Each potential HighStone installation is considered on its own merits. Costs of implementation will be made up of elements to supply, install, create and configure the basic HighStone database and installations. Any contract specific data will be built up and defined in the system – this includes geographic asset data, cost codings, user records etc. and the work undertaken in completing this element will be estimated. Where new functionality within HighStone is required this will be assessed and priced. A mobilisation schedule will be agreed to get the system installed and running within your organisation and the necessary user induction, training and on-going support will be quoted for. All these elements will be discussed and an overall implementation plan presented.
This varies on the type of functionality required and how you would like the work to be undertaken. Claremont Controls operates a policy of ‘open development’ on HighStone whereby all clients of the system may benefit from the ideas, innovations and widening functionality of the application over time. We have found this to be generally well accepted with our clients as they benefit from new ideas from other disciplines of business and industry and can also make their ideas more widely available to others. If a specific topic area is highly specialised and the client requires it to be held under a limited distribution, then Claremont Controls will consider each case and agree on how the element will be published prior to implementation. However it is important to note that development of restricted distributed functions will be more expensive to develop and maintain by the proposing client.
The short answer is ‘both’. HighStone includes a lot of functionality that is already pre-configured and can be applied without any revision to displays and functions. However Claremont Controls does expect that some key areas of your business management process need to be supported with custom displays and functions that fit in with your existing methods. Such elements can be provided by the development of new display modules or by adapting existing functions to better match your requirements.
HighStone is a Microsoft Windows based application that is built using the Microsoft .Net Framework. The .Net Framework is installed as standard on most Windows XP and Windows 7 systems, and can be freely downloaded and installed where necessary. HighStone includes a number of executable and library files that can be installed in a suitable location on users’ systems – usually in the ‘\Program Files’ folder. HighStone is usually installed as an XCOPY application – requiring just a straight copy of files on to the target system drive.
No. All core data management values are held in the host database, but elements that are held outside the database include configuration definitions, reports library files, and documents files that relate to main object data records including photographs, emails, ancillary documents and saved data reports. These elements are held under a defined ‘\HighStone Home’ folder located on a convenient server within the organisation, with data files saved automatically in nominated sub-folders under this path.
Unfortunately it is not practical to provide a demonstration version of HighStone as a download. The range of functionality offered by HighStone and the configuration needed to create a basic operational database is too complex and great. We have made available a wide range of briefing and explanation documents on this website – please use this resource to answer your immediate questions, however if you have any specific queries on the potential use of HighStone, which you are unable to find an answer to here, please get in touch.
Claremont Controls actively encourages clients to integrate HighStone data with other business processes. Additional data links may be added as linked databases or additional data tables within the main contract database or existing HighStone tables extended to carry additional data values.
Yes. HighStone provides FTP upload and download functions that can be configured to poll for data over FTP connections, either on demand or at defined time intervals for automatic operation. Some configuration work may be required to manage the actual data import and export formatting.