Lodisus

The project

Lodisus is an e-commerce multi-collections platform with a CMS. The business owner behind this project bring new and used objects to the market, the need of being able to search, sort and filter was the priority ; the idea was also to have a centralised tool to visualize his inventory, to show visibility, to sell his products, etc, also other ideas for future updates like a place for his personal collection.

My work

Every inch of this project is tailor-made, from code to design, while going through the project study and engineering.

Training course and technological watch

• Self-taught training of the best development practice, followed by regular self-questionning
• Regular technological watch to learn and understand what is changing and so what I will have to re-learn

Engineering

• Creation of Decision Trees, to provide procedures to developer
• Creation of Logical Relational Data Model, to provide a Relational Database Management System to developer

Development

• Frontend
• Javascript and Jquery library : DOM and events manipulation ; ajax request method
• Materialize framework : responsive grid manipulation ; various building, style and animation componants
• Backend
• Object oriented PHP MVC architecture : administration CMS (content, discount, customer, order, etc) ; E-commerce shop (product page and listing, customer account, cart, order, etc)
• Laravel Framework : view, controler, blade, route, middleware, csrf, custom validation request, Eloquent request and relation, session, log and error management, file upload and storage, environment file, cookies, cache, authentification, password reinitialisation, hash, pagination, exception, console, collection, helper, mail
• API integration : payment (Vivawallet), shipping (Mondial Relay)
• Database
• SQL MySQL, database creation, join, relation, import, export.
• Laravel Framework : migration, seeding, factory, model.
• Tests
• Manual tests for functionality approvment and bug or vulnerability searching

Server

• Working environment : Development (local, offline, versioned)
• Laravel Artisan : Laravel componants creation (request, rule, controler, mail, model) ; integrated web server
• Working environment : Production and Test (online, protected by htaccess)
• Use of a shared web hosting service (OVH)

UI and UX design

• The project name is Lodisus, because of its pleasant and memorable consonance, taking its origin in the latin words Locus and Paradisus meaning Room of Paradise in reference of the video game world.
• IA use for illustration generation (Open AI DALL-E)
• Creation of tailor-made templates for frontend integration
• UI and UX design thinking and optimisation

Project management

• Customer care
• Organisation of different types of meeting
• Brainstorming : to discuss about the client needs and to propose solutions via technical specifications redaction, its extensions and reviews.
• Presentation : to show new functionality.
• Test and Bug : to discuss about the customer request to have access to a preview during the alpha phase of the development.
• Negociation, to discuss again about reviews on which whe do not have yet find an agreement.
• The complexity of this project had been to colaborate with the customer to define his needs together, because of his difficulties to project himself, I have done a research task about his job, then, during the project, I regularly came with new proposition and multiple reviews in order for my development work to match his needs.
• Planning
• Missions planification to lead in order to achieve the project, segmentation into sub-missions to obtain realistic goals
• Bugs and Problems management
• When an undesired bug is detected by the customer, if it is major, then the planning has to be modified in accordance to this new priority
• Documentation and demonstration
• Documentation redaction for the customer and its employees in charge of the application administration, as well as the functionnality demonstration during planned meeting.
• Technical specifications
• Technical specifications redaction to precisly define the project needs, according to the customer financial ressources
• Legal documentation
• Creation, entirely by myself (without pre-defined model) of a contract and a delivery statement

Creation and Implementation of the Database Management System of Lodisus

The realisation of the Lodisus DMS is a crucial step, because it is all about data storage that will be processed by the web application, so it is important for the design to be optimal, both in term of its structure and its relationships.

I planned the following steps : (Project management : Planning)

• I thought about the necessary data for the web application well being, meetings were organised with my client to understand his needs and to propose him a realistic solution focusing on the different data types : data linked to backend operations, contents, users. (Engineering : Research & Project Management : Client Relationship & Project Management : Technical specifications)
• I have created and assembled the puzzle pieces to create the Logical Data Model of Lodisus. (Engineering : Development)
• In order to implement the Logical Data Model, I have set-up 2 working environment : a local server for the development and an online server for tests at first, then it would be used for production. (Server : Set-up & Server : Test)
• Throughout this mission, I asked myself about my methods and the quality of my code, in order to improve my knowledge and pratice, I self-trained and I have made technological watch. (Training Course & Technological Watch)
• About the data production integration, I have used Laravel migrations and Eloquent models, so I have created the database using migrations then I have created models for each tables, including their relationships. (Development : Database)
• Once the implementation was done, the client was able, at his request, to save real data via the tailor-made CMS. But for the other datas such as users or orders, I have used Laravel seeders and factories. (Development : Database)
• The real data usage is done through the differents dedicated controllers that render appropriate views to the user providing him a smooth navigation. (Development : Backend & Development : Frontend)

Creation of the order module, including payment and shipping APIs

I choose to tell the order module creation because, thanks to its complexity, it is interesting to tell and, I hope, to read.

I have planned the next steps : (Project Management : Planning)

• Everything begin by technological watch and self-training to learn and understand used strategy on the market. (Training Course & Technological Watch)
• Multiples external service providers will be necessary for the well being of my e-commerce web application, one for the payment, another one for the shipping. This module is also about various needs like E-mails management to clients and administration employees for orders ; stock management ; different error and success messages to display ; user personal informations check for his order ; templates... Equipped with the research I have done, I have planned a meeting with my client to propose him a way of working and discuss about his service providers choice, the targetted country is France so came with La Poste or Mondial Relay and Stripe or Paypal. The chosen service providers were Mondial Relay and VivaWallet. (Engineering : Research & Project Management : Client relationship & Project Management : Technical Specifications)
• To prepare the developer mission, I have made a decision tree, for the whole process, proposing an easy but not so simple procedure, including various aspects (controlers, middlewares, sessions, database, errors and logs management, e-mail, API). (Engineering : Development)
• At this point, every needed points had been theorically resolved, so now, the real task begin : Making this little world work as one ! From template integration to SQL Eloquent request, including APIs communication and expected errors. (Development : Backend & Development : Frontend & Development : Database)
• The module implementation is now finally done, the test environment is ready, so here is another step to not under-estimate : tests ! I have tried to break the application to locate bugs due to the alpha phase of the development, and so I have applied patchs. (Development : Test)
• Despite the attention I have given to documentate my code during development to ease future update and maintenance by myself or another developer, I have checked et fulfilled it ; then I have planned a presentation meeting with my client to do a demonstration. At this point, he will be able to approve the functionnality or precise his needs via a revision, in accordance with the contract. (Project Management : Client Relationship)