Celebrate Tradition 

The State Fair of Texas celebrates all things Texan by promoting agriculture, education, and community involvement through quality entertainment in a family-friendly environment. Year after year, millions of Fair Park visitors come from far and wide to experience the State Fair of Texas and visit its beloved icon, Big Tex.  

At the start of 2022, The State Fair of Texas faced multiple challenges with its antiquated coupon weigh and settlement process.

Entering business-critical information was a manual and cumbersome process, and generating internal and external facing reports took a lot of effort. It was difficult to accommodate flexible terms, pricing, and payments with partners. Finding resources to support their old legacy applications was challenging as well. Additionally, adding or modifying specific data was tricky for operations personnel. The rigidity of the system made it difficult to produce meaningful ad-hoc reports, and interfacing with older technology was becoming more challenging.

The State Fair of Texas needed a reliable modern solution that supported scalability, maintainability, and usability.

Allata's Approach 

Allata was chosen as a trusted partner to re-platform the application responsible for running the coupon weigh and settlement process. The project's goal was to develop a modernized application and work with the State Fair of Texas on a plan to support the application after launch. Allata implemented a Cloud-based, flexible application that improved the user experience and added features such as advanced reporting and role-based access control. To accomplish this, Allata used a combination of technologies in Microsoft Azure, such as static web applications, Microsoft SQL, and Azure functions. 

Big results 

As a result of Allata's work, The State Fair has realized several benefits.

• The new solution is intuitive and easier to use for all team members involved in the weigh and settlement process
• Vendor setup is fast and includes the ability to manage complex deal structures
• Financial settlement takes few steps and requires fewer individuals to execute
• The Role-Based Access Controls allow managers to delegate tasks to staff.
• Reporting is cleaner and more flexible.

After project completion, Allata provided managed services, including application support, monitoring, and environmental stability. Additionally, dedicated in-person support from an Allata senior engineer during Fair Season gave The State Fair peace of mind knowing that any issues would be identified, addressed, and resolved immediately. The project lasted five months, including design, build, and on-site support. This level of engagement was mission-critical for the State Fair of Texas, and Allata was there all along the way.