SeePlaces - Case Study

PROJECT FOR ITAKA COMPANY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Intro Tests

Business needs and goals Outcome

Timeline Testimonials

Team

Technologies

Model of collaboration

Innovation

Challenges and solutions

INTRO

Itaka is one of the main players on the Polish market of travel agencies.

They operate in many countries and offer a solid range of services when it

comes to organizing all sorts of trips, selling plane tickets, booking hotels and

renting cars.

As an international enterprise with services available around Europe, Itaka

wants to constantly invest in its growth and innovation. Optimizing processes is

one of the main steps towards the vision of this company. To do that, they

decided to build a relationship with a reliable business partner like iteo. Working

with a software company experienced in different projects (from startups,

through SME, to big corporations) guarantees successful collaboration and

high-quality results.

The main business goal for Itaka at the beginning of our so!ware development

project was to rebuild the existing system for facultative trips into a multi-

language modern web app.

What were the main assumptions?

BUSINESS NEEDS AND GOALS

Limiting the contribution of tour representatives in the sales process

Improving the sales of facultative trips

Diversifying the offer depending on the market

Intermediating in sales of the affiliative offers,

integrating systems and providing an overlay

with affiliates’ branding.

The app would have an administrative panel for Itaka’s employees that would

allow them to modify the offerings and generate reports. SEO optimization of

the web app would allow it to gain high ranks in Google and Criteo. What’s

important is that the client wanted to integrate the product with the current

reservations system without any downtime for implementation.

Main features we needed to develop

Offer configurations via the administration panel

Online reservations and purchases

Multi-language support

Online payments with Przelewy24

Statistics reports

Integration to marketing analysis tools

API for Itaka's various applications and for Partners' apps.

Beginning of the

“Facultative Trips”

project

Collaboration to rebuild

the project into a web

app called “SeePlaces”

Production launch

/ Application release

MARCH

2016

MARCH

2018

JUNE

2019

TIMELINE

It is worth mentioning that in June 2019 the “Facultative Trips” app was

turned off. The release of the “SeePlaces” app required database migration,

server configuration and implementation.

TEAMThe teams cooperated from the beginning towards the common

goal of development and growth of the app.

4 backend developers

1 or 2 testers - depending on the current demand

2 frontend developers

1 project manager / SCRUM master

1 product owner / SCRUM master / project manager

1 or 2 testers, one for coding automated tests

2 backend developers

TECHNOLOGIES

We’ve used many technologies to achieve all the requirements of the project. Next.JS - for the client and server-side rendering (CSR and

SSR)

React-google-maps - for displaying a map from Google

Ant Design - interface elements like button, date-picker,

modal, popover, etc.

Redux-form - managing forms

Node.JS - displaying content from static pages

And more

The frontend was developed using React.JS with additional libraries

and addons like:

The backend was built mostly with technologies like .NET, !SP.MVC,

JQuery, Bootstrap and many more.

In this project, we were working using an Agile methodology with SCRUM framework elements

This way we could achieve a flexible model of collaboration based on

partnership. We’ve been in constant contact with daily calls and reviews. We’ve

also organized sprints every week and did some remote retrospective

discussions.

MODEL OF COLLABORATION

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we had to suspend our cooperation with the

perspective of returning to the projects we’ve been working on together.

Existing applications of affiliates were rebuilt under the umbrella of SeePlaces.

Customers are redirected to sections branded by cooperating local partners

without leaving Itaka’s environment.

One of the key marketing features and a

unique selling point of the developed web

app is a custom affiliate system that allows

Itaka’s international partners to offer their

own facultative trips.

INNOVATION

CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS

The challenges we stumbled upon were fixed with the highest caution using our long-time expertise in so"ware development.

Here are our solutions to the most demanding elements of the

project:

Refactoring the frontend part for SSR was successfully

prosecuted within 3 months. This way we could raise and keep

the app’s performance score from 20 to 96 points based on

Google Page Insight. As a part of refactoring, we’ve also

separated the frontend and backend by putting them on

different servers.

Expanding the search engine to be compatible with elastic

search principles.

Rebuilding the affiliate system from many apps to just one. A

single instance displays an adequate version based on the

configuration file.

TESTSFor enterprise class applications maintaining the toughest quality standards is

a must. A single bug might cause million dollar losses in sales, compensations,

downfall of stocks and bad reputation.

In order to meet project requirements, we’ve performed manual tests and

provided automated testing for the product. The areas that were tested:

administration panel and client-side frontend.

For !PI tests we used the Postman tool. While refactoring, we used testing

scenarios to perform even more comprehensive tests.

The first version of the product was significantly tested for performance rates

and overload before production deployment.

OUTCOME

SeePlaces is now offering 1200 excursions in 45 countries worldwide.

It cooperates with over 70 local travel agencies and offers

excursions in 7 languages (more to come). Platform is a multilingual

call center offering 24/7 service and multi currency payments.

SeePlaces is a game changer in the travel industry, beneficial both

for Itaka’s customers and fellow-agencies.

From a technical perspective, SeePlaces is an enterprise-class

application with a powerful backend integrated within Itaka's

complex infrastructure. We used most innovative technologies

and frameworks to provide scalability and high-level security. It’s a

perfect product for tour operators that will answer all their needs

and pains.

We are definitely proud of a modern frontend and offer

diversification feature that differs based on the market. Thanks to

them we achieved a modern web app that processed 1000

transactions in the first month a#er the release. Every next month it

was already over 2000 transactions. The app achieved significant

financial success.

Until now, travellers usually bought facultative trips from tour

representatives. With SeePlaces, not only Itaka’s clients but also

other tourists can buy services from local tour operators.

At the first stage of release, the app is available in Polish, English

and Czech. Next, it will have versions in Russian, Lithuanian and

other languages.

Arkadiusz Olchawa,

IT Director at Itaka

TESTIMONIALS

“We would like to state that we, as Nowa Itaka Sp. z o.o., had a pleasure to work with iteo on a couple of projects inthe .NET technology. We are satisfied with the quality of service, responsiveness in problem-solving during the development process, and promptness. Without a doubt, we can recommend iteo as a partner that met our demands and implemented our projects according to the scope, budget, and time.”

CHECK OUT YOURSELF SEEPLACES.COM