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| OPEN SOURCE INTEGRATIVE SOFTWARE |
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| Our client is a leading educational
training providing group with a branching network spread all
over the country. They required an online solution through which
students can interact with each other and with professionals.
The group wanted a centralized management platform through which
students registering from any location can be managed from one
focal point. The requirement was for a robust networking system
for communicative interaction between students and also a mode
through which students could get answers to their educational
queries. Icreon Communications analyzed all the requirements
and came up with a web enabled solution. |
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| Customer Profile |
| Our client is an Indian group with functional
branches running all across the country. They provide educational
training for GRE, GMAT and MAT. They cater to large student
groups who are interested in studying in foreign universities
by providing them training for specified courses. |
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| Business
Requirement |
Our client required a web based informative
solution, which on one hand would help the students through
their courses in getting admissions in foreign universities,
visa procurement process, assistance in the process of filling
application forms etc. The application should offer services
to help students in selecting universities, application filling
process, essay editing, visa counseling, document preparation,
mock interviews, cover letters, interview preparation and resume
editing etc.
On the other hand the application should be able to help the
client to manage their admission counseling services across
all company locations. They required a nodal administration
point for managing the entire process of educational training.
A comprehensive solution was required that would provide for
the following: |
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Keeping track of the students registered/
enrolled at the city level |
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Managing the different city level admission counseling
operations of centers |
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Edition work management |
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Quality management facility |
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Separate login access levels to the administrator |
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Facility to make the online request for shortlist students |
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Invoice management |
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Banner management |
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Newsletter addition on website |
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Administrative authority to add bulk email ids |
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A facility for foreign universities to display their
profile using web based services offered by our client |
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| Online Educational Support Solutions |
The solution was developed keeping the
versatile nature of user’s demand in forefront. It was
so desired that the application should be functional from user
as well as administration point of view.
Third party applications have been customized and integrated
in the application to enhance the flexibility and the scalability
of the application. These plug in applications have been successfully
integrated and they provide the following functionalities to
the application: |
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Discussion Forum: |
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Vbulletin has been customized and
integrated in the system as a base module. |
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It provides a robust platform to the students
and members to take part in active discussion sessions. |
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It forms a part of the front end. |
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The user management of Vbulletin is used for
user registration on the web site. |
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Vbulletin has been customized to implement a
centralized user authentication for the whole website. |
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The forum has been divided in two areas, one
is for the premium users who have purchased any
educational package from the group and the other
is for the general user. |
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The premium users can access all the services
of the website but a normal user has limited access
to the website functionalities. |
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Vbulletin has been customized to provide the
facility of adding student’s address, city
and phone number. |
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Content Management System: |
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Vbportal has been customized and
integrated as a CMS in this application to streamline
the process of managing the content. |
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It provides the basic structure of the website. |
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It has been customized in a way so that its administrator
can manage the content and the layout of all the
pages. |
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We have customized the CMS in a way so that the
front end templates are modified to suit and blend
with the rest of the site. |
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English language part of all new coding done
by us can be easily edited by using Language Files
written in PHP. |
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Its integration has been done in synchronization
with Vbulletin and its administration section can
easily be accessed through Vbulletin’s admin
section. |
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Help Desk: |
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A third party help desk application
has been customized and incorporated in the application
known as Cerebrus. |
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It forms a major part of the back end and manages
the student’s queries. |
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The Cerebrus has been implemented with multiple
administrations based on their assigned access levels.
These administrators are:
| 1. |
Webmaster |
| 2. |
ACS Head |
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National Service Coordinator |
| 4. |
City Sales Coordinator |
| 5. |
Master Admissions Counselor |
| 6. |
Senior Admissions Counselor |
| 7. |
Admission Counselor |
| 8. |
Chief Editor |
| 9. |
Editors |
| 10. |
Quality Controllers |
| 11. |
Visa Counselors |
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Its login is through the Vbulletin login authentication
system and it can only be accessed by the premium
users. |
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The authority to manage the content of the Cerebrus
resides with the web administrator. |
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Cerebrus has been customized in a way so that
the premium users can raise queries any of the following
segments:
| 1. |
University Selection (short-listing) |
| 2. |
Application Filling Help |
| 3. |
Essay editing |
| 4. |
SOP editing |
| 5. |
Resume editing |
| 6. |
Misc. Editing |
| 7. |
Interview Preparation Help |
| 8. |
Visa Counseling |
| 9. |
Pre-sales / Support |
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The website has the facility to enroll site visitors
for any course segment of their choice. |
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The Request for Shortlist Module has been implemented
in the website, which is used for gathering information
of the students regarding their preference of universities
and their grades in various tests. |
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The admin end pf the website has been developed
for managing the content of website’s front
end pages through CMS, managing the users and content
of forum, managing the student’s tickets at
support center. |
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There are separate administration sections for
the help desk, forum and the CMS. |
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The website has been developed with some other
service provisions, which can only be accessed by
the premium users, such as:
| 1. |
Essay editing |
| 2. |
Miscellaneous editing |
| 3. |
Resume editing |
| 4. |
Editing of Statement of Purpose |
| 5. |
Assistance in filling application forms |
| 6. |
Preparation for interviews |
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A module for report generation has been incorporated
in the application. |
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It generates reports for various systems of the
application, such as:
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City Level Coordinator |
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Admission Counselor |
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Editors |
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Students |
| 5. |
Iteration Cycles |
| 6. |
Audit Contacts |
| 7. |
Request for Shortlist |
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| Technologies used in developing the
solution are: |
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| Summary |
| Through this web based application Icreon
communications gave our client a robust and flexible solution
for providing assistance to students aspiring to study abroad.
With the development of this application we enhanced our skill
set in customizing off-the-shelf solutions to suit specific
customer requirements. |
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