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Case Study : Alumni Social Networking Portal
Web Address : www.mnit88.com
Solution : Alumni/Social Networking Platform
Features : Website Design, Web Development, Search Engine Optimization
Technology Used : Joomla, PHP and MySQL Database, XHTML, AJAX, JavaScript, SSL, HTTP, SMTP
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Requirement Overview
The idea for MNIT88 was conceived to bring together all the '88 Batch students and provide them with a platform to interact with each other. It was desired that MNIT88 act as a social networking site where the alumni could join, communicate and share information. For this to happen the site must provide registered users the facility to create their profile, share it and view other profiles. Further they should also be able to share pictures and send mail to each other. The site should also facilitate the actual meeting of alumni by providing an event management system capable of managing the events scheduled. The platform needed to be attractive, user-friendly and at the same time robust and technologically capable.
Solution Offered
After extensive discussions with the members by our Client-Engagement team to understand their needs, detailed Requirement Analysis was done by our developers and Basic Design template was developed. Joomla was chosen as the CMS platform for it's ease-of-use, extensibility, robustness and scalability besides it's ability to create powerful online applications. In keeping with the need to provide social networking facility, a new 'Profile' component was developed. The application allowed users to not just build their profiles but also share it, upload pictures, set their status and link it to their profiles on Orkut, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. The Profile component has a ‘Member Directory’ that listed members by branch, city and alphabetically. Additionally it conveyed whether a user was online or offline. It has’Member Search’ functionality, which search Member Database on keywords provided. Email functionality was added to enable users to send mail to each other.
To provide users with user-friendly interface to view and share uploaded pictures, a ‘Photo Gallery’ component ‘Joom Gallery’ customized for this purpose. This enable registered members to create Public and Private albums and upload photos in it, the Public albums can be viewed by every one on site but the Private albums can be viewed by only registered member. Finally, to facilitate the alumni to manage and organizing events, an component 'Event List’ was customized that could list the events according to date, time, place etc., register members can list their events and share it with other members, an event calendar Module to remind everyone about upcoming events also on every page of site. The site design was kept user-friendly, uncluttered and at the same time visually appealing.
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