Digital Media Storage Solution, Showcase Site and Collaborative Environment for AMPE Heritage Specialists
- Exclusive collaborative environment with multiple-role mode
- Professional-looking representation of media content
- Safe media storage on a private LINKAVIE space
- Enhanced search and navigation capabilities
- Improved procedure of data categorization and detection
Context
Client
Our Client and partner LINKAVIE, the owner of a collaborative and communicative web platform, has introduced us to our Customer, AMPE, a sub-organization of AIRBUS Group. The company is responsible for storage and maintenance of archives and media content related to the aerospace history of Airbus. A distributed character of AMPE, with remote users located all over France, hinders their communication and collaboration.
The challenge
The primary challenge was to come up with a solution for a site with multiple objectives. It had to meet the following requirements:
- Design and develop a user-friendly and easily navigable site with well-structured media content;
- Provide an exclusive collaborative environment with media storing and processing facilities;
- Create a facility for on-demand public access to the media content for informational and educational purposes;
- Improve file upload mechanism, though keep some of the existing processes of gathering and reviewing media content;
- Enhance reporting capabilities for content administration;
- Import the registered members (contributors) from the existing MySQL DB and send them invitations for migrating to a new platform.
Solution
We have created an intuitive web resource with an easy targeted search for different user groups – registered members, contributors, administrators, and guests, each with their own authorities.
The two-vector solution consisted in creating two sites serving diverse purposes. The first one – an internal collaborative space – allowed AMPE employees to engage in media storing and processing activities, such as organizing and maintaining archives related to aerospace history, creating and publishing books and bulletins and more.
The other one – a showcase site with a slideshow and relevant media content – was created for public access and popularization of Airbus’ history and achievements. Remote AMPE employees got a smooth authentication-free transition from one site to another, which was implemented on Single Sign-On (SSO) service to provide fast and easy access to the multimedia indexing system for registered users. Both sites are united by a common graphic design. We addressed the problem of file upload by eliminating the unsafe FTP format and 3rd party services and providing a direct upload into Linkavie. As agreed, we retained the existing processes of gathering and reviewing media content using a spreadsheet with media files’ descriptions. However, we extended the functionality by re-engineering the spreadsheet to allow remote users to quickly upload a bulk of files (photos, videos, documents or archives) with a list of descriptions. The data are further validated by admins.
Reporting mechanism for administrators was considerably improved – now the added ‘candidate’ files (in need of further indexing or approval by the admin) can be easily detected.
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The Customer received a user-friendly solution that significantly increased end-users’ satisfaction, eliminated a number of inefficiencies in files’ upload and content description processes. The workload of website administrators was significantly reduced. This also cleared out some space for additional tasks:
- Preparing Newsstands: online editing and PDF conversion of high-quality booklets.
- Moderating users’ content.
- Watermarks.
- Search, with results grouped and sorted by relevance.
Integration of an existing multimedia indexing system provided access to all features of an entire Linkavie platform without spending additional time & cost for its development and maintenance.
Technologies
- Backend
- PHP framework – Zend Framework 2, Doctrine 2, Database – MySQL, Amazon Web Services
- Frontend
- HTML5, CSS3, AngularJS 1.5
- CMS
- WordPress (for the showcase site)
Supported Browsers
The latest browser versions by the time of finalizing development.
- For Windows 7/8/8.1
- Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome
- For Mac OS X
- Safari, Google Chrome