BI Dashboard for Van Genechten
Van Genechten Packaging is a company that creates packaging for companies like Duracell and McDonalds. They employ over 1500 people across multiple countries and therefore require a huge digital infrastructure.
All employees have access to the in-house developed BI (Business Intelligence) where they can submit, follow and monitor requests. A request can be any task, process or action inside the company.
The system was originally developed in Java and was not targeted towards mobile and intranet use. To access it additional software had to be installed. Not all workflows were as easy as they once were. That's why Van Genechten asked us to build a web-based dashboard for their BI system.
Key objectives
- Mobile first
- Built on top of Joomla
- Application look-and-feel
- Location, device and internet connection independent
- Easy to use and extend
What we did
The system was built on top of Joomla using our own in-house developed Joomlatools Framework. This allowed us to build on a solid system but still have all the flexibility we need while developing.
We used Twitter Bootstrap as a base layer for styling and interface interaction. On top of that sits a custom theme to make the intranet both pixel perfect and user-friendly. Because the whole intranet is being built with a mobile first strategy in mind it works on every device straight from the browser.
First, we wrote a PostgreSQL component that sits as a lightweight layer between the internal company database and the actual Joomla installation, which is fine-tuned for use with MySQL.
We also built a Vagrant box so developers from inside the company can easily follow-up and work on the system themselves. The box contains a basic web application stack, composed out of Nginx, PHP-FPM and MySQL.
Working remotely
Additionally, we created a lightweight example version of the company’s internal PostgreSQL database and emulated their application API using Mocky, an easy-to-use http mocking server.
This allowed us to develop locally with all the elements that are to be used in production. Without having to be physically connected to the company's internal network.
