Portfolio

The aim of the project was to redevelop the old website using Kentico MVC to improve UX and increase site performance. Also brand new modern design was implemented and additional functional features were added in order to increase target audience interest to the website (8-13 years old kids).

The Harold Grinspoon Foundation (HGF) creates opportunities to connect with Judaism and the Jewish community at key life moments. In addition to flagship programs that are active across North America and around the world, the HGF invests in Jewish life at home in Western Massachusetts.

Business has set up multiple goals for this project: Update the website look and feel, add interesting and interactive functional features in order to attract more potential users - children 8-12 years old. Improve site performance to allow up to 50K of users and up to 5K simultaneous user sessions during load peak periods. Integrate the application with external ERP platform Microsoft Dynamics NAV and custom API built on top of it. Improve editors/admins experience with management of content and data entities in Kentico admin through custom modules. Another goal from the business was accessibility improvements.

Key challenge was to develop a high performing website with quick response time during load peak time. Another quite interesting challenge was to make the page look and act differently depending on site mode: parent vs. child mode, that could be switched on any page in site header. Also the site awards users with different badges for different types of activity. The challenging part is the awarding logic around those badges.

Using Kentico MVC approach with Web Farm setup allowed us to build a website with a good performance meeting client's performance benchmark, meanwhile full control over the HTML output provides SEO benefits, clean and light markup, faster page load and improved overall site interaction. In addition caching features bring benefits to site performance allowing us to cache whatever we could cache on multiple layers of the system. Also we really like to use custom modules, as they allow us to build whatever data structure we need and provides clean, intuitive and consistent with the entire Admin section user interface.

PJ Our Way application has been integrated with Microsoft Dynamics NAV as well as custom API built on top of it. Traditionally Google Web Analytics has been added to the site to track users' interactions. Also we've integrated the app with EnjoyHint JavaScript plugin to improve new visitors experience with a guided site tour highlighting all site features and capabilities.

Probably traditionally for Kentico Experience the most used features by clients are Content Management related modules: Pages, Page types, Media libraries, Content (page) versioning, so we paid a lot of attention to them. For sure Forms; Custom tables and object versioning was utilized. Also we've set up Content staging to make content promotion to production environments as easy as a single click for our clients. To enable site search and crawling we've used Smart search. Key features that were used are: Content caching and Web farms to increase site performance; Custom modules to create custom classes and management interface for different custom entities; Page builder to make better content management experience for content editors.

See live site at pjourway.org

Industry: Non-profit

The purpose of the project was to refresh the site look and make it modern as well as add responsiveness to target mobile users, fix existing issues as well as improve user and editors experience and site performance.

Established in 1977, Digitron Semiconductors is a broad-line, high mix/low volume supplier of high-reliability discrete products to military, aerospace, industrial, and commercial markets. Digitron semiconductor devices protect circuits, amplify and condition signals, produce, distribute, convert and regulate power. Digitron specializes in delivering high reliability Zener diodes, transient voltage suppressors, rectifiers and transistors, designed to meet unique customer requirements as they pertain to physical, electrical, test, screening and/or operating conditions. Products are produced to meet commercial, industrial and military quality standards.

Client was looking for solving one of the biggest problem of the old site - inability to extend inventory with new product types without quite massive development efforts. Additionally, businesses wanted to make the site look modern and target any possible screen factor providing their users with an awesome experience despite the device they are using. Old site somewhat lacked performance and had minor issues here and there, which impacted users' experience. In terms of user experience the goal was to enable site visitors to find what they are looking for in five clicks. Also validation for page types was not configured correctly and caused site crashes if the editor enters invalid value.Consequently the goal was to fix mentioned issues to lower bounce rate and save editors time and improve users' journey for both.

One of the biggest challenges of the project was implementing dynamic product families that would allow client to manage fields, their appearance on the site with appropriate units and abbreviations, manage filter options and finally add and configure new product types. All of the above required us to invent a simple in use mechanism that would allow client to change the appearance of product related pages without code interaction, but configured through Kentico admin UI. Being data heavy application site performance was another challenge we had to solve. And last but not least was quite tricky search that would search not products only, but related products according to certain algorithms.

For the dynamic product types we've built Kentico Custom Modules to provide product type editing capabilities: here site editors are able to create or edit product types, add or remove fields, specify what fields are used for filtering on a public page, specify field units, fields' visibility and order in the products listing grid. Another section of the module provides editing capabilities for product data with convenient search and navigation options. On another side of things we had to implement dynamic page templates that would present data according to products' custom module  configuration, build filters and product listing grid on the fly vs being hard coded in page templates and transformation. Moving thousands of products from the content tree also allowed us to improve performance and comply with Kentico best practice. Unfortunately that was not enough for requested site performance and we had to apply best optimization practice in terms of content optimization and Kentico configuration by disabling unnecessary processing and heavy usage of caching wherever it was possible. Regarding search we had to customize default indexing algorithms and add custom content there in order to link related parts and search results ensure relevance level. Additionally we had to parse PDF documentation and use particular pieces of it as a custom search index content.

As a result site traffic increased for 136% compared to the same period of previous year. Taking into account the current situation with lock-down because of CoVid-19 this is a really impressive increase and we expect even more when business gets back to normal.

Features: content management, product catalog, extremely frexible inventory management, product list and details appearance management, excel data import, search

See live site at  digitroncorp.com

Industry: Semiconductors (manufacturing)

Workspace planning never was a simple task. Especially when we talk about budget estimation. Our client had a dream to change that once and forever. We were lucky enough to help them make their dream come true. With the tool we’ve built, clients get an easy way to visualize what an office will look like starting from a floor plan and ending with decorations. But the real magic comes into play when switching from view to the numbers - the tool allows clients’ sales manager to quote workspace planning budget in a couple of minutes and prepare an offer with all the details and pricing right in front of their clients and deliver it via email.

Aside from the vital functionality, the application provides incredible user experience. User journey is intuitive and obvious on every stage meanwhile allowing users to experiment with options to find a best fit for them.

The tool allowed clients to speed up sales significantly and decrease deal closing cycles.

Industry: Furniture

Philadelphia Commercial web site was built for Shaw Industries Group, Inc., one of the world's largest carpet manufacturers with more than $6 billion in annual revenue and approximately 22,000 employees worldwide. It is headquartered in Dalton, Georgia, and is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.

The main intention of the project was to update look and fill of the site and improvement of overall site performance by shifting to Kentico MVC platform. Business wanted to make site look modern and target any possible screen factor providing their users with awesome experience despite the device they are using. Additionally, being content heavy, old site demonstrated lack in performance.

Most of the challenges were related to the fact that a lot of features available in Portal Engine are not present in Kentico MVC and implementation of them. In most cases those were some web parts and widgets those client got used to.

Kentico MVC provides much better control over page's HTML output allowing to build much cleaner and lighter markup meanwhile does not set any limitations for UI developers allowing them to build literally whatever they need. As long as Kentico MVC is built on newer and modern framework (comparing to previous versions) it shows much better performance out of the box providing really fast public pages as well as administration section.

Despite the fact Kentico MVC misses widgets and web parts it gives developers mechanism to build their custom widgets with no limits allowing to implement any required functionality.

With site release we were able to increase number of new users for 17%, users in general for 11%, sessions - 18%, doubled page views and decrease bounce rate from 42% to 1.03%.  

Features: content management, product catalog, integrations with internal product inventory and image service, web farm

Here you can find live site philadelphiacommercial.com
 

Industry: Textile, flooring (manufacturing)

For large organizations with multiple branches, chains or franchise content production and content marketing introduces huge expenses. In order to cut off some of those expenses we suggested a solution that worked quite well for the client - content syndication.

The solution allows clients to produce content centrally and share it with their franchisees. Additionally they get all the updates to the syndicated content automatically unless they decide to manage their content (either all or certain content items).

Franchisees can see all the syndicated content they use on their site, remove from their site particular content as well as add new content from the central repository. However they are free to create completely new content that will remain unique for their site only. Making changes to the content by a separate franchisee will just warn a user that the content item will be unlinked from the central repository and they will need to keep maintaining it.

System allows to control content accessibility, so two different franchisees might have access to a different content if necessary. Also it is possible to control access level for content: some content has to be inherited by franchisee with no option to modify, meanwhile other content might be adjusted, some content is mandatory to inherit, but other is optional.

Such approach goes far beyond and allows to reuse content not on web sites only, but consume it from the mobile application or literally any other communication channel. As long as the content is flexible in terms of presentation, franchisees might either use one, defined by franchise, site template/theme, or have an option to choose from a set of predefined themes as well as be able to switch between them at any moment of time. And last, but not least, they might control page appearance adding predefined widgets, like carousel, image gallery or list of articles to their pages making them completely unique.

