Project Details:
Online Networking and Collaboration System For Insurance Broker
With a presence in over 65 countries, the client is one of the largest global networks of insurance brokers. With an ever-increasing number of professionals across the globe (5,800 and counting) the organization required a unified system for all its insurance brokers to seamlessly and effortlessly communicate with each other within the same office and around the globe.
Technologies Used:
Utilized PHP/MySQL along with a judicious use of AJAX, CSS and HTML to improve the site’s navigation, MVC framework designed to provide better separation of different layers and fully object oriented code.
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Online Networking and Collaboration System For Insurance Broker
Web based networking and collaboration system for insurance broker to encourage employee collaboration, communication and innovation.
BACKGROUND
- With a presence in over 65 countries, the client is one of the largest global networks of insurance brokers. With an ever-increasing number of professionals across the globe (5,800 and counting) the organization required a unified system for all its insurance brokers to seamlessly and effortlessly communicate with each other within the same office and around the globe.
SCOPE
- The organization lacked any tools and/or software for its employees to communicate and connect with each other both internally within the same office and externally to any of the company’s other divisions and branches which made up the organization. In addition, getting the right answers to simple questions can take hours, if not days. A quick and efficient solution was needed to address these pain areas in addition to the ones listed below:
- Capabilities for members and individuals to work on RFP’s and form the private groups to collaborate with partners and client(s) for the same RFP.
- An easy and efficient way for employees to communicate despite geographic constraints
- Ability to effortlessly view the capabilities of each office globally
- Facility to know who is responsible for specific geographic coverage areas
- Means to create online profiling or mini website for each of the brokers
SOLUTION
- A robust and powerful solution was custom built for the organization from the ground up. The finished solution was a completely web based social business networking and collaboration tool which was designed to encourage employee collaboration, communication and innovation. The social business networking and collaboration tool connects over 5,800 employees across 50 countries around the globe effortlessly through the use of message boards, rich user profiles, RSS feeds, online directories, and much more. In addition, the collaboration tool helps employees to communicate more effectively with each other on the business goals. It also provides a means towards building meaningful relationships, find and exchange answers and share ideas in an engaging and productive way.
- Listed below are some highlighted features that can be found in the custom built social business networking and online collaboration tool
PUBLIC WEBSITE
- News and RSS feeds – Administrator of the site can manage the latest news section of the site from the custom built backend. Entered news will be displayed on the sites homepage.
- Contacts and lead capture – the finished site contains a lead capturing page which will not be for any particular broker but for the entire organization.
- Brokers Profiles (Micro Website) – Each participating broker has been provided with a micro website which will display their portfolio, information, services, etc.
- Brokers directory – Visitors on the site are able to search for the members through the directory by country and with the help of maps.
PASSWORD PROTECTED MEMBER’S AREA
- Collaboration – Collaboration provides members and individuals a tool to work on RFP’s and form the private groups to collaborate with partners and client(s) for the RFP. Groups have the following tools
- Private Groups
- Documents
- Discussions
- Tasks
- Public Message Board – The message board is available and accessible to all registered members. The message board can be utilized for general discussion, asking general questions, seeking help on any of the topics from all community members etc.
- Public documents repository – Members can share documents with each other which may be generic in nature or commonly needed. The documents can also be searched via keywords used to describe them.
- BLINK – Multi Criteria Search – BLINK is used to link all the members together and will be utilized as a tool to connect to the right partners.
- Broker profile management – Each broker is able to manage own profile which partially will be displayed on the public site and partially utilized for BLINK search through an easy to use CMS
- Individual profile management – Individual members (employees of brokers) will also have a personal profile which they can manage
- Networking – This section of the collaboration tool facilitates and encourages the networking of members. Employees of different brokers are able to search and find themselves. Interested members can send a request to become a friend and exchange one to one private messages with each other. Generalized networking is facilitated by the following:
- Connection requests
- Messages
- Public documents
- Public message boards
- Value added tools – Portal also features value added and frequently needed tools such as currency converter, list of sea ports.
- Notification Settings – Users have settings to get notified via email and/or SMS
- Multilingual provisions
- Private portals can be created in multiple languages
- Internationalization is provided by the way of text files. More languages can be added by translating the text labels into new language and adding the text file
- Public site can be translated using Google translator URL
