Challenge
A key goal of the plugin was to provide a tool that could quickly gather data from multiple sources in an accessible way, giving it an edge over other market solutions that may otherwise prove to be cumbersome, unwieldy or overwhelming to the average user. As a result, NorthLink’s development of the product needed to reflect this ethos in terms of its usability.
Solution
NorthLink would follow the specification outlined by the client closely in order to achieve the deliverables they had been engaged to develop for the WordPress plugin.
The plugin would add the necessary tables to an existing MySQL database upon its installation. The plugin would then extract data from roughly 60 data points (across 2,500 US companies), sourced from Xignite’sRESTful API, and pull that information into the MySQL database.
Additional industry information is then sourced from numerous Google Sheets workbooks. This information can then be listed for viewing or used for additional calculations (such as finding the enterprise value of a particular company).
This information is then made accessible to users through a web-based UI, which consists of a singular input that provides search features and guidance to minimise friction between the user and application.
The information itself is then displayed through the pages of the client’s proprietary WordPress application. It is then styled using a Bootstrap framework to format and arrange the pages of data, with additional data (such as news stories referencing a particular company) being embedded into the page from their respective sources.
The result is an accessible, rapid-delivery plugin that offers up-to-date, timestamped business information based on user/client needs, with multiple levels of security (provided by WordPress, Google and server authentication) ensuring that the application is safe, swift and secure throughout its deployment and use by the client.
Technology Stack
- Bootstrap
- Google Sheets
- MySQL
- PHP
- RESTful APIs (Xignite)
- WordPress (Plugins)
- XAMPP (Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl)