SubscribeDetailed product description
Introduction
In general an airport is the business card of a country, state or city where people, from all over the world, come together. It gives passengers a first impression of the local environment and thus the airport should be a convenient place to be. The visitors of an airport are a mixture of people ranging from children and elderly people that have difficulties in finding their way in the noisy and busy terminal, as opposed to the more experienced business travellers.
In addition, the airport should also be an attractive place for airlines. For an airline, the airport must have free slots and the necessary resources available to handle its flights. Only then, they will consider flying to an airport, with which they are connecting the airport to the rest of the world.
The purpose of an airline is to transfer as many passengers to and from a wide variety of destinations and origins, as quickly as possible with a maximum in comfort. To achieve this, the operations at an airport should be well coordinated and streamlined. This is a complex operation since a large number of companies are involved: caterers, handling companies, airport and government authorities and many more.
What the airport, passengers and airlines have in common are flights. Everything at an airport is flight oriented. There will be no passengers without flights, nor will there be an airport without flights.
Since airport operations should be well coordinated and flights are the most important activity, the airport should streamline the flight information. In order to achieve this goal, the information should be accurate, timely and most important, shared amongst the parties involved in the aviation process. Only then, the operation of a flight and its passengers can be optimised for cost, accuracy and availability.
Imagine how much time could be lost if a passenger is holding a flight because he or she does not know the gate, or the person responsible for the baggage does not know where the airplane is located at the airport. So, correct flight information is vital to staff of the airport or other companies as well as to the passengers.
Net Display Systems, designer of standard, innovative software solutions for among others the aviation industry, has the solution for this: UFO for Airports.
Product description
UFO for Airports is one of the most advanced and complete AODB (Airport Operational Database) systems that are available today. Any airport – small, medium or large – can use it to store and manage a wide variety of airport & flight related information. This includes timetable and operational flight schedules, resources, flight and resource allocations, resource restrictions and conflicts, geographical and time zone information, airline information and many, many more.
An AODB offers many advantages for an airport. It creates one central storage that holds all relevant data and is accessible for all parties at the airport. This reduces the chance for mistakes, because everyone uses the same actual data. It allows the airport to create a fully optimized planning, because all data is available and simplifies doing statistics and invoicing.
UFO for airports is a standard product, based on many years of experience in the airport industry. The system has been designed and developed by personnel with practical airport experience and in close co-operation with airports, to perform 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Much airport specific information can be handled like link- and pool flights, gate changes, master planning of important resources and online evaluation of the daily allocations.
The product contains several applications to manage the system and the stored data. The key applications are UFO Administrator and UFO Operator. The UFO Administrator application is intended for the system administrator to completely control the entire UFO system. This includes setting up and configuring the UFO environment as well as managing all data. The UFO Operator application is intended for the regular users at the airport to perform their daily tasks.
The market speaks highly of UFO because of the easy way the product is installed, the advanced functionality, the attractive pricing and the advanced possibilities to configure, secure and extend the system to meet local requirements.
Much attention has been paid to simplify the complex planning and allocation processes of an airport for the user. This has resulted into extremely user-friendly applications with a revolutionary, well thought out user interface and wizards for the most complex tasks.
UFO is rolled out with Microsoft SQL Server 2000, but can also be used with other DBMS systems like Oracle or Informix. The system can also be interfaced with any existing airport (central) database.
UFO has built-in support for IATA/ICAO standards, multiple languages and multiple airports. Beside flights it can hold information about busses, trains, taxis and more.
Many aspects of the UFO system can be configured on site without the need for programming. One can for instance create its own unlimited number of resources for doing resource allocations and store its own pieces of information into the UFO system (e.g. aircraft types, gate statuses, flight types).
Each individual user has – as far as the permissions allow this – the facility to completely adjust the user interface to his own preferences: he can determine the data he wants to see and the exact way this data must be presented. In this way each user can determine his own layout of the user interface he feels comfortable with.
