Download Hallmark Cards Boosts Merchandiser Efficiency by 10 Percent with

Microsoft SQL Server
Customer Solution Case Study
Hallmark Cards Boosts Merchandiser
Efficiency 10 Percent with Mobile Databases
DaDatabases
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Retail
Customer Profile
Based in Kansas City, Missouri, Hallmark
Cards sells its products in nearly 44,000
retail outlets in the United States, and
generates consolidated net revenues of
U.S.$4.4 billion.
Business Situation
Hallmark needed to find a better handheld
device for use by its 10,000 retail
merchandisers who service Hallmark
product displays in some 30,000 mass
merchandising stores, including food and
drug stores.
Solution
Hallmark deployed a new handheld device
with a product database hosted on
Microsoft® SQL ServerTM 2000 Windows®
CE Edition running on the Microsoft
Windows® CE operating system.
Benefits
 Ability to give workers the data they need
 Faster card sorting
 10 percent gain in productivity
 Rapid developer response
“We expect INFOLink, with its SQL Server CE
database, to greatly enhance the daily work of
merchandisers, while saving the company
substantially through increased productivity.”
Steve Paoletti, Senior Vice President, Hallmark
Hallmark Cards sells its products in nearly 44,000 retail outlets in
the United States, including 30,000 mass merchandisers, such as
discount, food, and drug stores. The company employs 10,000
part-time retail merchandisers (RMs) who stock new deliveries,
place orders, and sort misplaced cards into their proper display
pockets. When the company needed to replace the aging handheld
devices RMs used, it worked with Field Performance Group, a
Microsoft Certified Partner, to create a solution called INFOLink that
runs on a mobile device hosting Microsoft® SQL ServerTM 2000
Windows® CE Edition. The Hallmark corporate database, hosted on
SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition, can synchronize regularly with
the 60 megabyte database of the mobile device. The mobile
database has helped RMs gain a 10 percent boost in productivity
as measured in studies against the old devices.
“Overall we saw a
productivity increase of
10 percent using SQL
Server CE and INFOLink.
… When you multiply
this 10 percent boost
across Hallmark's
10,000 RMs, you end
up with a significant
gain in productivity.”
Dan Ferrell, IT Business Manager, Hallmark
Situation
Hallmark Cards, Inc., the world’s largest
personal expression company, which is best
known for helping people express their
feelings and connect with others, was
founded in January 1910 by Joyce C. Hall. In
2004, Hallmark reported consolidated net
revenues of U.S.$4.4 billion, and Hallmark
enjoys a greater-than-50-percent share of the
U.S. greeting card market. Worldwide,
Hallmark has more than 18,000 full-time
employees, with about 4,500 working at the
Kansas City, Missouri, headquarters.
Hallmark personal expression products are
found in nearly 42,000 retail outlets in the
United States. About 5,700 are specialty
stores, 4,200 of which are certified Hallmark
Gold Crown® stores; another 30,000 are
mass merchandise retailers, including
discount, food, and drug stores.
The company uses some 10,000 part-time
retail merchandisers (RMs) to visit mass
merchandisers, such as Safeway and WalMart, to ensure the card racks are well
stocked and that party items, gift wrap, and
other Hallmark products are properly
displayed. RMs work an average of 10 hours
per week, and they service about three stores
each. RM duties include ordering cards,
stocking new deliveries, removing afterseason inventory, and sorting misplaced
cards back into the proper card pockets on
the display racks.
For several years, Hallmark had equipped its
RMs with handheld devices for scanning bar
codes and collecting product order
information that was later transferred by
modem to corporate headquarters. But the
devices, based on the MS-DOS® operating
system, had limited memory and functionality
that meant too much work was still done on
paper and tracked in three-ring binders.
Additionally, the devices were nearing the
end of their product life. “They were old and
the failure rates were going up,” says Dan
Ferrell, IT Business Manager at Hallmark.
“The devices were based on 15-year-old
technology and had a very closed
environment. We needed something better.”
The old devices also lacked the ability to host
a product database to help RMs with the
persistent chore of straightening up card
displays. "Our old devices couldn’t help our
RMs with misplaced cards, and this was a
major drawback," says Scott O'Dell, IT
Business Development Director at Hallmark.
"Some of our mass channel accounts have
card displays spanning multiple aisles. To
find the proper location for a misplaced card,
RMs had to visually match the cards, which
added time to the straightening portion of
their store visits."
