I have recently been discussing with Carsten the need for a use case that illustrates many of the features in the new portal framework. With this in mind I will soon be starting a project to develop just such a use case. The purpose of this mail is twofold:
1) notify the community of this project 2) ask for input on its design in order to ensure that it will fulfil its purpose as an illustrative use case for the portal framework (and possibly some other parts of Cocoon, such as content management)
Project outline ---------------
We aim to build a Tourism portal. It has three major groups of users:
1) tourists planning their own visits to the region who want lots of general tourist info together with commercial entries such as hotels, restaurants, tours etc. These customers may book directly through the portal or via one of the tour operators discussed below (group 2). The information needs of these users change over time, see "why a portal?" below.
2) tour operators organizing package tours to the region will have the same commercial data but will (typically) not have the "information" coplets. This group need to be able to make bookings on flights, at hotels etc.
3) facilities providers/tourist authorities in the region will need the ability to edit content in the document database.
Why a portal? -------------
We are proposing the use of a portal primarily because once a tourist has booked their holidays their information needs change. Consequently, the ability to change the configuration of the screens to show information relevant to the current time is important. For example, in the run up to the holiday they may be interested in general information about the areas they are to visit, whilst on the day of travel they will want to know flight delays and exchange rates, once on holiday they will want weather forecasts, local news, events listings etc.
As you can see, requirements are very loose at present. We don't have any *real* customers to satisfy and so we can really make up anything we want that will create the "wow" factor. (Actually, for completeness, we do have some real customers, they are my MSc ECommerce students, I want them to see how something like this should be done. Hence my desire to have input from the community, I want to get this right so the students can get it right!)
Questions, Questions... -----------------------
How can this use case be expanded/developed to make it an excellent demonstrator of the portal framework and cocoon in general?
Can other parts of Cocoon be showcased within this project (e.g. Lenya
as the CMS for the tourist authorities, the new FOM, a Forms framework)? Of course I don't want this to get too big for me to handle alone, but if there are people working in these areas that would like to coordinate efforts...
Is there anyone willing to help us get this right so that it is worthy of inclusion in the Cocoon distribution as a best practice example?
Shall I keep the project discussions on this list, or should I start a project elsewhere (e.g. SF/Krysalis/CocoonDev) and report back to this list on significant events?
....?
Ross
