http://www.businessclub.ihg.com
Objectives of the site
The IHG business club website is a member based website, where people responsible for booking hotels can earn loyalty points by booking hotels within the IHG hotels group.
Members of the site can log bookings, which result in points being added to their account. Points can then be redeemed for vouchers for various high street chains.
The website is designed for a global audience, and is translated into over 8 languages.
Points management is achieved through a third party secure Travel Loyalty System, which is accessed through a SOAP interface.
Using Drupal to meet the ojectives
Drupal is an ideal cms for any member based website, it's off the shelf user management, translation, and content management meet the basic requirements of the site.
Custom Modules
The IHG member website has very specific business led requirements; drupal is ideal for adding bespoke functionality which does not naturally fit within the out of the box functionalities of drupal.
Many of the functions are critical to the website and cannot fail, therefore failsafe mechanisms can be used to email account managers to evaluate member data.
Managing Content Workflow
In most projects, the flow of content has differing requirements. For a website with over 8 languages, this is of particular importance. A custom drupal module was used to enable content managers to edit and preview content on one site, and then approve it, which will copy the content to the live public facing website.
Drupal training and support
During the development of this site, I trained other developers in specific areas of drupal which were necessary for the project, such as translation mechanisms, user profiles, and using jQuery with drupal.
Once developed, this website was supported by an offshore support team. In order for this to happen, many skype conference calls were used, in conjunction with documentation, to ensure a comprehensive knowledge transfer.
