Sector(s)
Team Members
Project Team
Product owners
Product Lead: Craig Paulnock
Marketing Director: Nathan Hippenmeyer
UX Director: Ben McCoy
Personify Manager: Peg Schmoll
Personify Manager: Terri Kruger
Personify data consultant: Soujanya Gudur
Product team
Lead architect: Andrii Podanenko
Team Lead: Dima Danylevskyi
Backend Developer: Vladislav Sadretdinov
Frontend Developer: Lera Shuklina
Project Manager: Dmytro Lavrinenko
QA Engineer: Denys Filatov
Visit the site
Visit the siteOrganizations Involved
Community contributions
Collection and categorization by filters all Activity services;
Quick opportunity to get all the necessary information about more than
15000 activities on the website;
Fully accessible applications for customers;
Reducing the load on the Customer Service Center;
Possibility to check free spots and register online;
Increase online sales by web.
Product History
Activity Finder is a product that has come a long way. It was created by a group of professionals from IT Care and YMCA of the North. And the period of its improvement from the initial form to the last update takes almost 3 years.
Why so long? And what path has the Activity Finder taken to be the way we can see it now?
The first thing the development team encountered was the procedure of obtaining data from Personify CRM. The fact is that products didn't plan to be displayed outside of Personify CRM web experience. This is a secure database with clear security rules.
To get the necessary data from Personify CRM, the developers created an endpoint API, and this is what allowed them to get products and move on. But again there was a problem: a large number of products and services, that were organized randomly and not convenient for end-user usage. And here the problem of categorization arose.
Categorizing products takes a lot of time and effort. CRM managers were involved in this. A group of people who had access to the products through card sorting was able to distribute the products on 2 levels.
UX investigation via trials and errors of e-commerce system helped to create Activity Finder Version 2 and Version 3. They got a more accessible interface for customers. Those Versions had a lot in common, they look almost the same. But behind them stand a lot of work around fonts, buttons, layout changes, interface polishing, and accessibility improvements.
About the project
How to find Activities for your kids or the whole family that can fit your schedules?
To call the Gym, Camps, Pools, or Sports sections? But if there is a way to find it via a few clicks? Just fill up the filters about age, free day/time, nearest locations, and activities, which your family prefers, and here we go – the list with all free spaces in front of you!
Activity Finder is designed for YMCA customers to find Family activities, Group training, Certifications, Lifeguard training, Overnight camps, Swimming and Aquatics, and a lot of other services.
But how do collect more than 15000 activities in different locations, and at different times? And how to make sure, that all activities will have free spots, so the customers can get register and get the service? That was a very good task for developers and businesses.
The Task
The developers had a complex task: to take information about each service from Personify CRM database and add filters such as age, day/time, location, and activities. Then make sure that the information is full and relevant (it should be regularly updated with the latest data). Also, there was a need to introduce a full-text keyword search (it was made via Search API Solr).
Features
Activity Finder has an accessible menu to find activities for kids and families. The customers can choose age, needed day and time, nearest location, and preferred activities.
The schedule will help to choose a free day and time which was confirmed by customers as easy to use. Also, the user can select one or more locations that are nearby.
Why Drupal was chosen
As the main marketing website on YMCA of the North runs on Drupal and Open Y distribution, it has been chosen for development. Drupal provides quality and flexibility.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
Open Y distribution with the Activity Finder module was used as a foundation.
Search API Solr was used to provide a full-text keyword search.
OpenY Activity Finder Personify Products Analyzer helps to analyze data and check the products in Personify.
Cron configuration:
Synchronization of the latest product information and availability from Personify CRM is running regularly once in 4 hours to ensure that customers can choose from the updated products list. To ensure correct availability is displayed there is a secondary Syncer that updates only availability.
QA tests:
Activity Finder All Steps Tests were created to ensure correct running via the home page, menu, age, data, locations, activities, and register. This is needed to ensure data from external sources is synchronized properly without hiccups.
