New Product Generation

With headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark, Nordic IT currently has direct and indirect presence in the UK, Germany, Norway, Finland, France, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, North America, Eastern Europe and Russia.

Nordic IT’s latest product is the specialized ship-broking software MARK Maritime, a software system specially designed to serve the needs of ship owners, charterers, management and shipbrokers, who all are in strong need for reliable and fully supported message management software in order to run successful business. Nordic IT has done development since the start up of the company in the 80’s and went all the way from MS-Dos via MS-Windows to the latest .Net version. The experience gained over the years and the close relationships with its customer base are the basis for Nordic IT‘s success in todays maritime IT market. Close bonds with its customer base and careful observation of the maritime market have enabled Nordic IT to develop the latest state of the art .Net version; MARK Maritime, which incorporates all customer demands in one unified software solution.

 

A 360 Degree View of the Software

As e-mail traffic in the shipping industry is ever increasing and new communication technologies evolve on a rapid pace also the demands of Nordic IT’s customers are constantly changing. Nordic IT understands the demands of their busy customers and their pressurized working environments and has once again reflected this by its newly developed .Net software, MARK Maritime.

The way shipping is performed nowadays requires software that can be tailored to all kinds of operations, streamline all kinds of operations and still be easy to use. Although this is not an easy task to perform, Nordic IT managed to develop a system that incorporates different business processes and various types of favoured user activities in one unified application. Although MARK Maritime is a highly complex software solution, it has a clear logic and a design that is straightforward and easy to use. The system is fully customizable, users can set up the user interface the way it best serves their business routine or daily operations. A variety of features, efficiency and user friendliness are distinguishing MARK Maritime from off-the-shelf software.

In order for MARK Maritime to be as flexible as possible, the system is made up of modules that perfectly integrate into one unified system. This allows the combination of several functionalities, such as document management, messaging, customer relationship management and other shipping applications in one application.
Using MARK Maritime it is possible to keep all data in one application. Customers are able to:

  • Browse, send and receive different types of documents (emails, faxes, telexes)
  • Manage their client database with all client activities (phone calls, meetings, documents…)
  • Manage their time (schedule)
  • Manage their ship database with all ships activities (positions, sale offers,… )

However, the main benefit of the system is that all modules are tightly connected to each other. While browsing documents, the user is now able to gain information about how a specific document is connected to a customer, an appointment in the diary, a ship or any other object from other modules.

The same functionality applies for all other modules. If you are in the Ship’s Database, you can easily get information about sent or received documents, clients from the client database or appointments in the diary that are connected to a certain ship. Such architecture gives the user the possibility to get a 360 degree view on documents, clients, appointments, ships and other objects from different modules.

The development team at Nordic IT is renowned for its generic packages such as MCSWin Communication System, MX Server and the Shipping Extension Modules. However through the years Nordic IT has successfully been providing system tailored solutions to individual customer requirements. This is also applicable for the newly developed .Net version MARK Maritime. Even if a customer has very specific demands, Nordic IT can create a new module which covers their needs in areas where they have requirements.

All sorts of shipping companies can use the new unified solution. Users will quickly recognize the software is specifically designed for maritime companies, facilitating many of the daily operations they have to perform. The system is designed for small as well as large companies, locally based or with affiliates spread around the globe.

Another main benefit of the system is that all information is shared between users. Keeping the enormous and ever increasing amount of e-mails and faxes in mind, it is essential to emphasize on “who did what and when” with an e-mail/fax, in order to guarantee an efficient and effective workflow. Naturally, the configuration of the system guarantees that every user is only able to do and read what they are entitled to. This ensures privacy of messages whenever and wherever necessary.

Whether the user wants to see the messages “all in one” or separated by certain e-mail addresses is the user’s own choice. Each document has a unique document number, making filing and searching for documents easy. The user can always see who already read, commented, edited, printed or replied to a message. Also more detailed information, such as who read/edited a message at what day/time or changing the header/footer of a message is only a click away.

User Interface

While developing MARK Maritime, Nordic IT paid a lot of attention to design and user friendliness. It was decided to use the same logic as can be found in the most famous Windows Outlook applications. Thus, most users of MARK Maritime will recognize the interface and main functions of the system and thus make it easy for them to use and explore.
The core system of MARK Maritime is made up of three different modules that perfectly integrate with each other.

