SeePlaces - Case Study PROJECT FOR ITAKA COMPANY
SeePlaces - Case Study
PROJECT FOR ITAKA COMPANY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Intro Tests
Business needs and goals Outcome
Timeline Testimonials
Team
Technologies
Model of collaboration
Innovation
Challenges and solutions
INTRO
Itaka is one of the main players on the Polish market of travel agencies.
They operate in many countries and offer a solid range of services when it
comes to organizing all sorts of trips, selling plane tickets, booking hotels and
renting cars.
As an international enterprise with services available around Europe, Itaka
wants to constantly invest in its growth and innovation. Optimizing processes is
one of the main steps towards the vision of this company. To do that, they
decided to build a relationship with a reliable business partner like iteo. Working
with a software company experienced in different projects (from startups,
through SME, to big corporations) guarantees successful collaboration and
high-quality results.
The main business goal for Itaka at the beginning of our so!ware development
project was to rebuild the existing system for facultative trips into a multi-
language modern web app.
What were the main assumptions?
BUSINESS NEEDS AND GOALS
Limiting the contribution of tour representatives in the sales process
Improving the sales of facultative trips
Diversifying the offer depending on the market
Intermediating in sales of the affiliative offers,
integrating systems and providing an overlay
with affiliates’ branding.
The app would have an administrative panel for Itaka’s employees that would
allow them to modify the offerings and generate reports. SEO optimization of
the web app would allow it to gain high ranks in Google and Criteo. What’s
important is that the client wanted to integrate the product with the current
reservations system without any downtime for implementation.
Main features we needed to develop
Offer configurations via the administration panel
Online reservations and purchases
Multi-language support
Online payments with Przelewy24
Statistics reports
Integration to marketing analysis tools
API for Itaka's various applications and for Partners' apps.
Beginning of the
“Facultative Trips”
project
Collaboration to rebuild
the project into a web
app called “SeePlaces”
Production launch
/ Application release
MARCH
2016
MARCH
2018
JUNE
2019
TIMELINE
It is worth mentioning that in June 2019 the “Facultative Trips” app was
turned off. The release of the “SeePlaces” app required database migration,
server configuration and implementation.
TEAMThe teams cooperated from the beginning towards the common
goal of development and growth of the app.
4 backend developers
1 or 2 testers - depending on the current demand
2 frontend developers
1 project manager / SCRUM master
1 product owner / SCRUM master / project manager
1 or 2 testers, one for coding automated tests
2 backend developers
TECHNOLOGIES
We’ve used many technologies to achieve all the requirements of the project. Next.JS - for the client and server-side rendering (CSR and
SSR)
React-google-maps - for displaying a map from Google
Ant Design - interface elements like button, date-picker,
modal, popover, etc.
Redux-form - managing forms
Node.JS - displaying content from static pages
And more
The frontend was developed using React.JS with additional libraries
and addons like:
The backend was built mostly with technologies like .NET, !SP.MVC,
JQuery, Bootstrap and many more.
In this project, we were working using an Agile methodology with SCRUM framework elements
This way we could achieve a flexible model of collaboration based on
partnership. We’ve been in constant contact with daily calls and reviews. We’ve
also organized sprints every week and did some remote retrospective
discussions.
MODEL OF COLLABORATION
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we had to suspend our cooperation with the
perspective of returning to the projects we’ve been working on together.
Existing applications of affiliates were rebuilt under the umbrella of SeePlaces.
Customers are redirected to sections branded by cooperating local partners
without leaving Itaka’s environment.
One of the key marketing features and a
unique selling point of the developed web
app is a custom affiliate system that allows
Itaka’s international partners to offer their
own facultative trips.
INNOVATION
CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS
The challenges we stumbled upon were fixed with the highest caution using our long-time expertise in so"ware development.
Here are our solutions to the most demanding elements of the
project:
Refactoring the frontend part for SSR was successfully
prosecuted within 3 months. This way we could raise and keep
the app’s performance score from 20 to 96 points based on
Google Page Insight. As a part of refactoring, we’ve also
separated the frontend and backend by putting them on
different servers.
Expanding the search engine to be compatible with elastic
search principles.
Rebuilding the affiliate system from many apps to just one. A
single instance displays an adequate version based on the
configuration file.
TESTSFor enterprise class applications maintaining the toughest quality standards is
a must. A single bug might cause million dollar losses in sales, compensations,
downfall of stocks and bad reputation.
In order to meet project requirements, we’ve performed manual tests and
provided automated testing for the product. The areas that were tested:
administration panel and client-side frontend.
For !PI tests we used the Postman tool. While refactoring, we used testing
scenarios to perform even more comprehensive tests.
The first version of the product was significantly tested for performance rates
and overload before production deployment.
OUTCOME
SeePlaces is now offering 1200 excursions in 45 countries worldwide.
It cooperates with over 70 local travel agencies and offers
excursions in 7 languages (more to come). Platform is a multilingual
call center offering 24/7 service and multi currency payments.
SeePlaces is a game changer in the travel industry, beneficial both
for Itaka’s customers and fellow-agencies.
From a technical perspective, SeePlaces is an enterprise-class
application with a powerful backend integrated within Itaka's
complex infrastructure. We used most innovative technologies
and frameworks to provide scalability and high-level security. It’s a
perfect product for tour operators that will answer all their needs
and pains.
We are definitely proud of a modern frontend and offer
diversification feature that differs based on the market. Thanks to
them we achieved a modern web app that processed 1000
transactions in the first month a#er the release. Every next month it
was already over 2000 transactions. The app achieved significant
financial success.
Until now, travellers usually bought facultative trips from tour
representatives. With SeePlaces, not only Itaka’s clients but also
other tourists can buy services from local tour operators.
At the first stage of release, the app is available in Polish, English
and Czech. Next, it will have versions in Russian, Lithuanian and
other languages.
Arkadiusz Olchawa,
IT Director at Itaka
TESTIMONIALS
“We would like to state that we, as Nowa Itaka Sp. z o.o., had a pleasure to work with iteo on a couple of projects inthe .NET technology. We are satisfied with the quality of service, responsiveness in problem-solving during the development process, and promptness. Without a doubt, we can recommend iteo as a partner that met our demands and implemented our projects according to the scope, budget, and time.”
CHECK OUT YOURSELF SEEPLACES.COM