The Metatude software is developed to operate in large organizations with often complex and demanding infrastructures. The different components are developed to work for the most used operating systems and applications and can handle situations where servers, databases and directories run in different locations. The architecture and available platforms allow for a flexible and quick deployment of the Metatude solution within nearly every organization without making additional investments.
Server platform
The Metatude Dialogue Server is available for most of the important server platforms. Currently it is available for Microsoft NT, Microsoft 2000, Linux, HP-UX, IBM-AIX and Sun Solaris.
Databases
The Metatude Dialogue Server needs a database to store information on projects and to store results. Three different databases can be used: Oracle, Postgres and Microsoft SQL and Access. The results are accessible for any analysis and reporting application that can connect to a relational database.
Directories
The Metatude Dialogue Server connects directly to databases and directories to retrieve stakeholder information (like name, department and email address). This information can be stored in a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server of in an SQL database. The Metatude Dialogue Server can connect to multiple directories at the same time.
Web servers
A web server is used to ‘serve’ dialogues to stakeholders. For this we developed ‘Metatude Channel Integration Components’ (MCIC’s). These components are available for Microsoft Internet Information Servers and for Apache web servers. After installation on the web server, the MCIC communicates with the Metatude Dialogue Server.
Browser
The respondent is invited to participate via personalized email. In the email is a unique url that launches a dialogue. The Metatude Channel Integration Component serves the dialogue in standard HTML conform to W3C standards. This ensures that every browser is suited to collect stakeholder feedback regardless of version or platform.
Clients
The Metatude Project Manager is a client that is used to manage projects. Managers, researchers and consultants can use this client to connect to the central Dialogue Server to manage projects. The client is developed for the win32 platform and therefore runs on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT and Windows 2000.
Networked solution
Metatude is a ‘networked solution’. The Metatude Dialogue Server, the Metatude Channel Integration Components, the directories with stakeholder information and the database where the results are stored can all run on separate machines. The Metatude Dialogue Server connects to directories, databases and web servers over a network via TCP/IP and multiple users can login at the same time from different locations for managing projects.
Solutions 