This solution provided our client with a really flexible mechanism for producing and controlling content and allowed to reduce content management efforts significantly and cut off expenses as there is no need for each franchisee to produce, manage and keep in sync all their content, but inherit professional content developed centrally. Also it allowed clients to save on people training and education in terms of content management platform.

On another hand franchisees got professional content with some level of control over it, a flexible system for content management with an ability to manage what and how users see on their sites at affordable cost.

Industry: Informational Technologies

Simple but really handy mobile-first calculator web application was built to allow end users to estimate the cost of a mortgage according to their financial situation and term, or estimate their refinancing options and apply for it. Application notifies the responsible manager as well as stores requests into the client's internal system, so it could be processed right away.

New and extremely efficient user interface allowed us to keep all the key information important to decision making on a single screen providing end users with exceptional user experience.

Additionally this tool provides useful features for loan officers allowing them to quote mortgage or refinancing for their client on a fly in a couple of clicks as well as store and review client information and a history.

So the application allowed to process clients’ inquiries faster as well as keep all necessary data in a single place with outstanding user experience and navigation capabilities.

As a result, application allowed the client to increase sales and engage with more new clients.

Industry: Finance, Mortgage

The Eurobank Cyprus website is the part of bank digital transformation program. Customer wanted to redesign the old site, offering a new fresh and modern look to its visitors with better user experience. Most importantly however, the Customer wishes to utilize a mature CMS product that has the capabilities of advanced content management with multi-media support, dynamic navigation, efficient page loading, and faster time to market of business requested changes, providing the CMS users with a user-friendly experience.  Furthermore, client wanted to use the CMS based on trusted technologies such as .NET, IIS and MS SQL Server that can run on a highly secure load balanced infrastructure. 

Web site provides bank clients with all necessary information as well as financial online tools such as loan calculator, currency converter and IBAN calculator.

Overall redesign resulted into much better site performance, improved users' experience and traffic increase for 53%.

Features: Content management, web farm

Here is the live site www.eurobank.com.cy

Industry: Finance

The purpose of this project was to provide Hiller Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electrical with a tool that would improve the quality of new employees and ability to find knowledge gaps and fill them in. Primary objectives were to build a tool for quick testing of candidates, automatically evaluate the results, highlight gaps, provide materials to improve expert level, automate and optimize the process of testing and results evaluation,

The intention of the tool was to be used by multiple companies. That fact introduced a couple of challenges such as new website had to work for multiple points of views and users, matching their workflow and covering needs, we had to architect the SaaS application and isolate data of each subscriber.

Usage of the latest technologies, such as .NET Core and React, allowed the application to be implemented fast with an enterprise grade back end and lightweight front end that works perfectly on any device and screen factor.

The outcome of the project was as aesthetically clean front end, an easy to navigate site with intuitive flow with obvious functions, fast and stable application.

Also the application reduced the amount of time needed for test results evaluation for almost 100% as this process has been automated.

160 companies subscribed for the app and 100 group and individual tests were taken in the first month after application launch.

Industry: Education, HR

Fit Factory is a full-service health club that provides luxury studio experiences at an affordable price.

Business goal was to ensure that the website provides a clear representation of their brand. Additionally, client wanted to simplify the consumer journey and make it easy to navigate.

In order to achieve goal business set for the project we've done complete redesign of web site with a strong focus on user experience making it really easy to navigate any information user might be interested in.

Aside of end user experiense, we improved the way content editors and marketers interact with the site.

Additionally extensive integration with client's internal systems has been implemented.

As a result Fit Factory Clubs got above 1,000 additional memberships sold through the site in a couple of month after this massive rework.

Here you can find live fitfactoryclubs.com site and client's feedback.

Industry: Health, Beauty, & Fitness

The main idea behind this project was to substitute usage of multiple Excel spreadsheets, which was not the easiest thing to manage, and build a simple tracking tool with centralized data storage. Primary objectives were to motivate professional grows, provide technicians with a clear career map and possibility to track their progress as they move on, build a tool that is simple and intuitive in usage, accessible from any location and personal device, provide technicians with learning materials, possibility for mentors to set a goal for mentee and track their progress towards it, promote technicians to a next professional level and eliminate manual routine.

