A software company conducts business in many countries. Every country has different business regulations and policies. The company’s government affairs officials must be informed of business policy provisions that vary from country to country. Failing to comply with these regulations could result in loss of sales and legal penalties.

In the past, the company relied on compliance officers and legal departments that spent hours researching the policy landscape of each country. But even the most diligent compliance research is not useful unless up-to-date information is easily accessible to employees worldwide.

MAQ Software worked with government affairs officials to create a policy database that is current and accessible company-wide.

Key Challenges:

• Reduce expenses associated with on-premise equipment and maintenance.
• Allow scaling as database grows.
• Ensure easy access to current policies from any location, on any device.

MAQ Software helped design a cloud-based solution where authenticated users can view all the consolidated policies in real-time.

Key Highlights:

• Used Azure App Service to pull data from diverse APIs and servers at scheduled intervals.
• Used Azure Application Insights to track usage metrics.

MAQ Software used Azure App Service to register multiple APIs including Graph and Azure Active Directory. We used Azure WebJobs to run programs which pull the policy data from the APIs and servers at scheduled intervals. Users are authenticated through Azure Active Directory. Connection strings and credentials are encrypted and stored in Azure Key Vault.

The policy database—which includes policies, events, and internal messages—is hosted on an Azure SQL database. User file attachments associated with policies and events are stored in Blob storage. Azure Application Insights provides usage data including page views, unique user counts, and visits from external links.

We used Azure Cognitive Services to add Bing news functionality to the final product. Based on keywords, Cognitive Services pulls relevant news and events from Bing, which are updated daily.

The cloud-based policy solution provides a central location for compliance officers to view up-to-date policies from any country where the company conducts business. The database minimizes the risk of policy violations that could cost the company millions of dollars.

Outcome Highlights:

• Saved time by creating a central, searchable repository for all current policy documents.
• Reduced the risk of costly legal proceedings in countries with different business policies.
• Added security with Azure Key Vault.
• Provided usage metrics with Azure Application Insights. This data is being used for usage reporting.