Issue # 5 of Nu Connexions Nutrition Software News and Reviews
An occasional online newsletter - bringing you noteworthy news about food and nutrition software!
October 13, 2001
This issue written and edited by Steve Kinsley, RD

September 2001 "Industry Watch Quick Poll" Summary

Windows-Based Nutrition and Foodservice Management Software: Implementation Rates, Reliability, Stability and Customer Satisfaction

Introduction

Whether we are talking about nutrient analysis, managing the process of delivering appropriate meals to healthcare patients, or managing food procurement and preparation functions, nutrition and foodservice professionals know the complexities that can enter into the equation.  The software systems developed to assist with nutrition care and foodservice operations management functions need to be able to handle these complexities, but also need to be intuitive enough to allow users to easily understand how to perform the necessary tasks.  With careful thought and user interface design, Windows-based software is often much more intuitive to use than DOS-based (or other text-based system) software.

Due to the complexity of the software, many long-established nutrition and foodservice software vendors have been relatively slow to convert their DOS- or text-based software to Windows-based systems.  For some vendors, the conversion complexity has been even greater due to their decisions to have more powerful external database engines (such as Oracle, Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere, or MS SQL Server) manage the growing volumes of data which these software systems typically process and store.

Very few Windows and database programmers understand how to successfully develop a Windows program that can interact in a "generic" manner with more than one brand or version of external database engine.  As a result, with the exception of one company's software, most of the nutrition and foodservice software vendors using external database engines have opted to use development tools that lock their software into using one particular brand and version number of a SQL database engine.  Use of these tools makes the software development process faster and easier, but technical difficulties (i.e. "bugs") encountered by end users are more difficult to troubleshoot and solve.

For all its ability to enhance "user-friendliness" of software, until recent releases, Windows itself has been known as an operating system that can be unreliable and unstable.  Combine this fact with a software package that has only recently begun operating on the Windows platform, and which may also be using an external database engine, and you may end up with a recipe for unreliable and unstable performance.  Users of an older DOS- or text-based version of a company's software may also find that keeping their existing data and upgrading it into the new Windows version may be either impossible, or fraught with technical difficulties.

Survey Summary

Due to the potential challenges involved with implementing and using Windows-based nutrition and foodservice software (as well as implementation challenges experienced first-hand by Nu Connexions), it was decided to conduct a brief "snapshot" survey of users.  This survey was designed to gather the following information (click on the links to read more details about the survey results):

• To determine the relative numbers of users, and functional uses, of various software systems reported as being used.

• To determine the relative numbers of Windows-based, versus "legacy" DOS- or other text-based, systems still in use.

• For respondents who reported not using Windows-based systems, the reasons why an upgrade has not yet been performed.  

• For those using Windows-based systems, their perceptions about the reliability and stability of the software, their satisfaction with resolution of technical difficulties experienced, and overall satisfaction with the software.

The survey was publicized on four North American-based listservs for food and nutrition professionals.  The survey was posted from August 21 through September 30, 2001.  Most respondents considered themselves to be "frequent" users of the software programs.  Only 3 rated themselves as "occasional" users, and 3 of the "frequent" users also identified themselves as system administrators (1 for CBORD and 2 for Computrition).  The response rate was disappointingly low, with a total of 15 surveys submitted, including one invalid survey in which the respondent neglected to specify which company's software they used.  The low response rate was likely due to summer vacation, followed by the tragic events of September 11 in the U.S. (activity on the professional listservs dropped dramatically after September 11).  Nonetheless, the survey results do provide some interesting insight, especially for those who are in the process of "shopping around" for the best software system to meet their particular needs.

Click on the links above to read the details about the "Industry Watch" survey findings.  Use them to pose your questions to potential vendors at the ADA conference or elsewhere, as you consider purchasing the software that will best meet your needs, or those of your organization!