PURPORA ENGINEERING - CASE STUDY #2

Purpora Engineering (www.purporaengineering.net) are part of a group of companies offering Tank Testing services to the Petroleum industry. The services are technical in nature and include underground and above ground storage tank testing and monitoring. They offer a range of equipment and services to the industry including a comprehensive training and certification program.

When Purpora Engineering owner Steve Purpora approached COL Svcs in September 2009 it was with a view to developing the online presence for all of their business interests. This included 4 corporate websites -

GEA

Protanic Inc

My Tank Gauge

Purpora Engineering

Their existing websites did not reflect the professional and hi-tech image of this progressive company, and were based on 1990's FrontPage theme styling. The remit was to present a major facelift to their online presence, add some functionality, create a platform for selling their products and services through the website, and by utilizing web tools, remove some of the labor-intensive functions their in-house staff were performing day to day.

After a detailed needs analysis it was decided that Joomla and Wordpress would be the best CMS platforms to meet the requirements of the design specification.

The website template was constructed from the ground up, with a new logo and color scheme/layout designed to reflect the hi-tech image and portray the engineering roots of the company.

ONLINE TRAINING AND RESERVATIONS

There were some design hurdles in meeting the functional requirements of their Training/Reservation program. The online training services are an important aspect of the business and needed to be offered as a complete package online, including user-registrations, group registrations and online payments. The training services are held at multiple locations around the US, so it was necessary to have functional aspects that allowed remote location creation. Since the requirement was to reduce staff interaction through the booking process, it was necessary to have detailed features such as Google Map integration to allow users to complete the entire booking process without requiring a phone call(s).

A Joomla Events Module and a Joomla Registration module were purchased, with much of the required functionality included. Some customization was necessary to provide the full requirements of the design specification and to fit the visual styling of the website. An Authorize.net payment module was installed, allowing the entire registration process to take place at the website with secured Credit Card payment.

ONLINE EXAMINATIONS

Again using the Joomla Core, we were able to build an online examination section of the website, allowing people to pay for an exam, receive notes/requirements and complete the examination online without any staff interaction. This functional component was difficult to find within the Joomla extensions database. After road-testing several 'Quiz' modules with unsatisfactory results, we decided to custom code the online exam using a form scripting and database component. We took the payment section of the online exam into VirtueMart and created a 'digital download' product for purchase through the online store.

Functionally the exam module fits the client needs exactly and new exam additions can be implemented easily using the customized module. All exam results are stored in a database, and functionality includes compiling lists of attendees with bulk and single email contact options.

ONLINE STORE

The client has around 50 products with some fairly specific shipping requirements, since many of the products are quite large/bulky. Using VirtueMart we transferred the clients paper catalog into an online store, with full eCommerce functionality including customer database, Authorize.net on SSL, UPS real-time shipping hook-up and synchronization with Interapptive's desktop shipping/processing program.

SOCIAL MEDIA / BLOG INTEGRATION

Wordpress was selected for it's functionality and ease of use. The Joomla design template was reworked into a WP format and installed into a sub directory of the main website. Facebook links and badges are installed and network links created between various client web properties.

SEO COMPONENTS

Joomla's core SEF module was utilized and a custom .htaccess file written to manage SEF URL's and redirects from old web pages. Meta tags were customized for all page content and directory submissions made, along with network interlinking.

This was a fairly extensive web design project and Joomla again played an integral part in providing the CMS platform for the addition of the modular functionality required to meet the design specification.

Staff training is ongoing, with a view to having in-house staff able to maintain the website and complete all updates by June 2010.

CH