Employee communication network
Services
Project overview
In 2017, Abto Software extended the internal software development team of a British company to improve an outdated communication network. Today, the rebuilt software brings payback in a form of improved productivity, performance, and increased profit.
Abto Software was hired by a British company providing an already outdated intranet solution for enterprises. The platform was obsolete and had poor functionality. The struggles our client had to deal with, included major maintenance issues. Today, the updated and improved platform is being utilized by the vendor and sold to customers all over the globe.
Main goals
The project’s main goals can be reduced to the following:
- Migrating legacy software
To improve the overall solution’s support and provide effective debugging, we migrated major parts from the legacy PHP to Laravel, a PHP web application with a more elegant and simple syntax.
- Extending existing functionality
At the start of our cooperation, the client provided an old-fashioned digital employee workspace with rather poor functionality, reduced to forms, threads, and posting. We implemented additional functionality making the rebuild workspace feel like social media.
Our contribution
We covered:
- Research and business consulting
At the initial stage of cooperation, we provided business consulting. Our experts have evaluated the platform from a technical point of view to identify weak points and choose a suitable refactoring strategy.
- Product migration
Because of the old-fashioned coding style, the client faced issues with maintenance. Our team has rewritten major parts of the legacy PHP to Laravel, which has improved authentication and authorization, and minimized emerging vulnerabilities.
- Functionality extension
To make the product more attractive to its future users, we improved existing features and implemented additional functionality (contacts, threads, posting, chats, and more).
- Front-end development
For scalability, the functioning of extensions, and speed, we migrated some parts from JS and JQuery to React.
How the solution works
The platform is a multi-tenant system for efficient employee engagement. Each tenant gets access to his separate sub-platform, which features contacts, threads, posting, chats, and more.
The platform can be easily branded and scaled according to company needs. It accelerates support processes, increases engagement, provides analytics, and increases investment profit.
Main features
At the begin of the cooperation, the solution included the following functionality:
- Q&A forms
- Limited posting only accessible from the admin side
We implemented:
- Network contacts
- Group threads
- Social posting including likes and comments, sharing, following, pinned posts, and notifications
- Secure and private chats
- Employee awards and Thank you cards for public and private
appreciation expression - Third-party integrations
- SSO technology allowing users to access multiple applications with
a single log-in - AR support for mobile
- Role-based access to certain workspace features
- Advanced analytics for tracking reach and employee engagement
Main challenges
- Platform refactoring
Because of the client’s technical requirement to maintain the existing platform structure, the refactoring of its individual parts required accuracy, field knowledge, and thorough manual testing. With the right tools and a thought-out strategy, the structure remained untouched.
- Functionality extension
The development and validation of the business logic behind the additional functionality was a time- and energy-intensive process. Thanks to constant communication with the internal team and taking into account the client’s business needs, we improved existing features and implemented new functionality.
Tools and technologies
Tech stack:
- Laravel/PHP
- MySQL
- Redis
- ElasticSearch
- SAML2 (SSO)
- JS/jQuery
- ReactJS
- Bootstrap
- NodeJS/npm
Cloud services:
- AWS (EC2, S3, SNS, SQS)
Platforms, servers, and tools:
- Xamarin (Android, iOS)
- Docker
- Jenkins
- PHPUnit
- Stackify
- Jira
- Bitbucket
Timeline:
- December 2017 – June 2022
Team:
- 1 project manager
- 1 back-end developer
- 1 front-end developer
Value delivered to business
The improved digital workspace:
- Accelerates support, investigation and debugging processes
Previously, finding and fixing an issue could take several days, which affected the platform’s overall efficiency. Today, with instant alerts, the support, investigation and debugging process takes even less than 24 hours.
- Increases engagement
The app feels like social media, which increases employee engagement. This way, the company can receive valuable feedback.
- Provides analytics for monitoring reach and employee engagement
- Increases profit
By migrating and extending the outdated intranet solution, our client notably increased its competitiveness. This way, the company attracts more potential customers interested in implementing a custom-made system, which can be branded and scaled.
Contact Us
To find out more about Abto Software expertise, request a quote or get a demo of your custom solution.
