Case Study: Multi-Tenant ABS Portal for Dental Labs
Overview
Client: Atlanta Based Systems (ABS)
Industry: Dental lab management / lab workflows
Engagement Type: Long-term product engineering and platform evolution
Core Deliverable: Multi-tenant web portal + admin platform for labs and clinics
ABS needed a way to give dozens of dental labs and clinics a secure, branded online portal that connects directly to their core lab-management engine. Each lab had its own workflows, branding, and infrastructure constraints, but ABS did not want to spin up a separate codebase for every single client.
Hashe was engaged to design, implement, and evolve a multi-tenant portal and admin system that could:
- Onboard new labs quickly without writing custom code for every tenant.
- Keep ABS in control of infrastructure, routing, and configuration.
- Expose a clean, secure web front-end for cases, pickups, billing, and user management.
Over time, this evolved into a mature, data-driven platform that has been running and expanding for nearly a decade.
Business Challenge
ABS already had a powerful backend engine for handling cases, billing, and clinical workflows. What they did not have was a scalable way to expose it to labs and clinics as a modern, browser-based experience.
Key Challenges
- Multi-tenant reality: Different labs, domains, subdomains, and environments (live, sandbox, beta) had to be managed centrally without copy-paste deployments.
- Different infrastructure setups: IPs, ports, SSL status, date formats, and upload limits varied per client.
- Operational overhead: Provisioning a new lab or adjusting a portal should be an operations task, not a development project.
- Alignment with an existing backend engine: ABS did not want to rewrite their core system. The portal had to sit on top of it and respect existing APIs and behaviors.
The mission: turn a powerful but internal-only engine into a polished, multi-tenant SaaS-style experience, without losing control over security or performance.
Client Background
Atlanta Based Systems (ABS) trusted leader in dental-lab management for over 40 years. Their flagship suite, Evolution, gives dental laboratories a comprehensive, GUI-driven solution to manage everything from case scheduling and resource allocation to billing, CRM, and technician productivity all in real time.
ABS serves labs across the United States, Canada, and Australia, offering a full toolbox of modules including workforce tracking, inventory & delivery management, and portals for doctors and lab clients empowering labs to run efficiently, reduce errors, and stay profitable even in a tough business climate.
Our Solution – High-Level
Hashe delivered a three-layer architecture:
ABS Admin Panel
A web UI for ABS staff to manage:
- Domain owners (labs/clinics)
- Subdomains and environments (Live, Sandbox, Beta)
- Connectivity for each portal (IP, port, SSL, date formats, file-size limits)
Accounts Router
A smart entry point that:
- Reads the incoming host and subdomain.
- Looks up the correct tenant configuration in the database.
- Selects the right portal template for that tenant.
Tenant Portals
Branded, secure portals that provide:
- Case creation and management
- Pickup scheduling
- Billing and statements
- User management and password changes
All business operations are executed via a single integration layer (the Event class) that calls into the ABS backend over HTTPS using structured XML.
The end result is a single, maintainable codebase that serves many labs, with central control and clear separation of concerns.
Architecture at a Glance
Multi-Tenant Model 
Admin Panel – Control Plane for ABS 
Portal Layer – What the Labs See A Closer Look at the Portal
Explore key screens from the ABS portal, showcasing how labs and clinics manage cases, pickups, billing, and users all through a secure, branded interface.
Integration with the ABS Backend
The ABS backend already handled core logic: case lifecycles, billing rules, and business constraints. Our job was to expose that power safely and cleanly over the web.
We built a unified integration layer, the Event class, with a very simple contract:
- Every operation (login, create case, get invoices, etc.) is an event.
- The portal sends structured XML over HTTPS like.
- The ABS backend responds with XML; the portal converts it to a JSON-like object and renders it.