UFO has advanced security options. One can limit the data items a user can retrieve (e.g. only flights of 1 airline or only domestic flights), the number of fields a user can see (e.g. only flight number, flight times and operational status) and many more.
UFO comes together with a full automatic interface to our FIDS product, called PADS.
Benefits
UFO for Airports offers the following benefits:
- Standard product
- Low costs
- Short and easy implementation
- For small, medium and large airports
- Rich set of features
- Revolutionary, completely configurable user interface
- Comprehensive security
- Fully customisable through SDK
Each of these benefits will be described in more detail below.
Standard product
UFO for Airports is a Microsoft Windows based, standard off-the-shelf product with all advantages a standard product offers.
First of all the product with all its well-tested features is available today, including a standard, repeatable installation program and complete documentation. All these against a very competitive price, because no money-consuming projects are required to design, develop, install and configure the system.
Secondly, a standard product assures an airport it has a solution that is operational at multiple airports. This results in a more proven stability and usability of the system. It also guarantees that potential problems are fixed for all airports, as soon as they are detected by one of the airports.
Beside this, one can be assured that continuous development is done for the product, because this is the core business of Net Display Systems. The product will be enriched with more functionality, tools and add-ons and adjusted to new technologies that will be become available in the future. Airports can take full advantage of these new developments, simply by upgrading to newer versions of the product.
An often-mentioned disadvantage of a standard product is the fact that one is limited to the functionality as the product offers it. The impression is created that custom requirements cannot fully be fulfilled with a standard product.
UFO for Airports overcomes this disadvantage by using a combination of security, extended configurability and customisability. These subjects will be discussed separately and in more detail below.
Low costs
Because the development costs of UFO for Airport as a standard product are spread across multiple airports, Net Display Systems can offer the product against a very attractive price. This makes the product affordable for any airport, small, medium or large.
With UFO for Airports one ‘knows’ exactly what is bought and against what price this is bought. The product is directly available and there are no surprises in additional costs, as this often is the case with project-based customized solutions.
No exorbitant high prices need to be paid for bug fixing or new functionality. One can take a subscription to a software update & maintenance contract to always get the latest software updates.
Short and easy implementation
UFO for Airports is very easy to install and configure. Just a standard, well-documented installation and configuration will do the job. And - which can also be considered as an important benefit - one doesn’t have to wait for the software to get ready, but can start immediately, because the product is already available.
The installation of UFO for Airports contains a number of wizards that lead the user through the process of setting up an entire UFO for Airports system. The installation comes with a blank, initialised or sample database. The initialised database is already pre-configured with basic airport/airline data to further bring back the installation work. For instance this database already contains all countries, states, cities and airports of the world as well as all airlines, together with their respective IATA/ICAO codes.
All this results in a very short implementation period instead of a time and money-consuming installation project. Implementation is so easy that a small airport can be up-and-running within a couple of hours and larger airports can be implemented within days.
Small, medium and large airport
UFO for Airports is suitable for airports of any size in two ways: seen from the costs point of view as well as considering the design of the system.
The price of UFO for Airports is based on licenses. Smaller airports will have a smaller system, which requires fewer licenses. Therefore the price for such an airport will be lower, being in-line with the smaller budgets, these airports generally have.
The layered and component-based design of UFO for Airports makes the system fully scalable. One can set it up as a small system or as a large system by organizing the components in a different way and/or using different hardware.
UFO for Airports has even built-in support for multiple airports. In this set up several airports can share one single UFO database that resides on a central location and holds the shared data of all these airports. A central system administrator is responsible for the shared base information and each individual airport maintains the flight data of its own airport.
Rich set of features
UFO for Airports is often praised for its rich set of features. Most of all airport and flight information you can possibly think of can be handled in one or another way by UFO and stored somewhere in the UFO database.
