Advana needed an enterprise-grade software system in the form of a self-serve customer-facing portal. That portal needed to present the ability for customers to create complex DOOH and micro-market campaigns, which involved building software to communicate with and tie logic together from together several disparate systems.
A project lead for Advana, a sister company to 365 Retail Markets (later acquired by them), had been granted a certain budget to build a new B2B Enterprise web portal so that their customers could create complex DOOH and micro-market campaigns, targeting thousands of physical locations around the United States. Until finding Elyon, this process was done manually via emails back and forth with an admin, and loads of spreadsheets and tedious human labor to just deploy one campaign.
It was clear there was a need for automation, and they’d hired one software engineer a year and a half prior to start working on this, but it wasn’t the right experience fit. This was a complex project that involved integrating several disparate systems all while presenting a clean, intuitive UI and UX to the customers that enabled them to deploy campaigns in a straightforward way.
The project lead, Michael, found us on UpWork. He had a tight deadline to get something started and out there and make progress on this project. Hiring the right person had proven to be difficult, and Advana looked to external resources and help to make this project happen.
Navigating his company's project budgets, Michael needed to know whomever he worked with was capable of seeing the project through to the end, coupled with the pressing need to provide demonstrable progress.
Michael, being a data scientist, had built out a number of very nice PowerBI dashboards for the customers, and wanted customers to be able to see them on the new platform. So, we started with a smaller, but more significant win. I replaced my typical Django auth setup with an Auth0 solution, which brought more trust to the enterprise customer base Advana was working with. From there, we had SSO set up, and I was able to use that to authenticate customers and present the proper dashboards. We embedded PowerBI into a nice frontend template we purchased to make all of this come together very quickly!
From there, Advana was convinced we were the right team to build the full enterprise web portal solution. Hayley met with the client to devise wireframes for each user type their Enterprise web portal would have: micro-market operators, brands and admin. Hayley performed user interviews with key admin and composed wireframes to capture the features and architecture for three distinct user types, each requiring their own portal experience but which could fit in together.
We have found that wireframes are key to letting the client visualize their future product and start to refine their vision. Through working this process in step with the client and our dev team, we refined a minimum viable product that we could launch according to their timeline, and prioritize additional feature adds post launch.
From here, design and development would work in tandem, with development building a sturdy backend according to the wireframes and design creating beautiful, on-brand designs. Once ready, development moved into refining the front-end. This dovetailed approach enables our team to implement efficiently and with quality.
Within two months, we had a full blown enterprise web platform built and deployed to production, with customers using it to create campaign orders of magnitude quicker than before, and also getting clear visuals and insights into their managed devices, along with dashboards showing in-depth campaign performance and insights provided by Michael and his team. It was a win win. Elyon focused on getting the web app robust and full-featured, while Michael and his team could focus on the data insights that provided actionable insights to the customers. The customers have used the portal ever since, and 365 Retail Markets and Advana continue to use it to grow the DOOH and micro-market side of their business, while customers gain access to an increasing number of features and insights that only increases platform engagement and campaign targeting and effectiveness.
At Elyon, we have our tried and true ways of building robust, complex, multifaceted enterprise software applications. If the client needs it, we can do it, and oftentimes big, enterprise systems, require a decent cost investment and a reasonable amount of time before the results are seen. For some clients, that’s fine. But for others, they want to see some clear results on a shorter timeframe and/or smaller budget.
By not being too locked into one way of doing things, we’re able to deliver and exceed expectations for these cases. To illustrate, in this Advana example, we needed to provide an enterprise grade SSO solution, an invitation-only web app, and also show a nice, clean UI and provide a seamless experience to view very proprietary and security sensitive dashboards, all by the end of the month we started (within a few weeks time). While we typically do full featured custom UI/UX designs, we opted to spend $600 on a visually appealing template with a solid navigation hierarchy that fit our needs, and paid Auth0 their dues to take care of all of the SSO and email verification functionality.
Once that initial deadline was met, and expectations were exceeded, it was an easy decision for Advana to invest in a more robust full featured system, UI/UX, and custom design that matched the level of excellence and professionalism they were going for with their customers.
All this to say, we have our tried and true methods, but we’re also creative problem solvers that can comfortably find other solutions as needed that overcome constraints, be they time, budget, or other factors, and still deliver exceptional end to end software systems. Often this capability and proven ability to deliver is what creates long term working relationships between us and our clients, and makes them feel comfortable in putting their trust in us to build some of their larger and more involved dreams. This portal has enabled 356 Retail Markets to monetize and scale their systems like never before!
The work by Elyon Technologies enabled our data and advertising services to really take off. Micah and Hayley are brilliant, hard-workers, and embody every element of the American Dream. They always delivered on time and with even more value than what was scoped. They are all extremely intelligent, innovative, and have a good sense of business street smarts. They won’t waste your time and or money.
