The Telegraph Media Group is one of the UK’s leading providers of printed and digital news content. At the point when they consulted Softwire, Telegraph Media Group were using disparate and incomplete systems for planning, commissioning and payment, resulting in a significant amount of manual work and making it difficult to extract vital reporting data.
Telegraph Media Group engaged Softwire to perform consultancy and requirements gathering to form a broad outline for a comprehensive, end to end planning, commissioning and payment system. Softwire worked closely with Telegraph Media staff during the consultancy phase to learn about existing system use and processes.
Softwire discussed options for revising these processes and the corresponding technical requirements with the Telegraph Media Group CTO and Technical Architect and agreed an architectural approach. Softwire then refined this into a comprehensive technical specification for the final system.
Based on this document, Telegraph Media Group engaged Softwire to develop the required system.
The development phase was conducted in an Agile manner, using a Scrum methodology. Softwire ran regular sessions with the end users, at which the latest release was demo-ed to the users, and users’ suggested corrections and enhancements collected. Softwire then liaised with the Telegraph Media Group Product Owner to decide development priorities, incorporating user feedback. This methodology allowed Softwire and Telegraph Media Group to adapt the software to meet emerging requirements and allow end user input into functional decisions.
The planning, commissioning and payment system was architected as a web application with a central web service accessed via the Windows WCF API. Technologies used included C# .NET 4.0, MVC 2, SQL Server 2008, Microsoft Entity Framework, Migrator.net and Microsoft Silverlight.
The web application was integrated with Telegraph Media Group’s existing publishing systems, via a web services interface. The system was tested via continuous unit testing and end of sprint system testing.
The end result was a well-featured, robust, flexible and extensible product, produced on time and within budget. Telegraph Media Group have now engaged Softwire for a second phase to extend the original system.
Customer testimonial
“Using Softwire as a key development partner has accelerated our ability to deliver an enterprise quality solution to our staff. By supplying both off site and on site staff Softwire gained a significant insight into our processes and delivered a superior, user-centric system. ”
Toby Wright, CTO, Telegraph Media Group.
Spring Digital