The system has standard, built-in solutions for situations that play an essential role at today’s airports, like link flights, pool flights (code-sharing) and gate changes. The system can hold the complete route of a flight, including flight times at other airports. Beside flights, the system can handle busses, trains, taxis or any other transport vehicles one can think of.
The system also fully supports multiple languages. One can use this to display passenger information in multiple languages, like ‘gate open’ and ‘porte ouverte’ as gate status. Optionally, additional languages can be applied for certain situations like Spanish for all flights to Spain or all flights of Iberia.
The UFO Administrator and UFO Operator application have extensive ways to view and organise the UFO data. Data can be viewed in a table view (grid), a card view or in a dedicated detailed window.
The displayed data can be sorted, grouped, filtered and/or formatted. By applying a filter one can limit the data to have for instance only the departing flights displayed. By using formatting one can for instance display arriving flights in green and departing flights in red.
One can create its own additional views to view the UFO data in a different way. All views can be printed out, exactly as they are displayed on the screen. Before being printed, they can be checked in a print preview.
One-to-many relations between UFO data objects can be displayed at a glance. For instance in the main pane of the application window one can have the operational flights listed while in the bottom pane the allocations of the selected flight are listed.
This is just a fraction of the complete functionality UFO for Airports offers. It would be too much to give a complete list of all features. If you are interested in the complete functionality of UFO for Airports, we suggest to request for our evaluation package.
Configurable user interface
The UFO Administrator and UFO Operator application have a revolutionary, completely configurable user interface with a layout that is similar to Microsoft Outlook. This makes it extremely easy to use for users that are used to Microsoft products. Almost any aspect of the user interface can be adjusted, either by the user itself or by the administrator.
If certain data fields are not used at an airport, then the administrator can decide to mark these fields as ‘not in use’. As a result these fields will automatically be removed from the user interface for all users.
An administrator can also add extra fields. UFO for Airports contains a number of reserved text fields, to which an airport can assign its own meaning. It is also possible to add custom dropdown fields holding a custom list of values, by defining so-called propertybags with properties.
The administrator even has the possibility to completely define the user interface of each individual user of the UFO Operator application and determine how far it is allowed to this operator user to make adjustments to his own user interface.
If the administrator allows an operator user to fully redesign his own user interface he can define his own shortcuts, create his own folders and compose his own views on the UFO data. All these personal settings are stored centrally in the UFO database and are bound to the individual user. This makes it possible for the user to always get his own personal settings, no matter which workstation he uses.
Comprehensive security
UFO has built-in security that offers many possibilities to secure your system. The security a user has to deal with is determined by the groups this user is a member of and the permissions that are assigned to these groups.
A number of predefined groups with pre-assigned permissions exist, but one can also define it s own groups with their own specific permissions.
Permissions can be granted or revoked at several levels. One can set permissions for an entire UFO data object or for each data field of a UFO data object separately. For example one can prevent users to modify the timetable as a whole or only prevent that the timetable’s flight numbers are updated.
One can also apply filters when setting permissions, to give users only permissions for a limited set of data. For example one can allow certain users only to view domestic flights.
The permissions determine what a user of the UFO Operator application can and can’t do. If for a user no permissions exist for certain data elements (so even no read permissions), then these elements will automatically be removed from the user interface of this user.
Customisable through SDK
Much effort has been put in creating a Software Development Kit (SDK) for UFO for Airports. This extremely important and powerful part of the UFO system offers the complete functionality of the UFO system as a facility to software developers. This can be a local IT professional or the Airport’s Information Technology department.
Software developers can use this SDK to create any airport specific solution on top of the UFO system. For instance they can create an interface application that automatically receives and processes SITATEX messages, they can develop an interface to provide a web server with UFO flight information or they can create their own application that automatically inserts flight information into the UFO system. The possibilities of the SDK are infinitely.
The applications of the UFO system itself like the UFO Administrator and UFO Operator application are also completely developed on top of the UFO SDK. This makes the SDK environment a well-tested, complete and reliable environment to use.