The process of tracking career progress might look simple at first glance, but there are a lot of business logic and rules around score evaluation, dependencies between activities - some action items are not allowed before others are completed. Our team came out with a multi level nested (recursive) data structure and data driven UI that adjusts based on data. The beauty of this solution is that it allowed us to implement generic code that handles CRUD operations on any level of data structure and such code is really simple in maintenance and requires minor efforts whenever we need to introduce some changes.

With this application we were able to completely eliminate the mess with hundreds of spreadsheets for ongoing enrollments as well thousands of historical records being stored all together within the application with a possibility to locate any of them in a couple of clicks.

Last, but not least, this application reduced time and efforts of supervisors needed to handle the process for above than 40% by introducing automated notifications and simple data access.

Industry: Education

PJ Library UA site has been developed for The Harold Grinspoon Foundation and it is a part of international Pj Library program.

The mission of this site is engagement of Jewish kids in Ukraine with basic Jewish values, in particular reading books, which unites kids and parents in Jewish families. Web site offers visitors to sign up on behalf of their kids for the program and receive books for free. Application processes user data and generates mailing lists. Site integrates with carrier system, which eliminates human errors on the user registration step and automates the process of mailing and delivery to the subscribers. Also application provides the variety of reports and analytical data.

Web site allowed to start PJ Library program in Ukraine and provided thouthands of Jewish families with an access to high quality and completely free books. One year after site release more than 2500 families subscribed for the program.

Features: Subscriptions, Newsletters, Reporting, Content Management, Carrier system integration

You can find live site at pjlibrary.ua

Industry: Non-profit

E-commerce site built on Kentico CMS for courses and webinars purchasing, online test and certifications allows potential students to register online, browse catalog of courses and/or webinars, select the products of interest and purchase them online. In case of webinar purchase user will be suggested to pass a test and gain a certificate online. Extra security has been implemented in order to prevent webinars sharing, which was impossible with the old system.

With this application client automated purchases, payments and webinar tests and certification, as well as introduced appropriate level of digital product protection.

Features: product catalog and checkout, online payments, webinar sharing protection, classes schedule calendar, online tests and their management, content management, courses rating and users feedback

School Portal - recently added section that introduces LMS into main site: enables management of learning program, classes and schedule, student assignments, their grades, electronic document signature, etc.

School Portal is built with .NET Core Web API, Entity Framework, MS SQL and React (Typescript).

Here is what our client, Shawna Miller, Administrative Director of Total Tech School says about this project:

"I can’t begin to tell you the amount of time that the Portal is saving me!!!  When I do a Registration event now with my soldiers it’s done immediately, with me having to do nothing once the session is done…….the soldiers are completing their Packs in the Portal and all information is accessible to both me and Daphne, which makes it GREAT!!!!!!!  Before I would have to come back to the office and enter each paper Pack into my spreadsheet and then complete the TTT soldier roster, which took at least 1-2 full days………and now no more paper!!!!!  I have told my husband, Don, on several occasions how much I absolutely LOVE the Portal and how much of a timesaver it is.  Thank you all again for putting up with me and taking care of everything that I need.  We are not done yet, and I’m excited to implement further ideas for Total Tech to utilize in the Portal, but what is there is fantastic!"

Here you can see live site: totaltechschool.com

Industry: Education

Transition to Trades is an approved Career Skills Program (CSP) developed by Hiller Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electrical and U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Campbell. Transition to Trades, launched on July 5, 2016, allows transitioning service members the opportunity to attend Total Tech trade school (a subsidiary of Hiller, LLC) to learn valuable technical career skills while remaining active duty in the U.S. Military.

Transitioning process provides servmen with a lot of opportunities, such as learn, train, work in field, apply for job and so on. But any action taken by servman should be tracked diligently. This has been done with help of Excel, however that was a huge burden for our client, as it required making changes in multiple places as well as ensure data consintency and manual validation.

After converting client's framework into a web application we were able to significantly speed up the process and allow program managers to process more work in less time. The process was partially automated, which allowed to eliminate all redundant actions. Also application ensures user input validation and builds relations.

Additionaly application automatically compiles a ToDo list for program managers out of entered data to avoid missing of necessary actions.

The aplication was implement with high level of abstraction allowing application extension with very least development and testing efforts, which makes the app extremally flexible.

The application was build with modern, secure and reliable tech stack - .NET Core and Angular. 

