HiSoftware and Microsoft: Partnering for Trustworthy Computing Solutions

 
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Computing Solutions

As the amount of electronic information continues to multiply in organizations, the need for a comprehensive, cost-effective accessibility solution is becoming a sought-after priority. HiSoftware and Microsoft have partnered to provide integrated, world-class software solutions that enable customers to plan, develop, build and maintain portals, Web sites and online applications that comply with industry and regulatory standards and promote Trustworthy Computing.

Used together, HiSoftware’s and Microsoft’s solutions address today’s new challenges in content policy management. They provide a complete, scalable enterprise test management system that enables validation of content for compliance with standards-based and organizational policies for content defects, privacy, site inventory, Web accessibility, site maintenance and management of corporate standards.

This is done with a combination of HiSoftware’s back-end, automated solutions that provide monitoring for applications managed by Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server and Content Management Solutions, and HiSoftware’s user-driven interactive desktop solutions that allow developers and designers to test and remediate content as they build it with Microsoft development tools.

Product Integrations

HiSoftware’s solutions can be easily added to an existing implementation of SharePoint, an online application or Web site. HiSoftware provides enterprise-wide automated content compliance solutions to monitor, audit, enforce and test Web content and applications for regulatory compliance, in addition to on-demand developer solutions for testing content within the development environment (see chart above). All HiSoftware solutions seamlessly integrate with Microsoft’s Visual Studio®, SharePoint® Designer, Expression®, Office®, and SharePoint® Portal Server.

Accessibility Kit for SharePoint® (AKS)

HiSoftware has joined efforts with Microsoft to create the Accessibility Kit for SharePoint or AKS which provides reusable tools and components as well as documentation and tutorials to ensure that MOSS provides a basic solution for accessibility. The intellectual property, jointly owned by HiSoftware and Microsoft, is available as shared source code to the community through Codeplex. AKS significantly reduces the time, knowledge, and effort required to implement a SharePoint-based Web site that conforms to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints, which are collectively known as WCAG 1.0 AA. The AKS can also be used to address the exceptions that have been identified in the U.S. government’s Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act’s Voluntary Product Accessibility Template or VPAT documents for MOSS 2007.

HiSoftware's Accessible Rich Text Editor (aRTE)

HiSoftware’s Accessible Rich Text Editor (aRTE) is being developed to replace SharePoint’s out-of-the box Rich Text Editor. The key difference between the two is the fact that it produces accessible content, and is also made more accessible to use.  Features include the ability to make characters bold or italic, cut, copy and paste, as well as all of the options that the market considers to be standard with today’s content editors.  aRTE will be compatible with all browsers and operating systems.

HiSoftware Solutions for MOSS HiSoftware solutions are designed to help you achieve accessibility across you enterprise...

The AKS solution will help get you started on the road to Web accessibility with an accessible platform/framework from which to launch your portal or intranet site. By adding HiSoftware’s end-to-end accessibility solutions you can extend the basic accessibility provided by the AKS with comprehensive solutions designed to help you maintain, monitor, test and repair your Web site to make sure you are always in compliance. Plus HiSoftware solutions are scalable. Every organization is different and has individual needs, so we offer a variety of solutions to fit your requirements from developer’s desktop products to enterprise governance solutions. These solutions provide an easy-to-use, cost effective mechanism for automated, scheduled, and on-demand monitoring of multiple Web sites, for site quality, compliance and change management. This dramatically reduces time, cost, and complexity associated with building, deploying, and maintaining a properly functioning Web site that maintains the highest level of corporate compliance. A scalable architecture provides a faster deployment time and a lower cost of ownership for the solution set.

AccRepair® for SharePoint Designer

This developer’s desktop solution assists SharePoint Designer users in testing and remediating content and the “architecture” that is built for MOSS sites. AccRepair works in the development environment and provides comprehensive content verification and error identification for standards-based compliance issues. It also produces a checklist of criteria for subsequent manual verification. AccRepair provides Web site checking and automated correction facilities for standards-based accessibility compliance including; W3C WCAG 1.0 Priority 1, 2 and 3, Section 508, and supports the creation of custom accessibility checks. Additionally it supports usability testing with the Usability Test Manager.

HiSoftware Page Tester™ for MOSS

HiSoftware Page Tester™ for MOSS provides accessibility compliance and content validation through a hosted browser-based accessibility testing architecture. Administrators can enable MOSS to allow for client or plug-in independent accessibility testing and validation for individual MOSS pages with PageTester. It provides users with the ability to integrate Web content quality and accessibility testing into daily workflow, without the requirement of deploying executable desktop solutions.

HiSoftware Compliance Sheriff™ for MOSS

HiSoftware Compliance Sheriff for MOSS gives organizations an easy, cost-effective way to successfully develop and maintain best-of-breed Web sites that promote the highest standards in Web governance, promoting a high quality user experience. HiSoftware Compliance Sheriff provides testing and reporting options for standards-based Accessibility and Privacy policies based on the current standards outlined by Section 508, Section 208 and WCAG 1.0. Unlike other solutions, it also allows users to easily define and conduct custom tests for an organization own unique policies without any costly consulting and or programming. Comprehensive Dashboard Reporting features allow content managers and executives to review site status with multiple reporting levels that allow developers to drill down into pass/fail details for remediation. The result is a complete and concise report on the total accessibility, quality and policy compliance of a site or pages of a site tested, that can be shared with the various groups responsible for Web Governance.

Microsoft and HiSoftware Alliance

Joint Initiatives

Microsoft and HiSoftware have partnered together on a variety of educational sessions focused on accessibility and content quality for internal Microsoft Sales Representatives and technical specialists, and our mutual Government customers. Most recently Microsoft selected HiSoftware as a vendor to develop the Accessibility Kit for MOSS 2007, also known as Accessibility Kit for SharePoint or AKS. The decision was made primarily based on HiSoftware’s in-depth expertise and broad industry experience in providing tools and services for improving software accessibility to the point of compliance with key industry and government standards and beyond. Additionally, HiSoftware and Microsoft have teamed-up together on several other product initiatives including:

• In 2004 Microsoft and HiSoftware jointly created the “Solution for Online Accessibility” to reduce the time required to build and deploy accessible portals and Web sites, and provide extremely high scalability, reliability, and performance for those sites.

• HiSoftware has also created solutions for SPPS, which are promoted by the MSFT Product teams and sales organization.

Microsoft as a HiSoftware Customer

Microsoft is not just a HiSoftware partner, they are also a HiSoftware customer. Microsoft has implemented HiSoftware solutions for a variety of MS/MSN EMEA initiatives, including the use of AccMonitor® for reporting on accessibility status of their Web sites.

Start Your Accessibility Initiative Today

Call HiSoftware Microsoft Compliance Solutions expert today to discuss your organization’s accessibility requirements today.

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