When using the UFO SDK one does not communicate directly with the UFO database, but with the business layer of the system. This means that one can take full advantage of the business logic that validates the data and keeps the data consistent as well as other benefits of the UFO system like security, without having to write one single line of extra code.
The UFO SDK offers some advanced features to developers. First of all it takes full control of the network communication between the client application and the UFO Server computer. Network failures are automatically handled by the SDK. Secondly, one can subscribe to a built-in event mechanism, so that one automatically gets a notification as soon as the data in the UFO database on the server changes. Finally, the SDK also has a complete well thought out cache-mechanism for UFO data to bring back network traffic.
The UFO for Airports SDK is delivered with complete online documentation, explaining every element of the SDK in detail.
UFO Data
With UFO for Airports one can store and manage a wide variety of airport and flight related information. For this purpose UFO contains a number of main data objects (also called UFO meta views).
UFO has the following built-in main data objects:
- Timetable
- Operational flights
- Address book
- Geographical
- Time zones
- Languages
- Properties
- Resources
- Security
- Data dictionary
- Logbook
Each of these main data objects in its turn consists of a number of data objects. These data objects will be described in more detail below.
Timetable
The Timetable main data object holds the following data objects:
- Timetable flights
- Timetable exceptions
- Timetable allocations
Timetable flights
The timetable holds information on regularly operated flights. It can include for instance all scheduled flights of the current and forthcoming flight season. This flight data contains flight identification, recurrence, route, code shares, link flights and much more.
Timetable exceptions
A timetable exception can be defined as an exception to the normal recurrence of a timetable flight. For example on Christmas day, most of the flights are not operated. For these flights an exception can be created for December 25.
Without this piece of information, the normal timetable flight would have to be split up into 2 physical timetable flights.
The exception period can be a single day or a period.
Timetable allocations
Timetable allocations represent assignments of resources to a timetable flight. Most airports create a default master planning of the resources available in order to get a good overview of the airport utilization at the beginning of a new flight season.
Whenever a daily flight is generated, all of its default or timetable allocations are automatically created as well. Afterwards, the daily generated allocations can be adapted or removed to fit the specific daily requirements.
Operational flights
The Operational flights main data object holds the following data objects:
- Daily flights
- Flight allocations
Daily flights
The daily flights are generated automatically based on timetable information. Next to these flights, ad-hoc or irregular flights can be added directly, such as charters, general aviation, diverted flights, etc...
One can keep track of a flight by maintaining the following flight times: scheduled time of arrival (STA), estimated time of arrival (ETA), actual time of arrival (ATA), scheduled time of departure (STD), estimated time of departure (ETD) and/or actual time of departure (ATD).
Flight allocations
Flight allocations represent assignments of resources to a daily flight, such as aircraft assignments, baggage reclaim allocations, check-in allocations, gate allocations, stand allocations and runway allocations. Flight allocations can be generated automatically from timetable allocations or added manually on ad-hoc base.
Flight allocations can be done absolutely (for a ‘hard-coded’ period of time) or relatively to the flight times.
Address book
The Address book main data object holds the following data objects:
- Parties
- Contacts
Parties
The Parties data object is focussed on airlines but can also include other parties that are active at an airport, like handlers, catering, air traffic control and the airport authority.
Contacts
Contacts are the people working for a party at the airport or the users of the UFO system.
Geographical
The Geographical main data object holds the following data objects:
- Countries
- States
- Cities
- Airports
Countries
The aviation transport industry is an international business. In the countries data object one can store information of all countries that flights at your airport are flying to and from. Or, to be complete, enter all countries worldwide.
States
Some large countries are divided into states by IATA, such as Australia, Brazil, the United States of America, etcetera.
Cities
A city is a further specification of the origin/destination of a flight.
Airports
Airports are primarily used to indicate the route of a flight. Most airports are identified by IATA and ICAO. Next to the standard airport information (IATA code, ICAO code, airport name), additional information can be entered such as local weather information, time zone information, airport categories and much more.
