E-Commerce Website Design & Development

Transcription

1 CASE STUDY: INVEST TORONTO Gals: As Trnt's fficial internatinal investment agency, Invest Trnt engaged Seventyeight t develp a multi-phased nline strategic plan as well as t design & cnstruct their primary and mbile web prperties. Invest Trnt is the primary business, sales and marketing crpratin fr the City f Trnt. The Crpratins mandate is t secure glbal visibility, investment attractin, business relcatin, and jb creatin fr the City f Trnt. Invest Trnt required a website that wuld help cmpanies access the markets, talent and business resurces f Canada's largest city. They wanted t leverage the full pwer f the nline channel as a tl t fster strategic relatinships - serving as a cmmunicatins hub, cnnecting investrs t rganizatins and businesses in Trnt. Key utcmes included: Develpment f innvative user functinality t access, view, capture, manipulate and persnalize data Third party data integratin with enterprise.net CMS fr cntent acquisitin Enterprise CRM integratin fr cnslidated tracking f user data, nline/ffline activities and lead management Develpment f advanced cllabratin and prductivity tlsets in supprt f business services executin Implementatin f a technical framewrk that will accmmdate future grwth, scalability and multi-device cmpatibility Leveraging f scial media elements t augment and amplify key messaging Implementatin f a mbile specific web app t cmplement and augment their primary website Seventyeight Digital 5000 Ynge Street, Suite 1901, Trnt, ON M2N 7E9 Tel: inf@78digital.cm Web: 1

2 CASE STUDY: INVEST TORONTO Challenges: The greatest challenges we had invlved integratin with Sugar CRM, centralizing cntent cntrl fr mbile specific devices, imprting and distributin f third party data feeds, and integratin f custmized cmpnents fr the creatin f user custmized infrmatin packages. Sugar CRM Integratin InvestTrnt.ca is, at its cre, a lead generatin and management tl. The rganizatin implemented Sugar Prfessinal an pen surce CRM system and it was Seventyeight Digital s respnsibility t tightly integrate the tw systems tgether t web enable the enterprise. This invlved interfacing certain tuch pints in Kentic with Sugar CRM s thrugh their respective APIs. These tuch pints included: 1. Kentic User Registratin t Sugar CRM Lead creatin When a User registers within the Invest Trnt website they can chse t pt in t cllabrate with Invest Trnt staff. When they d this a flag is set in the User table (custmized system table) and a custm develped Kentic scheduled task picks them up, prcesses them, and sends t Sugar CRM s API where they are created as a Lead. 2. Kentic Bizfrm t Sugar CRM Authenticated user inquiries are sent t Sugar CRM t becme part f that Lead s recrd. This is a very imprtant feature fr the client as it allws them t better serve and manage their clients. 3. Kentic User Messaging t Sugar CRM Crrespndence All crrespndence between Users and Invest Trnt Staff happens within the messaging cmpnents part f Kentic. This prvides Users with a dashbard where any cllabratin with Invest Trnt Staff is centralized a great feature. T leverage the mre advanced reprting and metrics capabilities fund in the CRM it was necessary t synchrnize Kentic messages t Sugar. This invlved creating cde libraries, utilizing Kentic s API where data was sent t and received frm Sugar CRM. Mbile Website Prducing a mdern Mbile Website app targeting new smart phnes (iphne, Andrid, Blackberry OS6+) was an imprtant requirement fr this prject. Merely prviding a different style sheet fr mbile devices was nt enugh. Optimizatin f the weight f pages, the type f cntent t display and a cmplete rethinking f the IA were deemed necessary fr success. Because f this, a frnt end jquery based mbile framewrk called jqtuch was used fr the frnt end. This prvides mbile UI elements and behaviurs such as animated page transitins cmmn in high end HTML5 mbile web apps. At the same time creating a separate website t hld the cntent was nt an ptin as lng term sustainability and nging maintenance wuld be t cstly. A cmprmise was made, thrugh a creative integratin strategy, which prvides an ptimized mbile experience while retaining centralized cntrl f cntent in Kentic. Specific elements include: 1. Navigatin structure - created thrugh Kentic API calls and custm transfrmatins in.net t prduce mbile ptimized html. 2. Mbile Cntent Web Part - added t all page templates in Kentic. This web part is cnfigured t be hidden n nrmal website views and shwn thrugh CMS desk r thrugh query string parameters with a custm macr affecting the visibility. 3. Mbile Cntent Prxy - The mbile website utilizes AJAX patterns t retrieve the cntent f each page. The cntent is prduced thrugh a custm prxy page that queries the Kentic Database returning nly the mbile web part s cntent. The cntent received via this database call is cached t ptimize perfrmance. The prxy returns nly the html fr the mbile site n ther cntent (i.e. view state, Kentic generated client files, varius JavaScript and CSS files, r the PrtalTemplate.aspx structure itself) is returned. This results in very fast lad times (imprtant n mbile) and prvides cmplete cntrl ver the lk and behaviur f the html. 4. Registratin and Lgin Mbile friendly frms allwing fr registratin and lgging in were created as AJAX services calling.net pages utilizing the Kentic API fr membership and security. Seventyeight Digital 5000 Ynge Street, Suite 1901, Trnt, ON M2N 7E9 Tel: inf@78digital.cm Web: 2

