I have created my first cgi web app and the client is about to demo it to some potential customers in early March.
I have a non-disclosure agreement but I can tell you how it is set-up.
developed with Xojo 2017r3 and uses SQLite
deployed on a Xojo Server
The demo will be about 300 miles from where I am located and clients budget doesn’t allow for me to travel there.
I just want to make sure that I have everything covered from this end. I have scanned the thread about a web app quitting by itself but that issue doesn’t really seem related. There won’t be anyone else logged on the system when it’s being demoed except maybe me.
Is there anything I need to do before hand or watch for during the demo?
Live demos are always risky. I failed one because of a completely unpredictable failure: we were in a hotel conference room. The hotel network gave up on us. Our application required a connexion to a remote database server…
If at all possible, record your demo and present from recorded video or screen shots.
If a live demo is mandatory, then try to control every aspect: you drive, not the client. I mean that you execute the transactions. This way, there will not be an unforseen sequence of events to crash your application. Share your screen with Skype or some other equivalent application, instead of letting the customer watch on their own (and surely drive, since they need to do the transactions). This way, you see exactly what they see, you show exactly what you want to show.
Louis, thanks for advice. Believe me I know about live demos. I just found out about it this morning in an email from the client so I tried to give him as much advice as I could about what can go wrong.
I like to screen sharing idea, I am going to set that up.
Years ago, my team was forced to do a live demo to management on a CICS SQL/DS project that wasn’t completely ready for production. There was a bug that would sometimes hang a transaction so we had the systems programmer sitting behind a cubical panel with a terminal. He would monitor and if it hung he could get to go on. Been so long I don’t remember the details but it was “tense” for us until over then it was comical. Management never new and the problem was fixed before it was moved to production…
Best of luck. And if you have any control over the flow of the demo, remember that fewer clicks and screens and more explanation is always better. I found that showing every little detail does not help, it only confuses the client. It is a demo, not a training session. I almost forgot: script the demo ahead of time and rehearse it several times over. If you are well prepared, the application does not have to shine quite as much. But I’m sure you knew that already.
If you can control the “Flow” of the demo I find it best to have a number of tabs open the browser. Each one at a specific milestone. If one bites the dust, I can hit next tab and move forward in the flow.
Given that you are screen sharing you can do it pretty quickly with minimal loss of inertia.
Its more of a “Don’t look at the man behind the curtain” but it better than "Wait…let me go back…click…click…click
Otherwise, updating the CGI app will be a nightmare. You certainly don’t want to have to update your app at the last minute, only to be met with a server error after uploading the new code.