Time zones
The Time zones main data object holds the following data objects:
- Time zones
- Daylight saving periods
Time zones
All time zones of the world with their respective variations to the UTC time clock can be stored and managed. Most of the countries do only have one time zone, but some big countries such as the United States of America, Brazil and Australia, do have several time zones.
Daylight saving periods
Some time zones also have daylight saving periods, containing a different variation for a specific period of time.
Languages
The Languages main data object holds the following data objects:
- Languages
- Language exceptions
Languages
The aviation industry is an international business and because of this, some information will have to be translated into different languages.
For example a gate status ‘gate open’ will be translated into the French description ‘porte ouverte’. In the languages data object, one cannot enter those translations, but one will have to define all possible languages that can be used at the airport. The translations itself can be found at the Property translations data object of the Properties main data object.
Language exceptions
Language exceptions can be defined for a specific country, airline, destination or others. This allows you for instance to add Spanish as an additional language for all flights of Iberia.
Properties
The Properties main data object holds the following data objects:
- Property bags
- Properties
- Property groups
- Property translations
- Property usage
Property bags
An airport can store its own pieces of information into the UFO system by defining properties and property bags.
A property bag is a collection of properties. A typical example of a property bag is ‘Gate statuses’.
Properties
An airport can define its own custom properties for a property bag like ‘Gate open’, ‘Boarding’, ‘Final call’ and ‘Gate closed’ for ‘Gate statuses’.
The number of properties that can be defined in UFO for Airports is unlimited.
Property groups
Properties can be combined into so-called property groups. For example the ‘aircraft types’ property bag is holding values such as ‘727’, ‘737’, ‘747’, ‘320’ corresponding to the IATA defined aircraft types. One can further organize these properties into logical property groups, called ‘wide bodies’ and ‘narrow bodies’.
Property translations
Translations of certain properties are done with property translations. For example ‘Embarquement’ in French for ‘Boarding’.
Property usage
Property usage tells the system where the defined property bags must be used in the system. In case of the ‘gate status’ property bag, one will bind it to the appropriate field of the flight allocations data object.
Resources
The Resources main data object holds the following data objects:
- Resource types
- Resources
- Resource allocations
- Resource references
Resource types
At an airport, there are many resources types that can be allocated to flights such as check-in, gate, stand, baggage reclaim, staff and many more.
In UFO for Airports there is no limitation to the number of resource types that can be defined.
Resources
For each resource type a large number of resources can exist, like gate A1 to F50.
Just like the number of resource types the number of resources that can be defined is also unlimited.
Resource allocations
Resources can be assigned to other resources. An example of such a resource allocation is the allocation of a bus to a number of gates.
Resource references
Resource reference information can be used to store information about how resources are positioned to each other. This can be used to guide passengers to their gate.
Security
The Security main data object holds the following data objects:
- Permissions
- Groups
- Users
Permissions
UFO for Airports has built-in security at all levels. Permissions can be granted and revoked at data object (e.g. Flights) as well as data element (e.g. flight number) level. To limit data filters can be set for a group of users.
Groups
Permissions can be assigned to groups. Some groups like ‘Data Administrators’ have predefined permissions.
UFO knows 5 types of groups: System administrators, Data administrators, Data readers, Normal users and Application users.
Users
A group consists of one or more users. Each user inherits the permissions of the group. A user can be a member of several groups.
Data dictionary
The Data dictionary main data object holds the following data objects:
- Data dictionary
Data dictionary
The data dictionary holds important definitions of each UFO data element. This includes the captions for the graphical user interface and usage definitions.
Most data objects are extended with a few reserved meaningless fields. These fields are available to store user-defined data, that does not fit in the existing fields of the related object. The system administrator can decide to use these fields for a specific purpose.
Logbook
The Logbook main data object holds the following data objects:
- Logbook
Logbook
The logbook is the central storage for logging all user activity. UFO can automatically log all information about logging on/off, data retrieval, data transactions, errors and warnings.