Typical flows:
- Login:account log in
- Forgot password: account lost password
- Change password: account change password
- Get services and shipping for a new case: case remote services, case customer ship to list
- Create case: case newcase
- Billing: payment invoices, payment statement
- User management: account logins list, accountaddlogin, account updatelogin
This design lets ABS keep their core engine exactly where it is, while still offering a modern web experience that can evolve independently.
Operational Impact
Faster Onboarding of Labs
Before this platform, onboarding a lab often meant bespoke changes or manual work. With the multi- tenant admin and routing model:
- Provisioning a new portal is primarily a configuration task:
- Add client.
- Add subdomain(s).
- Plug in IP, port, SSL, date format, max uploads.
No new code is required for most labs, and existing templates can be reused or lightly branded.
Centralized Control of Environments
ABS can run Live and Sandbox portals side by side:
- Labs can test changes or train staff in a sandbox.
- ABS can roll out new backend features behind the scenes.
- Switching or adjusting environments is handled through the admin UI.
This approach reduces risk and makes environment management repeatable and auditable.
Cleaner Experience for Labs
Labs and clinics get a single login for:
- Creating and tracking cases.
- heduling pickups.
- Reviewing statements and invoices.
- Managing their own staff accounts.
They do not see the complexity of multi-tenant routing or backend events. They just see a consistent, domain-branded portal that “just works.”
Client Reflections on Our Collaboration
I’ve been working with Mamoon’s company for several years now, and I can highly recommend them if you are looking to outsource some of your development projects. They have done web development projects for us, as well as all of our mobile app’s. At first I was a little nervous that the time difference between our two companies, but Mamoon seems to always be available to help out, and pull in extra resources when needed.
Scott Hoialmen
President, ABS Computing
LESSONS LEARNED AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Any long-running system accumulates history and technical debt. Part of Hashe's value is being honest about it and designing a path forward.
Over time, we identified areas for hardening and modernization:
SECURITY
Some legacy components used older hashing schemes or stored credentials too plainly. These are clear candidates for upgrade to modern password hashing and stricter SSL verification.
TEMPLATES
As more tenant-specific templates were added, we saw duplication creep in. A theming system or component library can reduce maintenance cost while preserving flexibility.
OBSERVABILITY
Early versions relied more on inline error handling than structured logging. Introducing centralized logging and health checks is a natural next step.
The important point: the core architecture—admin control plane, accounts router, multi-tenant config, and Event-based integration—has held up over years of production use. That stability makes it a safe foundation to modernize on.
Why This Matters for Other Clients
The ABS story is a pattern we see in many organizations:
- There is a strong backend system that has grown over years.
- New customers want a modern, branded, web-based experience.
- The business cannot afford a full rewrite, but it also cannot stay on legacy UIs forever.
Hashe’s approach with ABS, treat the legacy engine as a core asset, build a multi-tenant portal layer on top, and evolve in place, is exactly how we tackle similar problems for other clients:
- We don’t throw away what already works.
- We wrap it with clean interfaces and configuration-driven multi-tenancy.
- We introduce modern patterns (routing, templating, security) step by step.
If you are in a similar position, strong back office, aging portals, we can apply the same playbook to your stack.
Technology Snapshot
- Languge: PHP
- Web: Apache/Nginx with virtual hosts and subdomain routing
- Database: MySQL/MariaDB (for control plane)
- Integration: HTTPS + XML (Event-based API calls)
- UI: Server-rendered PHP templates with jQuery, AJAX-based tab loading
- Multi-tenancy: Data-driven via domain owners, subdomains, and per-portal configs
About Hashe
Hashe is a Pakistan-based software company that has been quietly building and maintaining systems like this for years: real production workloads, messy realities, multi-tenant portals, and long-lived codebases that have to keep earning money.
For ABS, we acted as:
- Architects of the multi-tenant model.
- Builders of the admin panel and portals.
- Long-term stewards of the platform as it evolved.
If you’re looking for a partner who can step into an existing system, understand it deeply, and then turn it into something scalable and modern without burning it down, that’s exactly the kind of work we do.
Let’s Collaborate
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