Forensic Advantage Systems

Forensic Advantage is the result of a collaborative effort with Microsoft Corporation. Developed for the Virginia Department of Forensic Science the application was first designed during 2003. The purpose of the original design was to emulate the features and functionality of a legacy LIMS. During 2005, the application was re-designed in order to ease customization and configuration for industry clients. The resulting application, Forensic Advantage v1.1, formed the foundation from which the product has evolved.

The Forensic Advantage product was the primary factor in Microsoft’s selection of Forensic Advantage Systems, a division of TCSC, Inc. as its 2003 Office System Solution Builder Grand Prize Winner and 2004 Worldwide Information Worker Partner of the Year. A Microsoft-centric application, Forensic Advantage relies on a full complement of server and desktop components. Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) version 3.5 (or later) forms the basis for Forensic Advantage’s API web services. Care was taken to use basic WCF capabilities that comply with OASIS standards to ensure that a broad range of service consumers are provided with easy access to the service without respect to the platform or version of software used by the consumer.

As one of the founding members of OpenXmlDeveloper.org, and certified practitioners of the NIEM information exchange standards, Forensic Advantage Systems is actively committed to using Xml and the Microsoft Office suite for repurposing data usage. For example, Forensic Advantage collects examination results from InfoPath documents as Xml and creates the resulting laboratory report as a Microsoft Word Xml file. Since Forensic Advantage natively generates Microsoft Office documents as Xml, data can be repurposed in many ways without resorting to external tools or cumbersome, custom conversion processes.

Forensic Advantage also incorporates SQL Server transactions with Stored Procedures, invoked from Forensic Advantage application services. The Forensic Advantage application layer is designed to operate against a single instance of the Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine at a time. This architecture avoids the problems of managing database transactions across multiple servers. To the Forensic Advantage application layer, it operates the same as a local transaction. At the end of the transaction, the application requests the transaction be either committed or rolled back.

Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) represents an industry-proven delivery approach that provides for well-defined phases that take into account requirements specification, architectural design, solution design and development, testing and managed release cycles. MSF organizes the solution approach into five distinct phases during the implementation of a Forensic Advantage project lifecycle.

Forensic Advantage Systems provides solutions grounded in proven technology. As an award-winning, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, the organization is among the elite group of Microsoft’s business partners, earning their highest endorsement. Forensic Advantage Systems has the knowledge, skills and commitment to help its customers implement a solution that matches their exact needs.

Awards & Recognition
The depth and breadth of Forensic Advantage Systems' and TCSC’s expertise/success is demonstrated by numerous awards. In fact, Forensic Advantage has been the basis for a number of these accolades (*).·

2009 Microsoft Gold Certified ISV

2007 Microsoft Mid-Atlantic Teamwork Award

2007 Finalist, Greater Richmond Technology Council Technology Innovation Award

2006 Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Data Management Solutions

2006 Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Custom Development Solutions

2006 Finalist, Microsoft Worldwide Information Worker Solution of the Year

2006 Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Award for Customer Excellence

2006 Microsoft Mid-Atlantic Loyalty Award

2006 Microsoft Mid-Atlantic Teamwork Award

2006 Finalist, Greater Richmond Technology Council Technology Innovation Award

2006 Microsoft Portals and Enterprise Content Management Specialization

2005 Greater Richmond Technology Council Technology Innovation Award

2005 Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Business Process and Integration Solutions

2005 Microsoft East Region Loyalty Award

2005 Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Advanced Infrastructure Solutions

2005 Microsoft Mid-Atlantic Loyalty Award

2005 Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Network Infrastructure Solutions

2005 Microsoft Mid-Atlantic Teamwork Award

2004 Microsoft Worldwide Information Worker Partner of the Year

2004 Finalist, Greater Richmond Technology Council IT Builder Award

2003 Microsoft Office System Solution Builder – Grand Prize Winner

2003 Mid-Atlantic Enterprise, SLG & Federal Managed Partner

2002 Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Information Worker/Productivity Solutions

1997 Finalist, Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year

1997 Microsoft Mid-Atlantic Partner of the Year

1996 Microsoft Masters Club Award - Consulting Excellence

By aligning business priorities and strategies via Microsoft’s technology infrastructure, Forensic Advantage helps deliver desired business outcomes; IT can deploy solutions that empower people to reach customers more effectively, harness critical business insight, and collaborate across organizational boundaries. Combined this “people-ready” infrastructure will act as a foundation to amplify the impact of a laboratory’s staff, manage complexity, protect information, control access, and advance individual productivity.