AgWare Maven is an all new Model Assisted Valuation application for assisting in property valuations. Maven is designed to leverage existing enterprise Sales data for analysis in generating valuation models. Appraisers and Evaluators can create, customize, and test these models to tailor them specifically to the needs of the market, area, and organization.


Technologies


Maven is built using the Microsoft’s newest ASP.NET Core technologies. This backbone provides a fast, modern, dependable basis for enterprise software. As these technologies are continuing to grow and improve, so too are we leveraging their newest features with every release. The DevExtreme HTML5 JavaScript Component Suite from DevExpress provides a wide assortment of fluid, responsive, and adaptable user controls all throughout the application.


Maven’s source code is managed using Git, the world’s most popular source control software. Thanks to its distributed nature, Git allows individual developers to work on their own branch of the source code and have access to historical changes to it without worrying about conflicting with changes being done by others at the same time. This strategy is also used to separate each development task related to the software into its own branch until completed. Maven’s source code is managed using Git, the world’s most popular source control software. Thanks to its distributed nature, Git allows individual developers to work on their own branch of the source code and have access to historical changes to it without worrying about conflicting with changes being done by others at the same time. This strategy is also used to separate each development task related to the software into its own branch until completed.


The Maven master Git repository is stored using Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS), a cloud-based collaboration tool. This web-based tool provides us with reliable access to Maven resources without relying on on-premises storage. VSTS also provides us with task-management features for keeping track of what has been and what needs to be done for project development. VSTS’s Work Item management features allow us to tie tasks together with specific changes made to the source code so that we can quickly see what recent change have been made and why.


Security


Maven is a web-based intranet application that only needs to be installed on a single server to provide enterprise-wide access to its functionality. Security is provided using Active Directory authentication meaning no new user accounts are needed for users to start using it. This also means that sensitive user passwords do not need to be kept in a database, as all passwords and authentication protocols are handled using Microsoft IIS.


Testing


To ensure accuracy and proper operation of the application, we have developed a suite of automated tests for Maven. These tests check the accuracy of valuation calculations, the functionality of valuation creation and overrides, data integrity, and other software functions. This entire suite of tests is run automatically in VSTS whenever any changes to the source code are submitted. If any of the specifications fail, VSTS notifies us immediately. With this feature we can ensure that Maven’s functional integrity has not been compromised prior to publishing any new updates to the software. New tests are continuously added to the testing suite as new features are added to the software.