System architecture
A complete UFO system consists of hardware, a network infrastructure and the UFO software.
Hardware
The hardware of a typical UFO system consists of a UFO Server PC and a number of UFO Client PC’s. In accordance with the open concept of UFO there are no specific restrictions to the required hardware other than that the Server PC must be a Microsoft Windows 2000 or Windows XP PC and the Client PC’s must be Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000 or XP. Optionally, additional hardware may be applied for backup and fallback facilities.
Network infrastructure
A good network infrastructure between the UFO Server PC and the UFO Client PC’s is a must for the UFO software. The faster and more reliable the network connection between the clients and the server, the better the system will respond. A full 100 Mbit network is desired. The network environment can be a LAN (Local Area Network) an Intranet or an Internet environment.
Software
The UFO software has been designed following the Windows DNA (Distributed Network Architecture) guidelines for developing N-tier applications.
The UFO software consists of a number of components, from which some run as a service (without a user interface) and other as an end-user application (with a user interface). The software can be split up in software that runs centrally on the UFO Server PC and software that runs on one of the UFO Client PC’s.
UFO Server software
The UFO Server software consists of the following software components:
- UFO Database
- UFO Database Layer software
- UFO Business Layer software
- UFO Scheduler software
- UFO Remover software
- UFO Weather software
- UFO2PADS software
- UFO Wizards
Each of these components will be described in more detail below.
Database
The UFO Database is the Central Operational Database in which all UFO data is stored. By default, the system is rolled out with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or Microsoft Desktop Engine (MSDE) as the database environment. MSDE (which is royalty free and SQL Server is NOT) will be satisfying for far most UFO system. Optionally UFO can also be used with other DBMS systems like Oracle or Informix on request.
UFO Database layer software
The UFO Database Layer software handles all requests to the database. It translates generic requests to database specific syntax. In fact it can be considered as the driver to the database. Therefore using a different database (like Oracle) would also require different Database Layer software.
UFO Business layer software
The UFO Business Layer is the service in which all business rules of the UFO system are processed. The Business Layer validates each read/write to the UFO system, before it is send to the UFO Database Layer. In this way it is guaranteed that every client application uses the system in a correct way and will not generate any inconsistency.
It does not matter whether it concerns a built-in UFO client application like UFO Administrator or a custom client application developed by a local IT developer, all database interactions are centrally validated and processed by the UFO Business Layer. This makes the UFO system an extremely robust system.
UFO Scheduler software
UFO Scheduler is the service that is responsible for generating actual flight information and allocations for the operational period, based on the existing timetable information.
The Task Scheduler of Windows can be used to determine when and how frequent this application must run (e.g. every day at midnight).
UFO Remover software
UFO Remover is the service that takes care of deleting outdated timetable flights and allocations, operational flights and allocations, parties, resources, logbook entries and notifications.
Similar to the UFO Scheduler application the Task Scheduler of Windows can be used to determine when and how frequent the UFO Remover application must run.
UFO Weather software
UFO Weather is a service that can be applied to feed the UFO system with live weather information from the Internet. It will automatically add information about weather conditions and temperatures for all airports that exist in the UFO system. This information can be used for instance for public displaying.
UFO Weather requires the availability of an operational Internet connection.
UFO2PADS software
UFO for Airports can be used in combination with PADS (Public Area Display System), another software product of Net Display Systems, to form a total AODB/FIDS solution. In this combination UFO is used for the storage and management of all flight and airport related information, while the PADS system completely controls the displaying of this information to the passengers.
UFO2PADS is the service that interfaces between UFO and PADS. This application collects all flight information that is required for displaying, restructures and combines this information and offers it to the PADS system. When updates are made to the flight data in UFO this information is processed by the UFO2PADS application instantly, based on notifications.
