Center for Cultural Interchange

The Need

The Center for Cultural Interchange encourages cultural learning and understanding through travel abroad, work, and student exchange programs around the world.  A major portion of their services includes processing potential participants through initial interest to application to processing and final placement.  This involves complex coordination between the individuals, partners, employers, governments, host families, schools and other the CCI team themselves.  Having grown organically, CCI departments utilized a wide variety of data stores to process participants.  They reached a point where they had to centralize all of their data into one repository.

The Solution

CCI contracted Adage to design, develop, host, and maintain a software application that consolidates a wide variety of applications and data stores. 

Adage first analyzed the current systems in place which included multiple Microsoft Access databases, spreadsheets, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, and MySQL.  In addition to a robust Access application, systems had been developed using scripted ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP.

Today, the application combines all of these systems eliminating the need for multiple imports and exports between systems.  Additionally, portals expose required data to a wide variety of users around the world available in real time 24x7.  The system has one database hosted by Adage and provides batch processing for travel visas of the program participants.

Finally, Adage hosting provides a secure, robust, and redundant environment to ensure the application is available at all times.