.  Jeff Smith, one of the developers on our team, came up with this one.  The color-keyed buttons are intended to be easily recognized at a glance by someone who works with the screen all day every day.  The search criteria could be used to return arbitrary rows, and the operator was then able to apply changes to individual rows or to the collected result set. 

entrinumber forecast results screen Forecasting was sort of the opposite of historical utilization.  The utilization screens told a carrier how many phone number resources had been used in the past; the forecast screens were predictive about future use. 

entrinumber nruf formset screen This is one of the formset screens, which allowed operators to compile the forms used to request phone number resources from oversight agencies.  Different forms were required for different situations, sort of like tax forms for the IRS.  The printable version buttons brought up PDF file recreations of paper forms with the values filled in.  The printable reports were one of my projects; I built them using a third-party Java class library designed for reporting.  I suppose it is somewhat telling of the telecom industry that a huge complex XML-based system capable of serializing and transmitting forecast data was instead used to generate paper forms that would be faxed to some poor clerk somewhere. 

entrinumber service provider detail screen The service provider area let carriers keep track of local phone service providers who share responsibility for customers, numbers, blocks or other resources.  This was another complex interface; in this case,a successful search displays an edit screen and several lateral property screens, navigable via the links near the top of the content area.  One of my regrets about this interface is we didn't have the time to develop breadcrumb navigation.  This would have been a helpful feature; it was easy to get really deep in the weeds.

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tiny bird asks... What was it like working there? 

Intense.  It was a startup, you know, with limited funding and no sales yet.  We always felt we were racing the clock to make that first big sale that gives the product validity.  Our potential customers (CLECs, Telcos) were all hurting even worse though; I got the impression that they didn't care much about managing telephone numbers - the numbers they really cared about were managed by alarmed accountants.

Entricom still seems to be making a go of it though.  They're down to a tiny handful of people; one developer only I think.  Moved out of their big space with a view of the lake to a little office they could afford.  Finally made their first entriNumber sale too. 

What I miss most from Entricom though is the dev team, easily one of the best I've worked with.  We still keep in touch; a couple of folks work together on contract projects, there's a small core reforming at the Tommy Bahama headquarters in downtown Seattle, I see them out at lunch sometimes.  But when we were all together, what a great boisterous bunch we were, and what a lot of fun we had.  There were long hours and some fierce interactions, but a great deal of respect and affection.  There was one marriage.  As Jeff would say, "it's all about the love."

Entricom Entricom makes telephone number management software for the telecommunications industry. 

numberpooling.org
Entricom put together an informational website called NumberPooling.org to help educate the industry about number management issues.  The site is a good resource if you're interested in how the allocation of phone number resources works.


Did I mention that entriNumber was brandable?  Jeff and I stayed late one Friday night to put together the Britney Spears Signature Edition.  The nav bar was pink, the titles were pink and a faint background photo of guess who floated behind the text.  Certain keystrokes entered in the Terms of Use page triggered a password prompt; if you ever get this far, try the password "snorkel". 

Entricom Entri-Cup
Finally, my favorite Entricom product: the Entricom Entri-Cup.  Created as a marketing giveaway, these were great coffee mugs.  Nice weight, large handles, attractive shape, well-balanced, hold a lot of coffee.  There's a logo (complete with swoosh) and on the other side the tagline, "Bringing Order to Telecommunications."  We outgoing workers were encouraged to take various promotional items (cups, t-shirts) along with us as a sort of consolation prize for not having become internet millionaires, so the Micheletti family has a treasured set of four Entri-Cups

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