UFO Wizards
UFO has several wizards that help the user to easily perform certain complex tasks:
- UFO Database wizard
- UFO Backup/restore wizard
- UFO License wizard
- UFO Upgrade wizard
Each of these wizards will be described in more detail below.
UFO Database wizard
The UFO Database wizard helps to create, update and delete UFO databases. One can set up a number of databases serving different purposes. For example one can have an operational database, a training database or even a database for another airport.
When creating a new UFO database, one can choose between a blank database, an initialised database or a sample database. A blank database is ready-to-use with no data. This database can be used whenever an airport wants to construct their database from scratch. An initialised database is a database that has been made available for direct usage. It is configured with basic airport/airline data and is ready-to-use for an airport. A sample database contains a fictive timetable and operational flights with some allocations. It can be used for training and test purposes.
UFO Backup/restore wizard
The UFO Backup/restore wizard helps to backup and restore UFO database. One should backup the system regularly to be able to recover in case of disk crashes.
UFO License wizard
The UFO License wizard helps to install and/or update UFO licenses. UFO licenses are required to be able to use the system.
UFO Upgrade wizard
The UFO Upgrade wizard helps existing users to upgrade from a UFO 2.x system. It converts data from a UFO version 2.x database to a version 3.0 database.
UFO Client software
The UFO Client software has the following software components:
- UFO Interface Layer software (UFO SDK)
- UFO Administrator software
- UFO Operator software
Each of these components will be described in more details below.
UFO Interface layer software (UFO SDK)
The UFO Interface Layer is a complete ‘open’ set of programmable objects, methods and properties that the client applications use to interface with the UFO system. This interface is used by the built-in UFO client applications, but can be used as well by any IT developer to develop its own custom software solution around the UFO system. For this reason the UFO Interface Layer is often also called the UFO Software Development Kit (SDK). This SDK makes the UFO system a completely ‘open’ system and through its extensive documentation extremely easy-to-use for any IT developer.
The following examples demonstrate how simple it is to perform certain tasks with the SDK:
Sample of retrieving data:
Dim UFODS As New NDSUIL.Datasources
Dim RS As ADODB.Recordset
Set RS = UFODS.GetGeographical (NdsGetCountry, NdsCmdSelect, _
False, False, "Country_Code, Country_Description", , , , _
"Country_Code")
Msgbox "There are " & RS.RecordCount & " countries in the country
data object."
Sample of updating data:
Dim UFODS As New NDSUIL.Datasources
Dim RS As ADODB.Recordset
'Retrieve an empty Country data object structure
Set RS = UFODS.GetGeographical (NdsGetCountry, NdsCmdSelect, _
False, False, "Country_ID, Country_Code, Country_Description", _
, , , , True)
'Add a new record and specify all fields
RS.AddNew
RS.Fields("Country_Code") = "MyCountryCode"
RS.Fields("Country_Description") = "MyCountryDescription"
'Save the new data
UFODS.SaveGeographical NdsSaveNew, NdsSaveCountry, RS
UFO Administrator software
The UFO Administrator application is the end-user application for the Administrator. It has built-in functionality to completely control the entire UFO system. This includes setting up and configuring the UFO environment as well as managing all data.
UFO Operator software
The UFO Operator application is the end-user application for the regular users at the airport. It contains a subset of the functionality of the Administrator application.
Flight Information Displaying (FIDS)
UFO for Airports covers the storage and management of flight information. For displaying this information on public displays PADS (Public Area Display System) can be used.
PADS, another product of Net Display Systems, is a software package for presenting any type of information on any public display device. Whether you want to display flight information at the check-ins, gates or baggage reclaims, paging or emergency information to inform your passengers or attractive multimedia advertisements, all this is possible with PADS. The system supports all of the following display devices: TVs, VGA monitors or Plasma’s (4:3 as well as 16:9), LEDs, LCDs, Split-flag boards and even vidiwalls.
