Process Flow to Build your Website and or Portal using information from SaaSplications

Building a website or portal into the SaaSplications system gets you closer to customers, employees and business partners, reducing friction and noise and getting people to enter the information themselves.

It is a straightforward exercise using JavaScript SDK that can be used in webpages and wordpress sites.

Thoughts on starting a website project

It is common that at the start of a website project - nobody knows exactly what will be built - such uncertainty leads to:

Some things not considered initially will require unexpected work
Some things initially required will be dropped and reduce the work

These are the steps to follow in the process and in order.

Step	Item	Discussion
Assemble the Team
1	Choose a Web Designer	The web designer will determine the colours, images, branding, flows of screens and overall customer experience with you. They are likely to build the screens and the flows. The design is likely to evolve as decisions are made and testing occurs so the designer is likely needed involved until after go live.
2	Choose a Web Developer	The web developer will make the website work by connecting the fields to the data and decide where the data will come from. Anonymous users may not use our data store - but may use a website data store refreshed regularly from our system. A Web Developer would build this data store. Logged in users will use information from our system and hence the rules in our system about how to treat different customers differently. A web developer will "wire up" the fields to our system so the data required comes from our system at the time it is needed. Images may come from our system - or may be in a website data store Website developers can normally build screens to a layout provided by a Web Designer A Website developer is likely to recommend improvements or changes that are required because of the data. For example availability may depend on the quantity being ordered. The SaaSplications SDK will simplify the work required for a developer
3	Customer Sponsor	The customer sponsor will be required to make or facilitate decisions as they arise and will be the person from the company that will sign off on the design
4	SaaSplications lead	Responsible for co-ordinating SaaSplications resources with requirements
High level Design
5	Design the flows required	Wireframes are required. Basically rough sketches of every screen and every step on every screen that will be required. We recommend the online tool MyBalsamiq ( https://balsamiq.com/buy/#myb ) to do this as it allows wireframes of every screen required to be created where a very cheap online account can be created and shared for a price in the order of USD$12 per month. Build an interactive example here where you can click around as though the website was completed.
6	Discuss the designed flows with SaaSplications in detail	The structure of the system may require data be captured in a particular order - this may require that the screen flow be changed in some areas. Capabilities you require may not currently exist in the system and need to be created - this may involve some cost.
Do not start building until you have reviewed the design with SaaSplications - it is critical that the flows you have designed can be supported by the SaaSplications System.
Starting building and testing
7.1	Start Building the Website	The website overall structure is normally required before data from SaaSplications is required We recommend building the main flow involving SaaSplications from start to finish step by step.
7.2	Start adding fields that will take information from SaaSplications	Add the fields on the screen in the proposed layouts SaaSplications can also provide field labels - for example a project order may display "Project Number" instead of "Order Number" as the label. The initial build will be connected to the SaaSplications test system
7.3	Request information from SaaSplications	When the web developer needs information from SaaSplications - he needs to provide to SaaSplications : The requests that will be sent The response that is required + may need to discuss the screens and information examples SaaSplications will then build the code to respond to the request being made - this may involve some cost.
7.4	Test the information provided by SaaSplications	This is a primary reason for building a flow from start to finish. In order to test as you build (and evolve as you go) the business process needs to go from start to the point you are up to in order to do testing as you go.
7.5	Ask for changes etc.	When the web developer needs changes from SaaSplications - he needs to provide to SaaSplications : The requests that will be sent The current response being received The new response that is required highlighting changes and examples SaaSplications will then change the code - this may involve some cost.
7.6	Test Test Test	Testing is best carried out by multiple people - starting with team members then key users and then some external users with feedback going back into the design
Go Live
8	Change DNS, install Security Certificates, create a Live site in addition to a test site	The result will be two websites with two different URL's. One connected to SaaSplications Live and one connected to SaaSplications Test.
9	Review feedback and outstanding items	It is common to get feedback from early uses that results in changes It is common that a list of items that were delayed are either implemented after go live or dropped. Note that any item that is not implemented within 3 months of go live is likely not needed.