Given solution allowed business to save money on transitioning process by significantly increasing program managers efficiency becauce of automation of multiple processes, avoiding human errors (those required much time to resolve) and autogenerated ToDo list.

Features: CRM, ToDo list, interviews & employment tracking, events management, classes reservation, mentorship, reporting, state authorization report

Industry: Education

The tool was built for in-field sales managers to enable them to get a best price for a client on a fly as well as capture orders and send it to back office for processing. The complexity of the business process was around combining different medical components - there are strict dependencies and a lot of components are not compatible. The application solved that problem by analyzing what’s already in cart and suggesting compatible components to be added. Another challenge was around price calculation: as it was already mentioned there were a lot of inter-dependencies between components and single component would have different cost when combined with other components. That was probably the longest and most complex price calculation pipeline we worked with. However it was quite a great client’s pricing strategy that gave them strong competitive advantage. Our calculator helper sales reps to provide their clients with precise prices and detailed price breakdown.

Our client was able to increase their sales because of the quick turnaround and competitive pricing model.

Features: price calculator, shopping cart, orders, PDF generator, email notifications

Industry: Healthcare, diagnostic, substances

Module enables online reservation of tour to the recycling facilities; this feature allowed business to get rid of manual process and reduce human errors and finally improve experience of their clients.

The most complex and advanced feature of this application is management of tours occurrences: according to the client tour does not exist unless someone request it; tours are recurring events, but there are exceptions (holidays, days off, severe weather, etc.); in addition there are related tours those are not available in case someone books a linked tour - all that has been packed into a user friendly interface on the front end and simple management tool for site administrators.

Features: Booking form, tours booking calendar, email notifications, tours scheduling patterns

Industry: Government

Web application that reflects the entire company Org Structure with 20K+ employees and provides convenient type ahead search, easy up/down navigation within Org Structure branches, provides in-app emailing and calling capabilities, provides a listing of all company facilities with an option to get directions to any of those.
The challenge around this application was to keep data up to date. This has been achieved by continuous synchronization with corporate Active Directory, where all employees data persists.

Solution provided much better understanding of organization structure to the employees, allowed to quickly navigate right associate and get all the contact information. Additionally facilities directory allowed to search for any facility easily and get directions to it saving employees' time and avoiding stress.

Features: People directory, facilities directory, search, AD integration, tree traversal

Industry: Textile, flooring (manufacturing)

The application has been built for enterprise manufacturing client and aimed to get rid of paper print materials and ensure everyone uses up to date version of the product documentation, such as product installation instructions, warranties, etc. and usage of outdated documents could cause damage and/or lawsuits. We solved this problem by preventing users from downloading documents, but keep persistent links instead. However challenging part was that any type of document stored within the system has to be branded differently depending on who’s viewing it, so this is where dynamic document comes into play. We’ve built a tool that applies reseller’s branding to the actual document.

In addition to dynamically build documents there were quite complex workflows implemented, as any change to a document had to pass multiple rounds of approval.
Also, according to the client’s policies, there was retention process implemented, which archived documents according to the policies for particular amount of time and then completely removed it.

The application allowed business to save on printing product documentation as well as establish the single source of true and avoid lawsuits caused by usage of outdated documentation.

Features: product documentation management, advanced content production workflows with parallel approvals, on-fly document branding, search engine, scheduled tasks, REST API, reports, security

Industry: Textile, flooring (manufacturing)

The application was built for enterprise manufacturing client that has a lot of dealers those sell their goods. The main purpose of application is to have all dealers promo websites in one place and easily managed and updated by non-technical users. So application has main website that allows dealers to purchase different web-services. Main service that they can buy is website. During checkout process user can select site template and color theme for future website. After user completes payment, website is created automatically based on selected template and color.

There are a multiple site templates prepared with different color themes. Various color themes can be created for site template automatically in custom-built module. Website content is manageable in custom modules as well as site template and color theme that makes application flexible and easy to use as well as adjust.

Currently over 1000 dealers installed their sites on given platform and this number grows every day generating couple of millions of revenue annually. The solution allows to save money on merketing as all the content is produced centrally and shared across all dealers' sites making all the information consistent. Additionaly this solution significantly reduces maintenance cost as well as development of new features - build once and reuse accross all the sites.

Features: e-commerce, centralized content syndication, product catalog, site builder, CyberSource integration, billing, subscriptions

Industry: Textile, flooring (manufacturing)