As the company looked toward its nextgeneration handheld device, it wanted
something that could:
Support a mobile database so that RMs
could scan a card’s bar code and
immediately determine in which display
rack pocket it belonged.
 Provide inventory, ordering, and shipment
data.
 Support two-way messaging between
managers and RMs.
 Easily synchronize with Hallmark’s master
databases.

Solution
Hallmark has deployed a new generation of
handheld devices to its entire RM force in the
United States. The devices run a custom
application called INFOLink that gives RMs
access to electronic reordering, real-time
inventory information, delivery updates, store
display charts that help RMs maintain
merchandise displays, and two-way
messaging.
INFOLink was created for Hallmark by Field
Performance Group, a Microsoft Certified
Partner. The software runs on a mobile
device that can be used with one hand while
holding a card or other product in the other—
a method that is more efficient than using the
old pen-based device, which required two
hands to operate.
Synchronized databases – The log
shipping feature of SQL Server
2000 keeps two databases
synchronized for redundancy.
Client
The INFOLink application was developed by
using Microsoft® Visual Studio® .NET 2003
development system and the Microsoft .NET
Compact Framework. The solution includes
Microsoft SQL ServerTM 2000 Windows® CE
Edition (SQL Server CE) version 2.0 running
on the Microsoft Windows CE operating
system version 3.0. SQL Server 2000 is part
of Microsoft Windows Server SystemTM
integrated server software. INFOLink is
hosted on a rugged Intermec CN1 mobile
device with 256 megabytes (MB) of flash card
storage that holds, on average, a 60 MB
Hallmark account and product database. The
device is designed to work with function keys
rather than alphanumeric code to make it
easier for RMs to enter data, and has a builtin Universal Product Code (UPC) bar code
scanner.
Server
Field Performance Group serves as an
application service provider, and maintains
the central database in order to handle all
the information required to support the
INFOLink mobile devices. The company hosts
the database on SQL Server 2000 Enterprise
Edition Microsoft running on the Windows
ServerTM 2003 Enterprise Edition operating
system, the foundation of the Microsoft
Windows Server System integrated server
software. The database runs on an IBM
xSeries 365 4-way server with 16 gigabytes
(GB) of RAM and is located at Field
Performance Group’s headquarters in
Georgetown, Ontario, Canada. A second copy
of the database is hosted at Hallmark’s
corporate headquarters in Kansas City,
Missouri. The two servers are connected
through a virtual private network (VPN).
“We have two sites to provide redundancy,”
says Tom Bradshaw, Vice President for
Technology at Field Performance Group. “The
databases are synchronized, using the log
shipping feature of SQL Server 2000. At
anytime, either database can be considered
the primary site and the other, the secondary
site.”
An INFOLink mobile device can be connected
during a communication session to the
secondary location in a read-only mode to
pull information. Data being pushed to the
secondary site is sent to a write-once
database that then passes the updates on to
the primary site.
“In this setup, the primary site can be taken
down for maintenance and the secondary site
“We’ve been very happy
with the performance of
SQL Server CE. The
database is extremely
quick. A typical SQL
query against the 60
megabyte database
takes only two-tenths of
a second.”
Tom Bradshaw, Vice President for Technology
at Field Performance Group
will be fully operational for the devices to
transmit,” Bradshaw says. “Should a disaster
occur at the primary site, the secondary site
can be switched to the primary site, and the
old primary site can be brought up as the
secondary site.”
The database is updated throughout the day
with information—including shipment updates
and new product news—from Hallmark’s IT
data center. The data is processed and made
available to be pulled when an INFOLink
mobile device connects. The connecting
mobile device determines what updates
should be sent, depending on the last
connection, geographic location, and rolebased business rules. The data is sent down
to the INFOLink mobile device by using the
SQL Server Remote Data Access (RDA)
feature. During the same session, the mobile
device does an “RDA Push” to send up any
data collected by the RM’s device since the
last connection. Information received by the
central server is processed and forwarded to
Hallmark’s internal servers for order
fulfillment and payroll purposes.
Reporting
Field Performance Group also developed a
Web portal that runs SQL Server 2000
Reporting Services reports against the SQL
Server 2000 database. This service allows
managers to see a number of reports,
including detailed data collected during store
visits, service exceptions (based on planned
coverage) showing accounts not visited, and
aggregated responses to queries sent to RMs
in the field. The portal is also used for
sending messages to RMs by using an
application created by Field Performance
Group.
