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port-operator

A consistent and accessible user experience is imperative for any business. This specifically holds true for conglomerate companies that operate across the globe, manage multiple microsites, and tend to a huge audience influx from time to time. A platform that can consolidate the microsites while ensuring a consistent experience is desirable.

Our client is a global port services operator with 32 terminals across 19 countries. Owing to their expansive presence and broad user base, they wanted a platform that could consolidate everything in one. Their digital service platform provides solutions to terminals worldwide, shipping lines, custom brokers, freight forwarders, consolidators, importers / exporters, and trucking companies.

Highlight

We help our client build a robust, multilingual, application that streamlines the shipping line for its users.

Requirements

  • They needed a robust platform that has the ability to onboard terminals quickly via APIs for a comprehensive, global user experience via a single app.
  • To ease user access, they needed an app that :
    • could help the shipping line, the cargo industry, and players like importers and exporters, freight carriers, customs brokers, shippers, etc, by providing real-time updates on each step of logistics.
    • enabled the port users and stakeholders to monitor trucks, containers, and vessels,
    • facilitated access to payment estimates from their corresponding terminals in advance.
    • sent across real-time notifications via email/SMS/push notification

Challenges

  • Each terminal having their own custom system and services
  • There was a need to provide real time statistics to their customers
  • There was an increasing demand to make the services available via mobile channel
  • The constant change in requirements and scope
  • Dependency on external APIs (Data lake & ACTS)

The Solution

Our team worked with the client to develop a multilingual application that supports 9 languages, is available on Web and Mobile (Android & iOS) environments, and is capable of supporting features like:  

  • Sign-in/Sign-up, User Profile setup & Management
  • Tracking and tracing of vessels,
  • Real-time updates on containers and trucks,
  • Support payments options for import/export of containers,
  • Sending notifications, watchlisting, 24 hours activities (vessels, truck, and containers events)

Overall Approach

The following steps were undertaken to build the solution:

  • Drupal was chosen to be the center hub for the platform
  • Chosen app Environments include: Web, Web-responsive, and Mobile (Android and iOS), while application platforms were Drupal, NodeJs
  • A few Rest APIs are being used to communicate external systems of the platform
  • The team also enabled third-party Integrations: such as Twilio for SMS, Azure Services like AD-B2C for storing user data and user authorization, Sendgrid for emails, notification Hub by Azure for real-time notifications,
  • Their cloud infrastructure is hosted on Azure, while different environments were used for production and QA.
  • Kubernetes was deployed for dynamic traffic management

Tech Stack

  • Drupal
  • Node.js
  • Azure
  • Twilio
  • AWS
  • Kubernetes

Business Benefit

  • New terminals can now be onboarded to the platform in 2-4 weeks instead of building a customer solution for them
  • Azure Data Lake integration provides for real time information and role based dashboard
  • The app enabled a seamless and secure user experience on account of its varied personalized features.
  • The users could now optimize their shipping experience through this app and reduce costs
  • The app's global availability streamlined access for users across the globe.
  • Within one month of its release
    • the iOS version registered 1.3k downloads
    • the Android version registered 3.75k downloads

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