About This Site

The Interactive Business Planner was a pilot project of the Canada Business and BC Business Service Centre. Funding for initial development of the Interactive Business Planner was provided by Western Economic Diversification Canada, the British Columbia Ministry of Science, Competition and Enterprise, and the National Secretariat for the Canada Business Service Centres.

Building on the success of the pilot project, a national version of the Interactive Business Planner was developed which includes regional contents and links for every province/territory in Canada as well as a French language version. Funding for the development and current maintenance of the national version is provided by the Canada Business National Secretariat. The Interactive Business Planner is the joint property of the Government of Canada and the Government of British Columbia.

The Interactive Business Planner was created to support the development of small business. As a tool accessible through the World Wide Web, the Interactive Business Planner meets the needs of individuals in communities which do not have easy access to the resources needed to produce a business plan. The IBP links these individuals to applicable resources and provides them with a framework to guide them in expressing their business idea.

A key objective of the project was to ensure that potential clients with early versions of browsers, such as Netscape 1.1 and Internet Explorer 1.5, would be able to use the system. The IBP uses forms and tables, makes limited use of JavaScript, and does not use frames. Newer version browsers are best able to take full advantage of the features built into the IBP.

The IBP consists of a database program and over 300 CFM pages. The database was written in Oracle 8.1.6 using the ColdFusion Web application server 4.5. A limited amount of the development was done with JavaScript interface. The system features fully secure multi-user concurrency.