Sector(s)
The client is a global management consulting firm that serves leading businesses, governments, non governmental organizations, and not-for-profits. We helped the client with many of their internal Drupal projects as well with client projects.
Key Highlights
- We developed an eCommerce website run by a global consulting company.
- The company’s team needed some complex CMS-like features along with the ability to browse for the products.
- We developed the website in Drupal Commerce, and ensured all the content workflows were incorporated.
About the project
We began Drupal eCommerce website development and ensured all the content workflows were incorporated. The beta launch happened after two months. Among the main features developed were:
Highly secure setup: It was critical to ensure that the various reports and documents stored in the PDF format should be highly secure. We ensured this by working with the server team as well as ensuring the Drupal Commerce security features were configured to deliver security and only allow authorized access.
Various types of access: The website allows download of free reports by anyone. Sample PDFs of paid reports can also be freely downloaded. But the paid reports can only be accessed by users with authorized accounts. The website build also provisioned roles for Event Managers, Forum Managers, Event/Forum attendees etc.
User profiles: A user can create an account. The user page lists all the reports he or she has purchased, and information about sharing the report with others in his/her organization.The user registration on the site is customized to include relationships with organizations. Organizations, based on domain names, can be white-listed or black-listed by the site admin, as per business needs. A customized moderation of the user accounts along with customized notifications/messages is injected at each stage of the user account creation.
Expert profiles: All reports are written by various domain and subject matter experts, who have their own profile pages with links to reports they have authored, the contents and/or summary of reports. Their contact details are also provided so that users can reach out to them for queries.
Forums and events: The website also has a complex workflow to conducts meetups and forums. There are various forum managers who get alerts and notifications related to new subscribers. This part of the website hosts the various types of content that would be used for the event. In addition, snazzy quick reports can also be viewed by forum managers, who handle the arrangement for an event, such as seating, meals, drinks etc.The forums can be generated for each Quarter/Year with a dynamic integration with the respective signups and registrations for that event.
Why Drupal was chosen
The project is an eCommerce website run by a global consulting company for their customers. The website enables their customers to explore market research reports, statistics, trackers and other documents and access them depending on the authorization. We were a long time development partner for the client, decided to go ahead with using Drupal Commerce because of the specific requirements of the project:
- The company’s team needed some complex CMS-like features along with the ability to browse for the products.
- The site also needed to enable workflows for offline events.
- There were also plans for payment gateway integration at a later stage of the project.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
Drupal Commerce: To deliver the kind of functionality where each digital asset could be treated as a product, and downloaded for free or at a price. Features like authorized login and access were also brought in by Drupal Commerce.
SiteCatalyst: The client uses Omniture for all web analytics. We integrated Omniture with Drupal Commerce, thus enabling seamless capture of user data needed for analytics. Some specific custom variables are also captured via extensions to the Drupal Omniture/SiteCatalyst module.
Payment: Since the client hadn’t decided on which payment gateway to go with, our team integrated the website with many of the popular gateways, thus simplifying integration issues that could come up later. For the initial launch, the site was released only with "free reports" where the eCommerce module was switched off. The well-planned architecture enabled this easy switch on-off of the payment integrations.
Benefits
The company now has a secure eCommerce website to sell reports and other documents. By opting to go with Drupal Commerce, the company got the double advantage of having commerce capabilities as well as powerful CMS features that the business demanded.
Quick development: Because of our involvement in the wireframes and design of the project, and mature Agile processes, the beta launch happened right after two months.Pro-active thought-partnering with the business team and the design firm early in the inception and design-generation phase ensured no inconsistencies in design with envisioned business/dev needs.
Multiple integrations: Our technical expertise was demonstrated in the various types of integrations done with Drupal Commerce. From various types of payment gateways to Omniture, we ensured all the integrations happened smoothly.
Ensured security: We ensured that only authorized users get access to the right documents and that the entire repository of copyrighted material stayed safe and secure.