Workflow
Before beginning a work day, an RM plugs his
or her INFOLink mobile device into a phone
jack, presses two buttons, and automatically
connects with a Hallmark SQL Server 2000
database, which synchronizes the mobile
device’s data and downloads any messages
from the RM’s manager. Messages might
include product queries or updates on
promotional programs. And, before going to a
specific store to stock new inventory, an RM
can download shipping information and verify
that the shipment has been received.
During the day, the RM uses the built-in bar
code scanner to reorder cards and other
products. Because the INFOLink mobile
device has a complete product catalog linked
to the display case pocket data, the RM can
simply scan the back of a misplaced card and
see exactly where it needs to go.
At the end of the day, the RM plugs the
INFOLink mobile device into a phone jack,
and INFOLink transmits stock orders, query
replies, and other data created during store
visits, while synchronizing with the database
and picking up new messages. Average
connect time ranges from 179 seconds for a
1.3 MB data transfer, to 400 seconds for 5
MB.
Benefits
Hallmark Cards has enjoyed a number of
benefits since deploying its INFOLink
solution, including: the ability to give workers
the data they need, faster card sorting, a 10
percent gain in RM productivity, and the
ability for its partner developers to rapidly
respond to requests for enhancements and
new features.
Ability to Give Workers the Data They
Need
With SQL Server CE running on the INFOLink
mobile devices, Hallmark RMs literally have
information at their fingertips—60 MB of
information. The portable database has made
their jobs easier and helped them to become
even more efficient.
“The SQL Server CE
database sitting on the
INFOLink mobile device
gives our RMs the
information they need to
quickly resolve a range
of problems that used to
create roadblocks….”
Dan Ferrell, IT Business Manager, Hallmark
“We weren’t able to keep any store inventory
data on our old systems,” says Scott O’Dell, IT
Business Development Director at Hallmark
Cards. “You could scan cards and get a
summation of dollar value for
inventory-taking purposes, but the device
couldn’t provide the RM with the actual onhand inventory in the store, or provide
product mapping to display rack pockets, or
provide shipping data or a whole range of
other key information tracking options that
we have on our new INFOLink mobile devices.
Our RMs appreciate having the data they
need to better do their jobs in the field.”
The data is available nearly instantly. “We’ve
been very happy with the performance of SQL
Server CE,” says Bradshaw. “The database is
extremely quick. A typical SQL query against
the 60 megabyte database takes only twotenths of a second. Using SQL CE RDA, we
have been able to get the typical modem
transmission time down―under 3 minutes,
which is incredibly efficient given the amount
of data that needs to be replicated.”
across 10,000 RMs, and the ROI [return on
investment] from just this one benefit
becomes essentially immediate.”
The ability to more quickly sort misplaced
cards has also resulted in a reduction in
discarded product. Discards were especially
common when the misplaced card happened
to be the last one in its designated pocket, so
there was nothing against which to visually
match it. On other occasions, RMs could be
overwhelmed by the volume of cards that
needed re-sorting. “An RM might walk into a
large retailer after a weekend to find a
shopping cart filled with cards that had been
misplaced and left in other areas of the
store,” says Ferrell. “The SQL Server CE
database sitting on the INFOLink mobile
device gives our RMs the information they
need to quickly resolve a range of problems
that used to create roadblocks.”
Faster Card Sorting
Anyone who has ever browsed through
greeting cards and had difficulty finding the
right place to put a card back on the rack can
appreciate the challenge RMs face when
dealing with perhaps 5,000 card pockets.
Because a significant part of an RM’s store
visit is spent returning misplaced cards to
their proper pockets, Hallmark was eager to
see the effect of giving RMs a mobile device
that would help with that chore.
The ability to resolve something as seemingly
simple as returning a card to its proper place
is essential to efficient operations. “Before,
when a card was discarded, it created a loss
far greater than a single card,” says
Bradshaw. “If the card was the last one in a
pocket, an RM might allow the pocket to stay
empty for days or weeks or more before
looking up what was supposed to go there,
and reordering. Empty card pockets can add
up to serious lost opportunities when
multiplied across thousands of stores. SQL
Server CE on the mobile device and SQL
Server 2000 on our back-end servers are
helping to eliminate the problem.”
