Fratelli Carli Runs More Smoothly with Reflection for the Web

In 2010, the Italian company Fratelli Carli, a leader in the direct sale of olive oil, needed a terminal emulator that could deliver centrally managed, high-quality performance within an elaborate call center. And it needed strong technical support from the emulation vendor, for help with developing new projects and integrating new functionality.

After careful analysis of available solutions, Fratelli Carli turned to Attachmate Reflection for the Web, and has been pleased with the results. “We are very happy with our collaboration with Attachmate,” says Marco Gardini, IT Operations Manager at Fratelli Carli.

A Complex Hub

For the bulk of its customer transactions, Fratelli Carli relies on a highly elaborate call center that includes workstations in four languages. The company has used a mainframe to support these transactions since the 1970s.

At Fratelli Carli, telephone orders account for the majority of sales. When telephone operators at the call center receive a call, they must check the customer record, input the data and the order details, and then send and manage the order. All of these operations are performed using terminal emulation.

In-Depth Support from Attachmate

Fratelli Carli wanted to implement Reflection for the Web so that it could be used by every employee, a complex effort that required active collaboration between the Fratelli Carli IT management team and the Attachmate team. The two teams carefully set up, developed, and tested components that would allow seamless integration of Reflection for the Web with the call center’s VoIP software.

Fratelli Carli also wanted to be able to communicate with the Attachmate technical support team via a switchboard application. This request was complicated by the fact that the switchboard application is non-native, meaning manufactured by a third party. However, after consulting with its colleagues in Ireland, Attachmate was able to develop a solution that allows its technical support team to better respond to requests from Fratelli Carli employees.

Strong Results

Thanks to Reflection for the Web, Fratelli Carli no longer needs to perform separate terminal emulation installations. Instead, all of the company’s workstations are now covered by a single installation that support all four languages used. And users at Fratelli Carli now enjoy efficient, automatic access to applications on the mainframe via a web browser.

For Fratelli Carli, the strong technical support from Attachmate provides important added value. It allows the company to take advantage of a centrally managed, high performance system, thereby ensuring that its main business activities work at an optimum level.

“We received careful guidance during the installation, which provided for the centralization of activities on the servers,” says Gardini. “Our users can now display a window showing options that point to the different areas on the mainframe. We are also extremely pleased with the excellent technical support that Attachmate has given us. This is an aspect which is often underestimated, but which is in fact crucial, especially for a company like ours.”

About Reflection for the Web

Reflection for the Web is an emulation software product that securely connects browser-based users to applications residing on Unisys, IBM, HP, Linux, UNIX, or OpenVMS hosts. With strong encryption and access control capabilities, Reflection for the Web safely delivers fully functioning host applications across the public Internet. In addition, the software includes a security proxy server that extends host access to remote users without exposing hosts to Internet threats.

The product is centrally installed, and because it resides on the Web server it is immediately available to browser-based users. Once you make updates on the server, users automatically download the new version the next time they connect. With Reflection for the Web, costly, time-consuming desktop-to-desktop management is no longer necessary.

Reflection for the Web is platform-independent. The client can be run in most popular browsers, including Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, and on any operating system that supports Java, including Windows 7, Windows Vista, Linux, and Mac OS X. In addition, the servers can be run on any operating system that supports Java, such as Windows, Linux, UNIX, z/Linux and z/OS.

About Attachmate

Attachmate delivers advanced software for terminal emulation, legacy modernization, managed file transfer, and enterprise fraud management. Three decades of IT innovation and a solid reputation for customer satisfaction have distinguished Attachmate in the marketplace. In fact, the vast majority of Global 10,000 companies use our technologies to execute billions of transactions every day. www.attachmate.com