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Building a Portal or E-Marketplace is usually the effort of a collabrative group or an inspired individual. Such project is often meant to either create a virtual trading space or to enhance an already existing vibrant business marketplace.
The Portal/Marketplace will consist not only of E-commerce and trading activities, it will also comprise of services from articles, news content to classified advertisements. They are all meant to create a community and business trading environment whereby every
member can enjoy the services as well as communicate with each other just like a town or city community. Most of the Portals/E-Marketplaces have a specific targeted industry, whereby specialized services are created to catered to the users of
that industry. Common services amount them are:
| . | E-mails |
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| . | Chatrooms |
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| . | Forums |
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| . | Calendar |
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| . | Personal Preference Database |
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| . | News Letters |
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| Development of the Portal/E-Marketplace |
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The cycle of development of a project of this scale requires the following flow of process:
| . | Overall Project Objectives |
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| . | Specific Business Needs |
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| . | Concept Design |
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| . | Funtional Requirements |
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| . | Database Requirements |
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| . | Site Requirement |
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| . | Mockup Interface |
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| . | Development and Testing |
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| . | Delivery |
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| The Project Phases |
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Overall Project Objectives |
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The Overall Project Objectives are crucial in determining what the Portal/E-Marketplace owner wants to create.
Some of the factors that are taken into consideration are:
| . | The Particular Industry needs |
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| . | The Services to be available |
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| . | The Content format to be made available |
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| . | The devices and platform by which information can be accessed |
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| . | The scalability of adding services |
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| . | Any business partnership involvement |
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| . | Any Third Party service to be integrated |
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| . | Fulfillment |
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Business Needs |
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We begin by gathering business operation requirements like:
| . | Workflow of orders |
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| . | Payment Types |
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| . | Product Catalogue |
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| . | Inventory Tracking |
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| . | Reporting Features |
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| . | Wireless Device Alert |
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| . | Members Management |
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| . | Fulfillment |
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Gathering the Buisiness Needs to us is a very crucial process. It allows us to understand the customer's needs in depth so that we can
built a shopping site that really fits the customer's needs. This phase can take as from a couple of days to a week of discussion.
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Concept Design |
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This is the phase where the company's color scheme and company image is being discussed. Some reference website will be shown to customers for reference ideas.
combination of a few website's concept or a new concept can be established according to client's requirements. Choice of icon types, size and color is also being discussed.
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Funtional Requirements |
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After conceptual ideas are discussed, the website's functional requirements is next in line. The information publishing, language requirements are being gathered. The Business Needs
are also being translated to functional requirements.
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Database Requirements |
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In this phase, it will be accessed on which type of Database server is required. For example, MS SQL2000 has Standard and Enterprise versions and so is the case for Oracle servers.
Choices for Database : SQL based servers (preferably with Stored Procedure capabilities), MS SQL 2000 (Standard or Enterprise), Oracle (various)
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Site Requirements |
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In this phase, the site requirement can consist but not restricted to Hosting location, bandwidth, maintenance and administration. VisualSoft give the customer the option to host with us.
We provide 24x7 operation and rack spaces. We also provide the service of getting servers and hosting equipment for the customer if it is required.
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Mockup Interface |
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This is like a demo of the site with the interface look and feel to be implemented on the overall sections of the site. After this phase, changes to the look and feel will likely to be
minimalized so that the customer can have a sense of what their site will eventually look like.
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Development and Testing |
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Development of the website is done in this phase. All the coding and programming to acquire the functionallity will be completed and tested to eliminate bugs. The customer will also be
allowed to look at their site at our stage hosting server so that they feel comfortable about the progress of the development work. At this stage minor adjustments to the functionality
is still possible but major changes will require and change in delivery schedule.
Also in this phase, any reusable codes that the existing customer's site has, we will use it instead of writing new ones. It is of particular interest to customers that writing new codes
can have a shorter development time than using the existing codes. The information on the existing site however can definitely be reused if they are still relevant and updated.
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Delivery |
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The final complete site will go live either at the cutomer's desgnated location or at our location. It will be the completion of the project and customers can sign a maintenance contract
with VisualSoft if they choose to.
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| VisualSoft's (ASP) Shopping Site |
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Project Phases (differences) |
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Typically, the difference in process for an ASP model compared for the development model is in the development work. Instead of a full fledge development, only the interface is being customized and the
monthly rates for the Shopping Site will depend on what are the features required. There will be no license cost for Operating System, software and hardware that is required for the site. The rest of the
process is still in place. Please contact us for details on rates and available features.
Find out more about our Project Management process.
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