COSS Shared Components in the COSS Web System
COSS uses a components-based approach to software development. Taking specific programming tasks and breaking them into small pieces allows for faster and more stable software development.

The components-based approach helps COSS to reuse components in developing many applications. In turn, it reduces the cost of developing software for COSS as well as for customers. That enables COSS to offer quality products at a reasonable price to its customers.

The following components are shared by many of the COSS applications:

Business Rules: Performs business rule processing and validation. Calculation engines: Performs actuarial insurance calculations. COSS provides many calculation engines such as UL, VUL, Whole life, etc. These calculation engines can be plugged into an application as needed. Forms Engine: Generates screens on the desktop. DB Manager component: Manages connections and SQL calls to the database. Calendar: Provides Calendar functions to any application. E-mail: Provides E-mail functions to any application. Output: Provides functions to generate output in different format such as HTML or PDF format.

Web and Desktop: Same System
The COSS desktop applications which run on your agent's desktop PC, and the COSS Web applications which run on powerful servers in your company's IT department, both share many common components. This makes the desktop and the Web applications almost the same from a development perspective. The thumbnail figure that you can enlarge shows the shared components and how they have been used on the Web server and on desktop environments.

The shared components are the objects that are customized for your unique products and services. Using the Screen Designer tool screen changes will automatically update the desktop application (VB controls) and the Web application (HTML). The Business Rule component will interpret VB code for the desktop application and generate JavaScript code for the Web application.

Another important example is the calculation engines. Financial service products must be able to produce illustration numbers and ensure their accuracy. If a calculation engine has been qualified as working correctly on the desktop, there is not need to go through the same process for the Web application. COSS calculation engines are exactly the same for both desktop and Web applications.

This approach saves you time by ensuring what you change will be the same for the desktop and for the Web. Using state-of-the-art tools the new changes will be reflected instantly onto both the Web and desktop systems. Furthermore, these shared software components are designed so that they will belong to a tier in the multi-tier system that has presentation, business logic, and data tiers. This tier separation decouples the dependency of components in one tier from another tier. A change of a component in one tier will have little effect on a component of another tier. The tier separation of components allows COSS to deploy Web applications on complex server configurations.