WSSC: Water Lead Test Tracking Application

Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission
Laurel, MD USA

Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) offers lead testing of water samples to the District of Columbia water authority. WSSC supports its operations with a complex process that begins with the ordering of the test. Test samples must be tracked throughout the process of testing and results tabulation so that areas most affected receive highest priority in infrastructure replacement programs. WSSC used Iron Speed Designer to build a Web application named DCWASA to track and update the test as it progresses through its laboratories.

DCWASA, an intranet Web application, serves its users with up-to-date information on water lead test samples. The application tracks the process closely from the sample request to final laboratory results. Reginald Thorpe, Information Support Group Leader, WSSC, developed DCWASA, and his Information Support Group now maintains the application. DCWASA shares data with the Seedpak LIMS and a Pitney Bowes lead test kit tracking system.

DCWASA currently consists of seven distinct menus with multiple Web pages per menu. The application uses two roles: users and administrators. All pages include standard features like searching, sorting, and pagination. All users must sign in, and the start page is set to the Chain of Custody page which shows the complete record of the test sample as it passes from person to person. DCWASA uses one database with multiple tables for requests, chain of custody information, shipping records, etc. The largest table in the database exceeds 103,000 records and is growing.

Integrated applications streamline WSSC operations

WSSC's operations are run on multiple applications:

	DCWASA shows overall information about each sample as it passes through the laboratory
	Pitney Bowes application manages the shipping and receiving of the Lead Test Kits (LTK)
	Seedpak LIMS manages the information about the test and compiles the test results

All these applications are integrated with one another at the database level. Using Microsoft's Data Transformation Services, Reginald programmed procedures that run periodically and transfer data from and to each of the applications' databases. This ensures that all applications are synchronized. Periodically, the customer database is downloaded from the master application into the DCWASA application.

Application size and scope

The application is comprised of one Microsoft SQL Server database with 16 tables and 30 Web pages.

What's next?

We plan to use Iron Speed Designer to develop other intranet applications.

About the developer

Reginald Thorpe is an Information Support Group Leader at the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC). He has been programming for more than 18 years, including mainframes, and client-server and Web applications. WSSC won a contract to test water for the District of Columbia water authority — but the project to build and deploy a Web application to track and update the water samples information had to be completed in less than three weeks! Reginald found Iron Speed Designer by searching the Internet and was successful in meeting WSSC's time-sensitive requirements.