CSE498, Collaborative Design, Fall 2019
Computer Science and Engineering
Michigan State University

Headquartered in Detroit, Urban Science is internationally renowned for providing data-driven, science-based solutions to problems in the automotive, health, and retail industries. AutoHook is a subsidiary of Urban Science and assists automotive dealers and OEMs in increasing walk-in customer traffic.

AutoHook provides custom, incentive-driven forms and web pages to dealers and OEMs to help increase vehicle sales. Each online form needs to be created to fit a specific dealer or OEM. Currently, AutoHook’s system for updating and creating new forms is effective, but also time-consuming. To view an updated form, the developer has to redeploy the web page after every change. To create a new form, a developer must start from scratch, even if the form is like one already developed.

Our AutoHook Creative Tool application is a file management system and an in-browser form editor used by AutoHook to simplify and expedite the updating and creation of online forms.

With our intuitive web interface, AutoHook employees can update existing online forms using our in-browser template editor (shown on the right). If a designer wants to make a small change, they can update the code in-browser, and a representation of how the change affects the form is shown. This removes the need for designers and developers to redeploy their forms after every minor change.

Our AutoHook Creative Tool file management system allows existing online forms to be imported into any new project, thus providing an already polished starting point.

AutoHook Creative Tool is an ASP.net web application that is hosted on Microsoft Azure, using bootstrap styling for its front-end components and C# for its back-end functionality. The OEM template data is updated and loaded from an SQL database that is hosted on Microsoft Azure.