Impact COM

Customization, integration, complete control

One of the most powerful features of Impact is actually hidden beneath the covers. Impact provides a comprehensive set of programming interfaces available using Microsoft’s COM (Component Object Model) technology.

Imagine being able to automate a set of repetitive tasks that your designers perform daily, this is possible using the COM interface and the simple built-in VBScript scripting language. In fact you can even add a new menu or tool button directly into the Impact user interface to run your script.

Complete Control

The COM interface exposes groups of functions for dealing with all aspects of Impact from accessing information about projects, layers and palettes, to creating new geometry or modifying existing entities, to opening, editing and saving projects into the database, even displaying dialogs to your designers to retrieve additional user input.

Impact also provides a set of automation tasks that are fired when specific operations are performed by designers. These tasks can be used to provide additional functionality specific to your environment or installation. For example the atProjectUpdate task could be used to automatically generate a PDF file for a project and email it directly to your sales staff or even a customer, all this without the designer having to remember to perform this operation.

Systems Integration

The Impact COM interface provides the power behind Impact’s integration with many third party applications. When developing interfaces to these systems we utilize the powerful functionality exposed by the COM interfaces.

We publish these interfaces so distributors, third parties, and even your own internal IT staff can also leverage their power. In addition we provide professional development services and consultation services for your own integration projects.

Using the Impact COM interface you can push or pull CAD information to virtually any external system or business management application. In the past your designers may have been rekeying important information into other systems, producing inconsistency and sometimes even introducing errors. By scripting these operations you ensure data accuracy, improve productivity and therefore reduce costs.

For example push CAD information into an Excel spreadsheet for costing calculations, then pull pricing information back out and store it into the Impact database. Another example may create a project, pull information from an existing business application and even generate geometry by running a standard all at the press of a button. The possibilities are virtually endless and integration into your existing management information systems can be achieved quickly and seamlessly.

Features and benefits:

• Automate repetitive tasks, ensure data accuracy and reduce rekeying of important data.
• Customize the Impact environment by adding menus and tool buttons specific to your needs.
• Integrate Impact directly into your existing management information systems.
• Comprehensive developer documentation of all COM objects and interfaces, including over 300 example scripts showing how each interface can be used.
• COM interfaces can be used from development environments such as Visual Studio, Delphi and the Windows Scripting Host.
• Write script or compiled libraries including full compatibility with the latest technologies such as Microsoft .NET.
• Professional development and consultation services available from Arden Software.

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