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Web Development Case Studies
Case Study - Cross sites synchronization
The challenge:
The corporation was looking for a solution to their website and it's collection of micro-sites. The customer required a automatic way of updating the micro-sites' products & data accordingly to the master site.
One of the solutions came up from the in-house developer that to set up the main website using osCommerce and to install the "multi-stores" contribution. That would solve the main issue, however, several other issues arise from setting up the main site as "multi-stores".
Firstly, the store functionality would be unstable due to heavily modified mainframe of osCommerce. Secondly, it'd not be possible for the micro-sites to be customized and to have their own functionalities since there's only one back-end engine.
The solution:
So, they came to us for consultation. After reviewing all the sites' condition and detailed requirements from the company. We came up with a solid solution that would solve the challenge, and best of all, it also retains the site's stability as well as giving the micro-sites full-option for customization.
The idea is simple, but very effective. We built a main processor on the master site. This processor takes requests from the micro-sites and returns a complete updated datasheet in XML format which is quick and safe. We also set up cron jobs on the micro-sites, so that once per week, the micro-sites would run a special script to send update-request to the master site.
Basically, we have made the sites "talk" to each other and get most updated information out of the master site WITHOUT revealing each other's sensitive information such as Database username/password. The process is safe, easy to implement and cost effective. The company itself has saved thousands of dollar by choosing this automated solution instead of the "multi-stores" solution.
Highlights:
- We came up with the solid solution
- We worked on detailed integration plan
- Technology used: PHP/MySQL/XML/AJAX/HTML/CSS
- We tested the system throroughly with test cases
Case Study - Blog post integration into e-commerce store
The challenge:
With the Social Marketing becoming more vital for businesses nowadays, many companies have started getting into this whole new era of blogging which is a very important tool for building socials/comminities. Wordpress is one of many blog engines out there that let you do just what is needed. It is easy to install and easy to use as day-to-day tool for business owners. However, the problem is, if the wordpress works only as a "in-formal" version of the main website, it's hard to create linkage between the commercial site with the blog itself. Eventually, the two sites would work independently without making any impact on users when visiting the company website.
One of our clients came up with a briliant idea of incoporating the blog posts into their main website. That way, there's a solid connection between those 2 websites. On the other hand, updating the blog would also update the content of the main site, which is good for SEO in general when a site is oftenly updated with fresh content.
The solution:
So, we accepted the challenge and tried to figure out how to make the two engine to communicate and send data through. As we did several tests on different solutions, we finally decided to use XML to transmit data between the two engines. XML data transmission has been the quickest way to send data since there's no need to create a new connection to one's database. It lower the workload for MySQL server which helps the website run faster significantly comparing to other methods.
Highlights:
- We studied requirements from our client carefully
- We came up with several different solutions before choosing the optimized solution
- We worked on detailed integration plan
- Technology used: PHP/MySQL/XML/AJAX/HTML/CSS
- We tested the system throroughly with test cases
Case Study - Re-order Pad for E-Commerce store
The challenge:
B2B business is all about timing because of the high order frequency between the two businesses. One quick example, Brian, whose customers are hospitals, doctor offices and resellers who are buying medical supplies from him monthly, or even weekly.
What Brian had had in mind for years that he wanted to boost up more sales with his buyers by simplifying the buying process, making it easier for customers to buy more stuff from his site. He was looking for a solution that would benefit his customers to avoid all the unnecessary checkout procedures and speed up the checkout process.
Because in many cases, his customers buy the same products they have ordered before, or even in last week:
The regular checkout process:
- Go to the right category
- View product detail page
- Add item to shopping cart
- Do that again, and again for all items
The solution:
So, we came up with the "Re-Order Pad" idea to solve his problem. Each customer would have a "Wishlist" for himself, so he can just re-order the items from his list quickly in just a few clicks. This list has 2 sections, the "All ordered items", and the "Regularly purchased items". Customers can add as many items into the last as they wish. Eventually, they have a Re-order Pad that has everything they need for their monthly/weekly need.
Highlights:
- We studied requirements from our client carefully
- We came up with the optimized solution
- Technology used: PHP/MySQL/XML/AJAX/HTML/CSS
- We tested the system throroughly with test cases
Web Admin 2.0 for osCommerce:
We came up with this creative idea of a whole new Admin Panel for osCommerce. The Admin 2.0 helps store-owners to speed up their day-to-day activities in much more efficient way.
Admin 2.0 makes full use of Ajax technology to improve the speed of processing the requests. It does make you feel like using a desktop application without any page-refreshing actions.
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Testimonials
 Christian Haynes
Binary Innovation provided a competent, professional service and delivered an excellent solution which exceeded our expectations. Communication was efficient, through one individual, who obviously communcicates very effectively with the engineers working on this project in the background.
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