The three winning applications
You've waited long enough. Here, without further ado, are the three winning Spotlight Award winners.

3rd place: Heeros Financial Management Software
Submitted by Matti Lattu of Heeros Systems Oy

This application takes the traditionally manual task of inputting invoices and sending them for approval and streamlines this process through an incredible combination of integration and automated workflow.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of Heeros Financial Management software is that users are no longer bound to paper invoices, and both processing time and error are decreased. Invoices are scanned and, using OCR, are input into a system for review before an automated approval process is initiated. Approval of invoices can be done with a browser anywhere and anytime, also facilitating what would otherwise be a lengthy process across an organization's multiple locations.

Domino's security model delivers a robust foundation to the application as archiving invoices and reports using the Software as a Service (SaaS) model demands 100% security.

"An ingenious and impressive scanning and OCR invoice solution, feeding a Domino workflow. It is easy to see how this is a real cost savings for companies." -- Bill Buchan

"Any large organization deals with a potentially crippling volume of invoices. This application addresses the problem with a clever blend of invoice scanning, OCR, electronic workflow, Notes client and web browser interfaces, and integration with many ERP systems. On top of all that, the application is available in multiple languages!" -- Joe Litton

2nd place: Mail File Management
Submitted by a large insurance and financial management organization

As anyone who has worked in Notes development will know, tackling the Notes mail template is not for the faint of heart. This organization was challenged with the task of tackling reduction of ever expanding mail files all while needing to appropriately tag documents and correspondence and ensure their integrity for legal purposes.

What makes this company's mail file management remarkable is that it does not involve the enforcement of mail quotas or archiving. They designed a time-based quota solution that is the best of both worlds -- it keeps the data they need and doesn't keep what they don't need.

This solution helps maintain high legal compliance as well as high performance in their mail environment.

"This is a great example of how powerful and easy Notes can be at solving real business challenges!" -- Craig Schumann

"This was an incredibly polished application with a really nice interface and tons of features. I can't believe it wasn't a commercial app backed by a team of developers and designers." -- Julian Robichaux

And finally, the winner of the second annual Teamstudio Spotlight Awards:

1st place: eSurvey
Submitted by Theo Heselmans for Ernst & Young

The task was simple: develop an easy to use, flexible tool to create, edit and deploy (multilingual) electronic surveys. The end-user should be able to easily complete these surveys, and finally be able to do intermediate and final customized analysis of the results. Easy....right....?

Thanks to Notes and Domino and the skilled hands of Theo Heselmans, it was! eSurvey is a Notes and Domino application, initially built in 2005 on release 6.5 of Domino and currently running in 8.0.2. How many of the competing platforms can claim that?

While the scope has increased over the years, eSurvey was initially targeted at a Belgian audience of 1,200 users, shortly afterward expanding to 12,000 users across Europe, with the aim to address 50,000 users in 2009. The entire user interface is Web-based, although there is also a Notes interface used primarily for maintenance and Web content management by administrators. All technical support information (Web pages, CSS, JavaScript, lists, parameters and images) is editable from the Notes interface without designer rights/needs.