“We did time and motion studies in a pilot
program, timing how long it took an RM to
complete various tasks using the old device
and the new one,” says O’Dell. “We don’t
publish our findings, but it is certainly faster
for an RM to scan a misplaced card now that
he or she can just scan the bar code, press
one button, and see exactly which pocket the
card belongs in. Multiply that time savings
10 Percent Gain in Productivity
Hallmark's pilot testing, with its head-to-head
comparison of the old and new devices,
showed a boost in RM productivity across all
tasks. “Overall, we saw a productivity
increase of 10 percent using SQL Server CE
and INFOLink,” says Ferrell. “With RMs
working an average of 10 hours per week, the
new solution promises to free up 1 hour a
“One of the most
impressive elements
about our new
environment, over what
we had before, is the
speed with which we
can react and make
changes and correct
problems, or deliver new
enhancements."
Scott O'Dell, IT Business Development
Director, Hallmark
week per RM. When you multiply this
10 percent boost across Hallmark's 10,000
RMs, you end up with a significant gain in
productivity.”
The company has also been impressed with
the efficiencies built into the device’s two-way
messaging system, which was created by
Field Performance Group and is supported by
SQL Server CE on the mobile device and SQL
Server 2000 and SQL Server Reporting
Services on the server. Messages returning
from the field can be forwarded to a
manager’s e-mail account by using Microsoft
Exchange Server 2003. “We expect INFOLink,
with its SQL Server CE database, to greatly
enhance the daily work of merchandisers,
while saving the company substantially
through increased productivity,” says Steve
Paoletti, Senior Vice President at Hallmark.
“Add to that improved retail execution,
expanded communication features and other
job efficiencies, and INFOLink became a very
clear benefit.”
Rapid Developer Response
A key element of the program’s success has
been the ability of Field Performance Group’s
developers to quickly respond to Hallmark
design requests. “We’ve been able to be
extremely responsive to our customer
because SQL Server CE and Windows CE
provide such a solid deployment platform and
because Visual Studio .NET is such a
user-friendly developer environment,” says
Stuart Blades, President of Field Performance
Group. “From the earliest days of the project,
when Hallmark asked for something, we were
able to deliver it within weeks—instead of the
months and longer it might take using other
technology. Working with Microsoft .NET–
connected technology has given us huge
advances in developer productivity.”
Hallmark likes the speed with which it can
react to the need for changes. “One of the
most impressive elements about our new
environment, over what we had before, is the
speed with which we can react and make
changes and correct problems, or deliver new
enhancements,” says O’Dell. “Working with
Field Performance Group, we can literally fix a
program bug or deliver a new enhancement,
overnight, to 10,000 people. Field
Performance Group has been really dynamic
to work with. Their software development
turnaround time and putting together the
platform was extremely fast.”
For More Information
Microsoft Windows Server System
For more information about Microsoft
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Microsoft subsidiary. To access information
using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
Microsoft Windows Server System integrated
server infrastructure software is designed to
support end-to-end solutions built on
Windows Server 2003. It creates an
infrastructure based on integrated
innovation, Microsoft’s holistic approach to
building products and solutions that are
intrinsically designed to work together and
interact seamlessly with other data and
applications across your IT environment. This
helps you reduce the costs of ongoing
operations, deliver a more secure and
reliable IT infrastructure, and drive valuable
new capabilities for the future growth of your
business.
For more information about Field
Performance Group products and services,
call (905) 873-9555 or visit the Web site at
www.fieldperformance.com
For more information about Windows Server
System, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem
For more information about Hallmark Cards
products and services, call (800)-4255627 or visit the Web site at
www.hallmark.com
Software and Services
Microsoft Windows Server System
− Microsoft Windows Server 2003
Enterprise Edition
− Microsoft Windows CE version 3.0
− Microsoft Exchange Server 2003
− Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise
Edition
− Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Windows
CE Edition version 2.0
 Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003


© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case
study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO
WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Microsoft, MS-DOS, Visual Studio, Windows, the Windows logo,
Windows Server, and Windows Server System are either
registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in
the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks
are property of their respective owners.
Document published March 2005
Technologies
− Microsoft .NET Compact Framework
− Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting
Services
Hardware
Intermec CN1 mobile device with 120 MB
flash card storage
 IBM xSeries 365 4-way server with 16 GB
RAM
