In a growing exit from yesteryear’s cumbersome spreadsheet data management, more companies in the natural gas-related industry, from the wellhead to utilities, are utilizing the new release of GASTAR software, developed by Houston-based ENSYTE Energy Software Int’l, to streamline all their information into one seamless process.
Already a reporting dinosaur because of error-prone entry problems and other discrepancies, companies cannot economically continue using spreadsheets when a single-source software solution is readily available. From a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Return on Investment (ROI) perspective, for example, the errors caused by multiple spreadsheets and disparate data for some companies reaches an average of over $100,000 per year.
In a unique product phase-in, driving this change is not the technology sector but the financial world. Companies handling banking and accounting on spreadsheets, then sending these reports to banks, are suddenly finding that banks no longer accept this outdated reporting mode. Instead, financial institutions are requiring software compliance systems, such as GASTAR, throughout the natural gas industry.
Further underscoring its user appeal, GASTAR has recently undergone a major upgrade to the latest Windows Presentation Foundation, using Microsoft’s latest Visual Studio Development tools. The upgrade makes GASTAR the only product of its kind to run on this type of User Interface (UI) technology, while all other competing products run on Visual Basic 6 (VB6). The solution is now more generally standardized in functionality, which translates into minimal customization requirements, shorter implementation times, and the elimination of many expensive overhead fees tacked on to older systems. This strategy is part of ENSYTE’s long-standing business process focus on software development, as opposed to billable hours.
GASTAR is complemented by back-end databases from Microsoft, SQL Server 2008 r2 and ORACLE’s DBMS v.10 and 11 and is Windows 7 compatible. With its sharp focus on user satisfaction, GASTAR’s other new features include an Allocation Network showing real-time information on pipelines, as well as future plans for web-enabled applications. A major new feature for the solution is a NAESB-based Electronic Bulletin Board (EBB) that supports Market Participant interactions with a company’s staff and business processes. The EBB feature provides a secure transaction process for inserting data, maintaining records, and retrieving results. It serves as a communication portal for issuing operational flow orders, curtailment, and any other communication to Market Participants. Primary applications include: Gathering and Production, Distribution-Transportation Customers and Agents, Marketer / Agent Nominations, Counter Parties, Storage / Shipper Nominations, Pool Imbalances / Pool to Pool Trades, and other City Gate transactions.
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