The Brief
The name of this client will have to remain withheld as we signed an NDA relating to the project, but it is still a worthy project to be added to our portfolio primarily due to its complex nature.
The client required a secure online portal that could be used to fulfill a number of requirements
The client has a need for the projects to be administered and controlled. The projects are worldwide and the team that runs each one can come from anywhere in the world as well. There is therefore a need to:
1. Have potential team members register and then indicate when they are available to work on a project.
2. Upload the details of each project and then assign team members to each project based upon their availability, skills and expertise.
Only assigned team members (and Head office) can view the details of each project, and in addition, there are certain levels of user access that will mean that team members will not be able to view all of the details of any project they have been assigned to.
The projects also had to be searchable, filterable and available to download for further interrogation by the accounts department.
On top of the project management aspect of the brief, there was also requests for an online document download and FAQ section as well as a 'Value' card system where cards can be sent to other team members to show thanks for how team members have assisted each other to complete a project successfully.
Finally, the client did not want to use the administration section of WordPress and required all of the inputting and analysis to be completed through the front end of the site.
Our Approach
This proved to be a hugely complicated technical project that ended up extended or knowledge base massively.
For the Project Management aspect we used four plugins to achieve the majority of the work:
1. Gravity Forms - This was used for user registration and project input and updating
2. PODs - This was used as the store for each project and its interaction with the team members
3. Booking Calendar - To log the availability of each team member
4. WP Data Tables - To present each project and display the archive of each project in a format that can be interrogated to the level required by the client.
There was a large aspect of bespoke coding with these plugins to ensure the final functionality was achieved.
The 'Value' Cards was another sub-project that had it's own level of complexity. Portal members could choose a value card to be sent to another team member and they could be filled in online and then sent to the registered email address of the chosen recipient. Gravity Forms provided the solution to this as well but with custom code to actually send the email to the correct address dependent upon which team member was chosen from the drop down list.
This was one of our most complex projects undertaken to date.
The Result
The client was delighted with the final result and the portal has been developed and enhanced over the two years since it was initially installed.
The portal is now the home to all of the information relating to the projects for the client and all of their reports and information are extracted from it. The bespoke nature of the portal means that the client has got exactly what they want without any additional add-ons or complexities.
