CASE STUDY BRIDGE
TABLE OF CONTENTS #1 ABOUT THE CLIENT 3 #2 ABOUT THE PROJECT 4 #3 OUR ROLE 5 #4 RESULT OF OUR COLLABORATION 6-7 #5 THE BUSINESS PROBLEM THAT WE SOLVED 8 #6 CHALLENGES 9 #7 VISUAL IDENTIFICATION 10 #8 WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? 11 #9 PLANS FOR FUTURE 12 #10 REFERENCES 13-14 2
ABOUT THE CLIENT The main takeholder in the project are four organiation from the non-profit ector: GlobalGiving, GuideStar, Foundation Center, and TechSoup Global. The organiation often cloely cooperate; each one procee the data on NGO to ome degree. Their employee, who are involved in the BRIDGE project, know each other well and work together toward a clearer and better undertanding of the non-profit ector. To make communicating about themelve eaier, the group member decided to refer to themelve a Core Team Member (CTM). 3
ABOUT THE PROJECT The Baic Regitry of Identified Global Entitie (BRIDGE) i a new collaborative project that aim to revolutionie information haring, in order to better undertand the flow of philanthropic dollar and enhance tranparency and effectivene in the global ocial ector. BRIDGE i a ytem that aign nongovernmental organiation (NGO), NGO program and project, and other entitie in the ocial ector with a unique global identifier, a numerical fingerprint for non-profit. 4
OUR ROLE To reach a final olution, we had to olve a pecific problem: deduplication of data about nonprofit organiation. The whole team worked on it for many month in collaboration with the Client. Many deduplication function were not identified at all at the beginning of the project. The approach to deduplication, the role of NoSQL databae, and the characteritic of querie or buine rule determining when two organiation could be conidered a duplicate were unknown. All of thi wa later identified, thank to the commitment of the team and the Client. Our role wa to develop a complete olution (from the environment to the operating oftware and the documentation decribing the ytem). Thi olution wa integrated in the Amazon AWS cloud, and i able to tore and deduplicate million of organiation from the CTM ytem. We had to take care of performance iue, ecurity, data backup or the appropriate redundancy of erver, and cluter of databae ytem. We were alo reponible for technical deciion and direction of the development. Thank to that, the team had a trong ene of ownerhip for the deduplication olution and a ene of reponibility for the tate and direction of it development. Thi really helped to organie work and focu on reaching the goal that had been et. 5
RESULTS OF OUR COLLABORATION Becaue of the exceptional nature of the project, in which we worked with four Client, our role in BRIDGE wa, in ome repect, different from the typical one. But let tart from the beginning. The firt phae of the project lated about 18 month. Future Proceing wa reponible for creating a complete ytem that wa able to deduplicate data on the approximately 3.3 million non-profit organiation provided by the CTM. A part of the project, the vat majority of NGO (97.4 percent) were aigned a unique identifier: a BRIDGE ID. In total, we ve identified approximately 540,000 duplicate, reulting in 2.7 million BRIDGE ID in the ytem. The deduplication engine ha been fine-tuned to perform a bet a poible for NGO. We created a highly efficient NGO earch engine baed on Elatic- Search (ES), which i very eay to cale within our infratructure. MongoDB wa ued a the main databae for toring everything that happened in the ytem. ElaticSearch and MongoDB operate the ytem together and complement each other to provide fat repone time and, at the ame time, a ecure layer that tore the hitory of entrie (that i, BRIDGE entrie). 6
We are now in the econd phae of the project. Currently, BRIDGE can help CTM exchange information efficiently and improve communication about NGO. Within the company, the project wa upported by a technical advior (TA), whoe primary goal wa to enure the high quality of the development proce and the olution that were provided. The TA contributed a lot in term of the tructural quality of the product and frequently inpired u to achieve continuou, iterative improvement of the code. Since the very beginning of the project, we have followed the Scrum framework a cloely a poible. It eemed to be an ideal olution for both, u and our Client. Read our blog pot Read more about uing Scrum in BRIDGE 7
THE BUSINESS PROBLEM THAT WE SOLVED The BRIDGE ytem could be a ignificant tep toward connecting diparate ource of data and providing a richer acce to thi data to non-profit leader, o that they can learn about ocial change at cale. It will alo help donor to undertand the ector and the organiation working for change. The CTM have a huge amount of data and there are many nongovernmental organiation in the world that could ue it in countle way. PRIMARY TECHNOLOGIES USED: Programming language ffc# ffjavascript ffsql Framework or librarie f f.net framework ffasp.net MVC ffasp.net WebAPI Other technologie and tool ffiis ffelatic Search ffmongodb ffsql Server ffcloud computing (Amazon AWS) ffjmeter fftelerik teting framework 8
CHALLENGES We were reponible for creating an innovative ytem that allow unambiguou identification of charitie around the world by aigning them a BRIDGE ID. Therefore, conidering the impreive viion of the product, we can afely ay that BRIDGE challenged u contantly. At the beginning, there were trivial problem, uch a chooing the tool to ue to view and analye the data about the organiation. It wa alo challenging to communicate with the CTM about our tet data. The real challenge wa how to ue the technology available to u in order to olve the problem we faced: deduplication of NGO. We had to make bold deciion to eliminate rik from the very beginning and to quickly tet potential olution. One example i that during the firt print we created a fully working product (with very limited functionalitie) baed on Microoft SQL. Then, during the firt print review, together with the CTM, we concluded that it would be a good idea to tet the olution baed on NoSQL. We accomplihed that and during the econd print review we demontrated a ytem baed on MongoDB (a nonrelational databae). During the project, a alway, the need to meet with the takeholder face-to-face wa very important to u. The only problem wa the location mot takeholder were located in the United State. Thi wa a challenge from the perpective of communication with the team, which wa uually ix hour ahead of the takeholder. Synchroniation with the team often had to be carried out uing document, rather than converation. 9
