The Challenge
To reach the pharmaceuticals market, the company organizes and promotes medical conferences. They utilize data gathered from this conference (attendees, registrations, activity, etc.) for targeted advertising. To collect data at conferences, MKG utilizes an iPad for attendee check-in, and an iOS app to track attendee movement. Data from both devices migrate to MKG’s internal, custom-built web-based event management system, used to manage and organize all data collected from medical conferences. The web-based system, housing information such as scheduling, billing, registration, sponsors, calendars, third-party vendors, PDF documents for registration and contracts, was also customizable for each conference, complete with a custom registration landing page.
However, MKG neglected software engineering best practices in managing the web-based event management system. Issues such as outdated programming languages, bugs, data duplication, and long load times (as much as 2 mins.) began to accumulate, causing the system to be too inefficient and cumbersome to deal with. To remain operational, it became mission-critical for MKG to enhance efficiency of the web-based system.
How We Solved It
MKG recruited Sphere Software to revamp the system. After evaluation, Sphere proposed the following changes:
• Refactor existing code base to bring current.
• Debug issues that caused problems with conference registration.
• Employ general best practices in software engineering.
The Results
Using Python migration, and JQuery to React, Sphere’s developers optimized the system for a better (internal) user experience. Sphere refactored all code, creating a basic functionality package with essential functionality for conference tracking.
Campaign customizations were stored in a separate repository from the mime module, so that conference tracking could be easily upgraded and easier to support and modify in the future.
Several bugs were fixed in the process of signing up and attending a conference. Previously the bugs caused an excessive load time of up to 2 minutes, which reduced to seconds after debugging. This enabled a seamless experience for conference attendees and ensured accurate data extraction and migration to the web-based event system. In addition, Sphere went the extra mile by customizing event systems and associated landing pages and promotional websites for MKG’s upcoming events.
According to SVP of Digital Technology for MKG, Tom Iannucci, “We were most impressed with Sphere’s timely delivery and quality of work. Because of Sphere, we’re now much more operationally efficient. I would recommend them in a heartbeat.”
