Customer Case Study - Harris

Background

Harris, an international communications and information technology company headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, required a redesign of the website for their Public Safety and Professional Communications Division and re-build the existing IT services website using Tridion®

As Harris was an existing SDL Tridion® user, it was an obvious choice that the redesign and implementation would be done on the SDL Tridion® platform. At that stage Harris was still using SDL Tridion® 5.3, and the decision was made to postpone any platform upgrades until after the major projects for 2010 were completed.

Amakozi Technologies was contracted for the project, and it was decided that the project would be done partly on site at Harris HQ, and partly offshore from Amakozi’s offices in South Africa.

First Project: Harris PS&PC website

Although the project was conducted using standard technologies to conform to Harris’s architecture at the time (.asp pages, VBScript, SQL Server back end etc.), there was one caveat: There was a fixed end date that could not be moved. Harris wanted to launch the new website at an upcoming trade show, and time was therefore of the essence.

The Amakozi Technologies team was involved right from the start: in the discovery and design process, compiling a Functional and Technical Design document, building the solution, assisting with implementation and training the end users. During the offshore (build) phase of the project, the Amakozi Technologies team was in regular communication with their counterparts at Harris, and code drops were done as soon as a new piece of functionality was completed, so that testing could be done by Harris.

Amakozi Technologies worked closely with the Harris IT department and business SME’s to achieve the desired result – on time and below budget.

Second Project: Harris IT Services website

The resounding success of the PS&PC project prompted Harris to entrust Amakozi Technologies with a second project. Harris’ IT Services website needed to be migrated to SDL Tridion®. It was a straight one-to-one migration, with no redesign. As with the previous project, it was decided to split this project into on-site and offshore phases.

The Amakozi Technologies team advised Harris to move towards newer technology in SDL Tridion®, e.g. compound templating and this was done with great success.

For a second time, Amakozi Technologies managed to deliver at Harris within time and budget.

Third Project: Upgrade to SDL Tridion® version 2009 SP1

As planned before the PS&PC and IT Services projects, the SDL Tridion ® installation was upgraded to version 2009 SP1

It took four days to upgrade the entire SDL Tridion® installation at Harris, and perform all regression testing on the existing websites implemented on the platform.

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