Although performing different tasks, the three modules have several features in common:

  • Fast search: Allows for quick and easy retrieval of any module object (documents, clients, appointments…) by certain criteria.
  • Hierarchical grouping: Any module object (documents, clients, appointments…) can be placed into groups selected according to criteria.
  • Assigning user rights to any module objects (documents, clients, appointments…). Whether a user needs specific information to be of private character or simply want to share some information only with certain users or departments (user groups) can easily be set up.
  • Customization. Each module can easily be customized to certain user needs. Each user can:
    • Hide unwanted information and move important ones to the top.
    • Rearrange and resize all windows.
    • Select system colors.
  • Different languages can be selected
  • Link different objects from other modules to each other. Imagine the following scenario: You received new document and you want that document to be connected to certain client(s) from the client database and certain ship(s) from the ship database? All it takes is a few clicks. You can easily and at any time see how the document is linked to certain client(s) and certain ship(s) and easily jump to those links. It goes without saying that once a user is working in the client and/or ship database you can also see the connection to specific documents easily and at any time.

Document Management

  • Filing/Archiving. MARK Maritime manages the customer’s documents by grouping them into hierarchical groups.
  • Archiving. The fundamental idea with the archiving system is on the one hand to store data files for better organisation of data and easy access by users. On the other hand archiving decreases the size of the database, and thus allowing companies to store large amounts of data without overloading their hard drives.
  • Filing system with auto-filing.
  • Whatever is linked to a specific process can be kept in the filing system, no matter if it is an external file, an e-mail, fax or telex out of the browser, an address out of the client database or a vessel directly from the vessel database.
  • The user can always add comments to any message, document, vessel, contact etc., in order to share information with their colleagues.
  • Any information of any format may be attached to any message, document, vessel, or contact.

Messaging

  • Email, fax, telex and sms at your fingertips. Quickly browsing and finding messages; create new messages based on company predefined templates; sending out to several destinations or send a broadcast to a predefined list of receivers; check the status of sending; receive notifications in case of success or transmission failure. In the case of failed transmission the system will, if decided in the settings, resend the message after some time.
  • Instant messaging. MARK Maritime can manage your business and personal instant messaging accounts. MARK Maritime simulatously integrates with all major instant messaging systems, such as MSN, ICQ, Google Talk, Yahoo and others. A communication history for each instant messaging contact is held in the database, so the user is able to monitore instant messaging conversations for later reference. Furthermore, the instant messaging functionality of MARK Maritime makes it possible to easily create documents out of instant messaging conversations and stamp those documents with a unique document number. In that way the document can be used for further processing like any other document.

Customer Relationship Management

The CRM module of MARK Maritime stores the clients contacts in a hierarchical tree-structure (companies with departments and persons).

  • Creating/editing/deleting clients (company, department, contact). There are several attributes to describe a client (name, official and mailing addresses, photos, phones, emails …).
  • It is possible to add any new attribute to a client using the administrator utility.
  • The visual interface of each user’s business card is fully customizable.
  • Group clients by different criteria.
  • View appointments, documents and any other system object that is connected to a client.
  • It is possible to see what actions are connected to a client. What phone calls were received/made to/from a client, what document was received/sent to from a client and etc.
  • Jump to any object connected to a client to get more information about it.
  • Reporting system.
  • If the phone number of the incoming call is recognized, the relevant information appears on the user’s screen instantly.
  • All documents to/from clients are accessible directly in the CRM module.
  • Organizer/Planner. Manage your time and the time of your colleagues.
  • Create/modify different types of appointments which happened in the past or will come up in the future (phone calls, meetings, sending documents…).

Administration

Normally, complex software systems are quite difficult to administer. Knowing that, Nordic IT spent a lot of effort making administration as easy and straightforward as possible. The result is a system where all system configurations can be performed by using the administrator utility, which has a user friendly interface and is built upon clear logic. Using the administrator utility it is possible to:

  • Manage individual users and/or departments.
  • Specify user- and department rights.
  • Modify different module settings.
  • Build a unique structure of a communication system.

Technical Platform

The system was developed using the Visual Studio 2008 environment. The development language is C#. Development platform is .Net 3.5. For building the user-interface we used the component set from Developer Express (www.devexpress.com).

Technical Requirements

The system requires SQL Server as data storage. MS SQL server is preferable but other SQL servers are supported to.

Software requirements:

  • MS Windows 2000 or higher
  • .Net Framework 3.5

  • Server specs:
    • Hardware:
    • Intel Quad core min 2.26 ghz
    • 12-16 GB Ram
    • Raid controller with min. 256 or 512 mb memory
    • 2 x SAS 10K or 15K Rpm harddrives min, for Windows 2008/2003
    • 2/4 x SAS 10K or 15K Rpm harddrives min. for Data (Best option is 4 x 15K 146/300 GB in Raid 10)
    • DVD-Drive
    • Gigabit Network Card

 

 

 

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