3 CASE STUDY: INVEST TORONTO Feed Aggregatin A custm feed aggregatin cmpnent was built specifically fr this prject. This allws fr the aggregatin f clse t 100 separate feed surces as varied as Ggle reader feeds, standard ATOM/RSS XML, Ggle Data such as yutube api calls, and Yah gears. These varied feed surces are cmbined int aggregated categries that ppulate many pages and sectins f the website. These aggregated feeds are made available t the website thrugh the integratin f a Kentic RSS web part wrapped in a custm built jquery plugin. Research Tl and Multi User Cllabratin A custm feature n the website, called the Investr Tlkit, was built t allw users t save pages, fragments f cntent, links, reprts, charts, etc. t their tlkit. This saved cntent is treated as a Kentic bject -bth new dcuments and linked nes - created prgrammatically thrugh the Kentic API t dynamically created ndes bund t the authenticated user. Because f the tight integratin f this user cntent with the Kentic tree structure a Kentic Administratr (client staff) can view the users Flder (nde) within the CMSdesk and cllabrate with the User by managing the cntents f that flder exactly as they d when managing cntent thrughut the website. This example f tight Kentic integratin saved much develpment time and prevented the need t build a custm Administratin area t manage and cllabrate with users. Slutin: Kentic helped us achieve all f the bjectives that we set ut t accmplish in this prject. Key elements f the slutin include the fllwing: 1. Psitining Trnt as a glbal player in the internatinal investment cmmunity The dynamic and infrmatin rich new website has increased the city s visibility and standing in the internatinal investment cmmunity. Targeted messaging and imagery prvide an effective narrative f a City that cmpetes strngly n the wrld stage with a deep talent pl, reasnable cst f labur, favurable tax structures, rbust ecnmy and strategically lcated & efficient distributin infrastructure. Scial media integratin has been effectively leveraged t create several intercnnected nline channels that have amplified the rganizatins key messages and extended its reach within the nline channel. 2. Operatins Integratin The website is fully integrated with the rganizatins ffline peratins. Website registratin and cmmunicatins data is fed int the rganizatins CRM prviding a single surce f data eliminating data sils and cnslidating the tracking f nline and ffline activities in particular lead acquisitin thrugh t cnversin. Mapping website functinality t the rganizatins internal activities and wrkflws prvide effective systems t: Supprt business services executin Cllect actinable intelligence n qualified investrs Deliver infrmatin and services t clients in their preferred methd and frmat Seventyeight Digital 5000 Ynge Street, Suite 1901, Trnt, ON M2N 7E9 Tel: inf@78digital.cm Web: 3