The contents of the displayed information can vary from simple text and pictures (e.g. logos), to complex presentations containing web pages or complete multimedia presentations with videos and the use of macromedia flash. The system has a rich set of transition effects that can be applied to display code-sharing flights in a professional manner. The built-in multilingual support allows you to display your information in any language.
The displayed information can easily be designed without the need for programming, using the WYSIWYS editor of the PADS Designer application. The PADS Manager application can be used to schedule the designed presentations for the display devices.
PADS can easily be attached to an existing FIDS (Flight Information Display System) or any relevant database of an airport as source for the information to be displayed. If no FIDS is available, PADS can seamlessly be linked up with UFO for Airports to form a complete AODB/FIDS solution.
For more information about PADS, please read the separate PADS documentation.
Installation and maintenance
There are several aspects that play a role in the process of installing and maintaining a UFO for Airports system. Each of these aspects will be described in more detail below.
Installation activities
In general the dealer, system integrator or other person that is responsible for the implementation of a UFO for Airports system at an airport will have to deal with the following activities:
- Setting up a network
- Installation of hardware
- Installation of software
- Configuration of the system
- Integration with existing environment
Taking care of a reliable network topology as well as setting up the hardware is considered as a basic requirement for UFO for Airports. This includes the installation of the Microsoft Windows Operating system and the appropriate hardware drivers.
The installation of the software can be split-up into two categories: installation of third party software and installation of the UFO for Airports software. Third party software includes the installation of the database environment SQL Server or Microsoft Desktop Engine (MSDE). The installation of the UFO for Airports software consists of running the standard installation program on the server and other PCs that are involved with the UFO for Airports system.
An important part of the implementation is the configuration of the system. A well-thought configuration of the UFO system founds the basis of a good and solid solution. Therefore it is recommended to take one’s time to configure the system.
After running the standard installation program one must set up one or more databases and fill these with basic data. A number of built-in wizards assist in this. After this some global server settings (like the home airport) must be set before the system can be used. In some situations also a number of users with specific permissions will have to be created, together with a specific set of personal settings for each user, which determines the user interface that the user will get after logging on.
At larger airports one will often have to deal with requirements to integrate the system with the existing environment. For instance the airport wants an interface to an existing database management system, which automatically adds the flight information to the UFO for Airports database. It is also possible that certain changes to the data of the UFO for Airports system must automatically be passed through to another database for billing purposes. One can think of all kinds of these so-called custom requirements.
All these requirements can be fulfilled with the Software Development Kit (SDK) of UFO for Airports. However this requires the development of custom software solutions by (local) IT developers.
Licenses
The pricing and usage of UFO for Airports is based on licenses. Before one can install the UFO software it is important to have the disposal of the correct UFO licenses.
A UFO Connection license is required for each instance of the following UFO components:
- UFO Administrator
- UFO Operator
- UFO Scheduler
- UFO Remover
- UFO Weather
- UFO2PADS
When you want to use the UFO SDK (Software Development Kit) to access the system this also requires licenses. In this case in addition to the licenses described above, each running instance of the UFO SDK requires an extra UFO Connection license.
Updates and maintenance
Once the system has been installed and configured, it requires a minimum of maintenance. However there will always be some administrator tasks like extending the system or installing software updates.
For customers that always want to have the disposal of the latest software versions or that want to have direct e-mail contact with the developers of the product for support, Net Display Systems offers a software update and maintenance contract.
If you are interested in this facility, we can provide you with more information about prices and conditions of the software update and maintenance contract.
More Information
Hopefully this document has given you a good explanation of what UFO for Airports stands for. In case you still have any questions about the product, please do not hesitate to contact us at:
Net Display Systems b.v.
Luchthavenweg 31
5657 EA Eindhoven
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 (0) 40 2661177
Fax: +31 (0) 40 2661178
E-mail: info@nds-nl.com
Website: www.fids.comwww.nds-nl.com
We can also provide you with a fully functional evaluation version of the product so you can evaluate the product for a limited period of time.
