An Appealing Queue
Management System for Aarong
Project
Overview
Role
Management System Development
Client
S-Tech Bangladesh
Completed On
2019
The
Project
Aarong is a Bangladeshi store brand that specializes in ethnic apparel and handicrafts. It is owned by a non-profit development organization, called Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC). Aarong is Bangladesh's most successful lifestyle retail chain, selling ethical products since 1978. It was founded as a simple way to help rural craftspeople climb beyond poverty. It presently has twenty-one locations nationwide.
Dcastalia, a top software development company in Bangladesh, partnered with S-tech Limited to develop a robust management system for Aarong. The objective of the project was to increase the productivity and efficiency of the management team.
This queue management system was developed for in-house meeting management and report generation purposes. Aarong’s designers meet with interested vendors around the country, who are skilled at knitting traditional apparel and creating decorative pottery that can cater to the taste of Aarong customers, through trendsetting lifestyle products.
The queue management system was designed to ensure organized documentation and coordination of vendor meetings.
scope of
work
- Software Development
- System Architecture
- Maintenance
Dcastalia is known for its creativity, technical expertise, and attention to detail. Our objective was to tailor a management system that would provide Aarong with the optimum level of utility in terms of use and would match their requirements perfectly.
Aarong required a fast and smooth operating system to manage their daily operations. In building the system, we had to ensure the system was user-friendly with attractive features. To plan the project, our first step was to conduct thorough research and analysis on the usability of the management system and then strategize an aesthetic UI/UX design and development.
Technologies
Aarong required a fast and smooth operating system to manage their daily operations. In building the system, we had to ensure the system was user-friendly with attractive features. To plan the project, our first step was to conduct thorough research and analysis on the usability of the management system and then strategize an aesthetic UI / UX design and development.
Core
Features
Kiosk Machine
Kiosk machines are automated booths that elevate operational efficiency and customer experience. It is one of the most unique and crucial features in the system to manage the vendors efficiently.
The development for the kiosk machine was customized as per the client's requirement and was designed to be easily used by everyone. Vendors are required to input their phone numbers on the screen and the system calculates the waiting time and provides a printed token with a serial number. An OTP is also sent to the vendor’s phone to confirm their serial number.
Uniquely Designed
Interface
As a top software development company in Bangladesh, Dcastalia is reputed to match a system’s design and development with the client’s requirements as closely as possible. For the Aarong queue management system, it was essential to build an attractive and easy-to-understand user interface, and the customizations were done as per the client’s preferences.
The system was thus designed with functionality and ease of navigation being the top priority to meet the client’s objectives. Moreover, a well defined user-interface was an essential feature to represent the culture and theme of Aarong as a top notch ethnic lifestyle brand in Bangladesh.
Tab Management
A connecting tab was developed for the system to allow the designers to ensure the vendor's serial number on the tokens. Through this process, the management is able to validate the meeting time between the designers and the vendors and confirm the attendance of both parties.
The tab was allocated to the designers for verification and record management. So, when the vendors attend the meeting, designers verify their serial number by scanning the token in the tab. Therefore, once the meeting started, a timer would initiate, logging the meeting time in the system along with the vendor’s information.
Admin Panel
An admin panel was developed to manage the meeting process with the vendors and designers.
The admin panel is an essential feature of Aarong’s queue management system. The admin has access to the vendor's and designers' details and meeting agenda. When a designer is unavailable for a scheduled meeting, they have the authority to easily forward the vendors to available designers and conduct the meeting. Moreover, they have access to the complete overview of the team and meeting reports as well.
Generating Report
An efficient management system holds a summary of all tasks and is able to generate reports based on selected parameters. In essence, it allows a complete overview of information to the company and enables them to generate evaluation reports.
Report generation was one of the core features the clients wanted and it was designed to add value to Aarong’s work process. The report shows the details of average meeting hours, the numbers of canceled meetings, and the vendors that were transferred to other designers. Moreover, the system generates a performance report of the designers as well.
Challenges &
Our Approach
Real-Time
Notification
The biggest challenge was to send out accurate notifications to the admin, designers, and vendors. PHP’s framework does not support real-time notification, hence we needed to choose a different method to make it work.
Our Approach
To resolve the issues of sending out real-time notifications between the users, we implemented the usage of Socket.IO. This is a library that allows a client and a server to communicate in a low-latency, bidirectional, and event-based manner. Therefore, it allowed us to connect all three applications to the system and send out notifications whenever a meeting is called, set, or canceled.
Printing Token
Issue
The kiosk machine was developed for the vendors that allowed them to choose a service and designer they wanted to showcase their work to and take orders. After selecting the preferences, it would print out a token with its serial number. In printing out multiple tokens the system was unable to process the request and fell in error and required immediate correction.
Our Approach
We figured out the programming errors that posed a challenge to resolve the kiosk machine’s printing issue. The issue was identified as the use of an old version of Electron.Js’s library, which did not support the action we were trying to achieve. Hence, we updated the library with the new version and determined a solution to the token printing issue.
Cloud
Hosting
The system is required to be hosted from a cloud hosting which is an in-house server run by the client. This caused a lack of functionalities that are commonly found on popular cloud hosting servers AWS, Digital Ocean etc. and needed to be resolved.
Our Approach
Since, the cloud hosting was on the client’s server Due to being run on their custom server, the cloud hosting lacked a number of important features that we usually find on the common cloud hosting services. But in this case, we had to implement all those features ourselves like firewall, servers, and DNS in order for the hosting server to run properly. This was quite challenging for us, but our fast learning and technologically sound workforce solved this problem with success.
SYSTEM