DEVELOPMENT OF A SELECTION SOFTWARE: SHARK + X-SHARK INTERACTION
Many Companies ask us for selection software for their units, like Close Control, Chiller, Remote Condensers or Rooftop units. The X-Shark option is the right one, however there are many ways to develop it, and this variety of solutions allows us to satisfy different needs with clearly different development times.
The customer’s idea is generally to have a solution that is first and foremost fast: the sales dept. cannot waste time in front of a potential end customer, but must be able to generate an offer in a very short time. The software must therefore first and foremost respond to an essential requirement: speed. If that is missing, we are far from a satisfactory result, it doesn’t really matter how visually appealing the software is, and there is no key function that can replace speed.
At the same time, the software must be reliable and precise in its calculation. So, how to combine the need for precision and reliability of a calculation engine, and the functions that come with it (main request of the technical department) with a presentation that can amaze the customer for graphics, completeness of information, and ease of use (as the salesman would like)?
As you know Unilab provides two solutions, which go hand in hand, and now we will explain why: SHARK (Simulation Software for the technical office) and X-SHARK (Electronic Commercial Selector/Catalogue). As indicated, the ways to develop the commercial selector are multiple, and depend on different needs and timing. Let’s see the possible solutions and combinations:
- SHARK + X-SHARK SOLUTION
The Desktop Shark software guarantees the technician to be autonomous in the creation and simulation of new units. You can find more information about SHARK here: https://www.unilab.eu/heat-transfer-software/unilab-shark/
The fastest way to develop X-SHARK (commercial software) starts with Shark. Shark allows you to save your designed units in a simple file, which includes the single unit and can be grouped into multiple files to form a series. With Shark, you can create, simulate and calibrate your Chillers, heat pumps, air conditioners, Close Control, multi-functional units, condensing units, evaporating units, remote condensers and any special project that includes a refrigeration cycle.
After designing a new unit with Shark, you can export the Shark project in an encrypted file called “thermodynamic profile”, with all the project data, conditions and components, ready to be inserted in the commercial X-SHARK software.
Once imported by us into the selection software, the thermodynamic profile will allow the new unit to be selectable in X-Shark.
Shark & XSHARK have at their core the same calculation engine, allowing your sales team to make a selection and above all to calculate under different conditions from the same Shark projects that the technical department has designed and calibrated, thus guaranteeing you the same precision and reliable results in a graphically attractive and above all FAST selection software.
And you can distribute it, of course. For the distributable licenses you can define up to 5 levels of activation, which allow you to display or hide some data of the program depending on the different users (distributors, agents, advanced internal sales …) in particular prices, discounts, series/models, entry masks and more.
Once you have obtained the projects you created with Shark and agreed with us om the graphical part, you will have a commercial software, X-SHARK, that will give the exact results you calculated with SHARK.
- X-SHARK WEB
We link here the article with Advantages and disadvantages of a web software, already previously published: https://www.unilab.eu/articles/news-events/advantages-web-selection-software/
The development of a web software requires a variable development time depending on the customizations required, and can be structured in two ways:
– With calculation engine, so the same Shark core engine at the base, able to make selections at the different conditions entered.
– With multi-table interpolation: in this case there is no calculation engine but tables whose format must be agreed between Unilab and the Customer. Among the pros of this method there is certainly an even higher speed. On the other hand there is that (unlike a web tool with a calculation engine) if the user enters conditions outside the table range, the software can only return the warning “Contact the Technical Department”.
It is also possible to think of mixed solutions such as the use of Shark for the technical office, which generates tables in the format suitable to feed an X-Shark Web tabular selector, considering also that X-Shark can be developed, as indicated, with a calculation engine.
We have developed and are working on several projects with both options: it depends a lot on how the user prefers the software to be structured, and especially on the possible deadlines or launch dates of the planned series.
For more information about SHARK and X-SHARK, please visit https://www.unilab.eu/heat-transfer-software/unilab-shark/
andhttps://www.unilab.eu/heat-transfer-software/unilab-xshark/ , or contact sales@unilab.eu  for more information!