VISUAL IDENTIFICATION We initiated the effort to create a product logo from cratch. We utilized member of our deign department and (to a leer extent) ome people reponible for deign on the CTM ide, who gave very valuable feedback. What wa the main idea behind the logo? We wanted to create omething that would be aociated with tability. Therefore it wa natural to deign the logo in a form of a bridge connecting people which i the name of the project after all. The fact that the people are holding hand i very important becaue it how that people involved in the project upport one another. The logo i blue becaue thi i a colour aociated with trut. Jut a the ky i alway blue, our bridge will alway be a table contruction that you can afely rely upon. We decided to ue only one colour, in order to highlight that everyone i of equal importance. A the viual identification of the product wa maturing, the logo helped u determine what colour we wanted to keep and ha given the product a much more tangible hape. EVOLUTION OF THE LOGO firt verion final verion 10
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? Working with uch large data et, where each record i potentially important and where every deciion could be a ource of valuable information about the operation of the ytem wa a new experience. By frequently preenting the product to the CTM, we got a better undertanding of their need. Our Client involvement allowed u to gather feedback, which wa analyed by the entire team on a regular bai. Thank to the fact that we worked cloely with the Client and put a lot of energy into the creation and improvement of our own procee, we uccefully finihed the project. The whole team, in collaboration with the Client, worked on the final olution for many month. Many deduplication function were not identified at all at the beginning of the project. The approach to deduplication, the role of NoSQL databae, and the characteritic of querie or buine rule determining when the two organiation could be conidered a duplicate were unknown. All of thi wa later identified thank to the commitment of the team and the Client. We had to carry out everal experiment exploring alternative way of approaching the deduplication of NGO. Throughout thi proce, being tranparent when talking to the Client wa the approach that worked bet. We didn t hide any problem or error, which helped u to gain each other trut. We alway relied on the Scrum framework (and really undertood it) and we had a minimum tructure around u. While working on the project, we decided to take advantage of external training on modern, rapidly developing technologie at the core of the ytem. In order to improve quality, reduce rik, and accelerate development, the team participated in ElaticSearch training. 11
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE Ultimately, the CTM want the BRIDGE ytem to make it poible to undertand how the money intended for charity flow between donor and NGO around the world. BRIDGE will increae the tranparency and effectivene of action taken in the NGO ector. If, in the long run, BRIDGE actually help the CTM efficiently acquire information about NGO from each other, it may be poible to extend the range of the ytem by expanding the CTM group to organiation of a imilar nature from other countrie thu, get cloer to the viion of a truly global ytem. 12
REFERENCES Chad McEvoy, Global Giving WHY DID YOU CHOOSE FUTURE PROCESSING? Good value and good reputation from previou project. WHAT DISTINGUISHED US AGAINST THE COMPETITION? Reputation from previou project and a propoal that eemed to bet undertand the cope of the work. ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH OUR COOPERATION? Ye, working with Future Proceing ha been great. WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST IN FUTURE PROCESSING? Very reliable and reponive and much cheaper than taffing a dometic team. HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE OF OUR COOPERATION? We will continue to receive upport and maintenance from FP a well a occaional project work. Eventually we will want to do ome major verion change. R 13
It wa our pleaure working with the Future Proceing team. We found their engineer to be technically proficient, engaging, and open to new idea. The Future Proceing team did an outtanding job managing the project and the final product met all of our expectation. We would definitely work with Future Proceing again and would recommend them to other a well. Shane T. Ward, GuideStar A generally well-run project, howing good ownerhip and ome good creativity on the product ide. Technically producing good reult. Good openne of activitie and product progre guiding u where that wa needed. Well engaging the CTM team in variou meeting weekly. Liked the demo and making progre concrete. Liked the openne to invetigate or do thing differently a we went through the month. Paul van Haver, TechSoup Global Future Proceing wa extremely reponive and profeional. Very organized and everyone eemed impreed by the quality of work. We tayed pretty much on track the whole time, and the team brought very good intellectual and technical capacity to the project. It eemed like you and your team genuinely took an interet in the project. Communication were the only piece that could be improved. Your Englih wa great, but we continually had trouble, epecially in the beginning, figuring out the bet way to meet online. That could be improved. It ha been a real pleaure working with you, and I hope we get the opportunity to work at that level again. John Hecklinger, Global Giving The team wa an example of Agile excellence: focued, committed, and adaptable. Miroław Drozdzowki, Foundation Centre 14
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