Business Challenge
Pearson wanted to release a new SaaS application for the education industry. The main goal was to help educators identify students that have a high probability of dropping out of school prior to graduation. The secondary goal was to provide educators with information on the students’ progress to help them monitor as well as solve issues that were causing students to drop out of school. While Pearson had a Flex-based application prototype, the application backend needed improved performance and scalability to satisfy the education market needs. Collaboration with SoftServe presupposed adding new features to the backend system (multi-tenancy, scalability, reporting, and integration with the school’s information system) and ensuring support for different browsers (IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome) and mobile devices like iPad.
Project Description
SoftServe identified a number of challenges, including absence of specific application requirements and need for improvements of the infrastructure and architecture. Within a very short timeframe of three months, the combined teams held a series of assessments and delivered the following:
- Implementation Roadmap
- Architecture solution and technology stack
- Revised and prioritized requirements with detailed scope for first release
- UX/UI enhancement recommendations
- Test Strategy and Test Design
- Revised development process
As a part of the SaaS consulting service, SoftServe created a System Prototype as a proof of the concept for the application.
The newly developed product application named “Prevent 2.0” was built on a multi-tier SaaS architecture, which allowed tenants/users to start using services without the installation process. For ease of use, the product was integrated with line of business applications using a Single Sign-On approach.
Value Delivered
The key factor of success for this solution was that it was the first application for an education system on SaaS platform in the United States. What is more, it was completed and implemented for general availability by the beginning of the school year. Otherwise, Pearson would have lost a full year of market presence for their new product. The “Prevent 2.0” application used new web-based code and provided an enhanced cross-browser front-end resulting in improved usability and increased overall performance.