4 CASE STUDY: INVEST TORONTO 3. Establishing InvestTrnt.ca as an infrmatin and cmmunicatins hub fr engaging the internatinal business cmmunity by: 4. Ging Mbile Centralized messaging and cllabratin platfrm prvides a gateway fr ding business in Trnt the entry pint t pwer players in the city. Aggregating data thrugh linkages t partner and affiliate rganizatins althugh the infrmatin may als exist elsewhere there is n ther place t find the ttality f infrmatin presented in this way. Prviding an effective nline system t self-serve a high vlume user base while creating multiple tuch pints t identify, stream ff and cnnect directly with high-value targets. Optimized fr tday s Smartphnes, we develped a mbile specific versin f the site integrated with the Kentic CMS in rder t accmmdate mbile cnstraints such as bandwidth and smaller screen size. In particular, we made extensive use f the fllwing Kentic features: Custm Dcument Types many custm cntent types were created. The primary benefit being cnsistent utput n the website and the ease f cntent creatin by nn-technical staff thrugh input frms. We fund it very easy t create Custm Dcument types lts f cntrl and very flexible. Repeaters very flexible and pwerful. This in cnjunctin with ASPX transfrmatins has becme the favured way ur develpers have f perfrming the mst cmmn tasks quickly and reliably. Custm web parts we created many custm web parts and lved the architecture which prvides ur develpers with a standardized way t integrate custm functinality. Macrs we were pleased t discver that many custm features culd be managed with Macrs alne. A wnderfully pwerful feature. Cmmunity features and mdules messaging and cllabrative functinality leveraged the extensive Cmmunity features built int Kentic. The imprtance f the mbile cmpnent cannt be verstated. With the internatinal business traveller at the cre f its user grup, Invest Trnt needed t prvide anytime/anywhere access t its rganizatin and peple thrugh a mbile device friendly interface. The mbile specific site prvides Invest Trnt staff with the ability t manage cmmunicatins, access key infrmatin, share reprts and custmized infrmatin packages, and effectively service client requests while ut f the ffice. We leveraged many f Kentic s built in features which significantly reduced develpment time while ensuring a high quality feature rich prduct fr ur client. The cre is based ff the Prtal engine allwing fr ur nn-technical staff t enter cntent, design templates and affect the Infrmatin Architecture with ease. The Kentic API was used extensively and fund t be very pwerful, well dcumented and helped accelerate many f the custm develpment tasks. Seventyeight Digital 5000 Ynge Street, Suite 1901, Trnt, ON M2N 7E9 Tel: inf@78digital.cm Web: 4

5 CASE STUDY: INVEST TORONTO Key Criteria Fr Chsing Kentic CMS: Prir t selecting Kentic as the fundatin fr this prject we cmpleted a cmprehensive cmparative evaluatin f a number f leading CMS prducts, bth cmmercial as well as pen surce. Althugh each prduct had its advantages we determined that the prduct that best met the Office f the Ombudsman s initial and future needs was Kentic CMS fr ASP.NET. Evaluatin criteria and key determinants included: 1. Feature set related t Invest Trnt's business requirements 2. Ease and flexibility f prgrammatic custmizatin 3. Ability t integrate third party and custm cmpnents 4. Ability t handle enterprise requirements related t cllabrative access t large data surces 5. Scial media integratin capabilities 6. Strength and flexibility f wrkflw cnfiguratin Abut Seventyeight Digital: Seventyeight Digital is a strategic technlgy develpment and interactive design firm fcused exclusively n the internet space. Our slutins engage and benefit users, generate brand recgnitin, prvide relevant and actinable data, stimulate thught and cmmunicatin, inspire peple t take actin, capitalize n business efficiencies, and ffer significant ROI. The Seventyeight team is cmprised f highly accmplished and talented flks specializing in digital strategy, data management, technical develpment, and creative design - prviding the cmpetencies, agility and technical bandwidth t manage cmplex deliverables. We can ffer time t market, cmpetitive rates and a level f respnsiveness that traditinal firms can't tuch. We believe there is an effective slutin t meet mst budgets and can help yu navigate the strategic & technical cmplexities t achieve yur key business bjectives. Seventyeight Digital is a Kentic Gld Certified Partner ffering a full range f interactive design, develpment, hsting and supprt services. Cntact us fr a free Kentic CMS cnsultatin at inf@78digital.cm. 7. Ability t adapt t and incrprate changing technlgies 8. Ease f use fr nn-technical users 9. Pwerful data migratin tls 10. Relative cst f license, upgrades and technical supprt Seventyeight Digital 5000 Ynge Street, Suite 1901, Trnt, ON M2N 7E9 Tel: inf@78digital.cm Web: 5