Blue Atlas Portfolio
Quick Links to Examples
Strategy
& Consulting
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Office of Weights and Measures (OWM) retained Blue Atlas to assist in charting
a strategic plan for the integration of current and future Internet-related
technologies. OWM was not, at the time, using the Internet for any of its
day-to-day business. OWM management mandated that the department begin to
take advantage of Internet opportunities. Due to technology and budget constraints,
OWM required a phased implementation approach for adopting Internet technologies
in a methodical and cost-effective manner.
Blue Atlas provided consulting services to develop the best approach for OWM. Working in close partnership with OWM management, the Blue Atlas team facilitated a comprehensive needs assessment and analysis of OWM’s functional requirements. With this information agreed upon, Blue Atlas was able to develop a "blueprint" for how the Internet could be used as an effective tool to meet the needs and requirements. A formal strategy report was produced for OWM which provided the necessary information required to move forward with the development of RFPs and budget forecasts.
Online Memberships
Maryland Public Television (MPT), a public broadcasting organization, is dedicated
to providing superior service to its membership. During 2001, MPT initiated
development of a new and enhanced Web presence. The new mpt.org site was designed
to be more valuable to the MPT audience by highlighting programming information
and bringing services to the Web. MPT retained Blue Atlas to design and develop
a new component for mpt.org -- an application to enable online memberships.
Blue Atlas developed MPT's online membership application to meet the needs
of both the front-end users and the back-end administrators:
- Join online as a new member.
- Pledge online and choose a "thank you" gift.
- Modify membership account information online.
- Process membership/pledge payments online.
- Automated e-mail confirmations.
- Administrative report functionality.
- Administrative utilities to enable seamless update of membership/pledge information.
The online membership application enables organizations to more effectively recruit and retain membership.
Online Surveys
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has frequently sponsored traditional
(paper-based) surveys and had a satisfying relationship with an outside vendor,
Office Remedies, Inc. (ORI), to manage mailed survey campaigns. However, APA
determined that a coordinated approach using both traditional and online surveys
would provide a better response rate and would meet the needs of more survey
respondents. As a partner of ORI, Blue Atlas was invited to design, develop
and integrate an online survey to mirror the paper-based survey.
ORI had investigated several web survey vendors that offer online survey services. However, it was determined that these companies could not offer enough customization of their product to meet APA's scientific requirements. Blue Atlas met with APA to fully understand the goals of the survey and to determine all functional requirements of the project. The online survey was developed to support:
- Secure login to ensure confidentiality.
- Processing of multiple question types.
- Automated validation of responses.
- Automated confirmation of unanswered questions.
- Automated "skip question" sequencing.
- Automated e-mail confirmation.
- e-mail reminder functionality.
- Administrative utilities to track response rate.
- Integration with APA's legacy database.
Most surveys are unique to their sponsor and a given project. An off-the-shelf solution is rarely able to be readily modified to meet a survey's specific requirements. A customized survey will better ensure that accurate and valid responses are collected.
e-Commerce
Thinkport is an innovative online portal designed to meet the information
needs of Maryland's education community -- teachers, parents and daycare providers.
The Thinkport application provides information on lesson planning, career planning,
community events, online training, etc.
Blue Atlas designed, developed and integrated
an e-commerce system to process online payments for the training courses. The e-commerce
application transparently integrates with Thinkport's existing online catalog. The system
supports:
In addition, Blue Atlas also developed advanced reporting functionality to
enable Thinkport administrators to track data by event, date, purchaser, etc.
Content Management
& Delivery
The International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) is the federal parent organization
of Voice of America, WorldNet Television and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting.
The IBB is responsible for publishing all program scheduling information for
the broadcast units. To provide more accurate, real-time information, IBB
contracted with Blue Atlas to design, develop and integrate a legacy broadcast
program scheduling application to a dynamic, interactive Web service to deliver
accurate program scheduling information to viewers around the world.
To determine the optimal solution, Blue Atlas worked closely with the vendor of the legacy application. This project required Blue Atlas to:
- determine the most effective development approach.
- complete required programming and scripting.
- perform integration and testing.
- establish a security model for publishing content from an existing database to a public Web server.