Technology
Services - Website Development
Metropolitan Cemeteries
Board - Web Development
The Metropolitan Cemeteries Board’s Funeral Webcasting
Service – the first of its kind in Australia – won
a Silver Award in the 2003
Government Technology Productivity Awards presented in Sydney on 16 September 2003.
Introduced in September 2002, Funeral
Webcasting is available
from chapels at Karrakatta Cemetery and Pinnaroo Valley Memorial
Park and uses video streaming technology to transmit funerals
over the world-wide web in “real time” and on demand
for 30 days after. DVD and/or VHS recordings are also available.
The service was developed in conjunction with Working Systems
Professional Services Division, who supplied project management
services for this exciting initiative.
The technology includes three video cameras in each chapel,
each with full pan, tilt and zoom, as well as having up to
99 pre-programmable positions. Audio is fed into an audio mixer
from each chapel’s sound system, along with feeds from
choir microphones. The video/audio feeds are then sent to a
powerful video workstation, which encodes the inputs into a
streaming media format.
Live feeds from the Chapels are sent via LAN/WAN to the Board’s
web server, where the streaming media server software then
serves the webcast to the Internet Service Provider (and thus
to the Internet) via a high-speed fibre optic link.
Many people around Australia and over four continents have
now viewed funerals of loved ones, and feedback from families
has been excellent.
The Board has now made this technology available to funeral
directors and other cemetery operators in Australia, enabling
them to provide video recordings of funerals for on-demand
Internet transmission via the Board’s own infrastructure.
The system has also been used recently to webcast citizenship
ceremonies held by a local government council in Perth.
Accepting the award, Peter D. MacLean PSM, CEO of the Metropolitan
Cemeteries Board, said the development of the webcasting service
had been associated with some initial risk and uncertainty.
“
When we first embarked on this project, the concept of a Funeral
Webcasting service was novel and as yet untested in Australia,” Mr.
MacLean said. “But ultimately we believed in the value
of a service that would unite people in bereavement, and the
public has rewarded us by taking up this service from the very
first week it was offered.”
Shown accepting the award
are (left to right) Peter D. MacLean PSM, CEO of the Metropolitan
Cemeteries Board, and Clive Hodgson
of Working Systems Solutions.
Other awards received for
the Funeral Webcasting project include being Finalists in the
AIIA's
iAwards 2004 and the
2002 Western
Australian Information Technology and Telecommunications
Awards (WAITTA).
The Board's websites also provide the following innovative
facilities which were developed by Working Systems:-
Singapore
Airlines - Singapore ticketing site
Working Systems was employed
to develop the Singapore Airlines Sales division's Web site
(Promotions, e-holidays and mailing lists). This development
occurred in phases:
- Phase 1 - Airfare database
and site redesign
- Phase 2 - Mailing list and integrated
promotions
- Phase 3 - Holiday package online
booking
- Phase 4 - Complete redesign in Java/Oracle.
The main objective of the website was to minimise the information
gathering effort for the consumers and the architecture was
driven by simplifying the decision making process based around
destination and price.
The site was designed and developed
using a catalogue-type approach driven by a database of fares.
It was essential
to enable intuitive remote control capabilities so that
the content of the site could be frequently changed. Comprehensive
Web-enabled administration consoles were provided so
that the client had total control over creation, categorisation,
attributes and reporting of all airfares in the system.
In essence, the project demonstrates Working Systems
ability to:
Design and implement complex database structures (the
Airfare database alone held over 60 tables)
- Design and implement functionally-rich Web-based
solution in a multi-tiered environment
- Project manage high-profile
initiatives involving many stakeholders with contrasting
objectives.
The project scope was to increase the number of on-line ticketing
sales in the Singaporean market.
What we delivered was:
An innovative, airfare-centric, Web site
- A fully integrated promotional campaign to direct
visitors to the web site
- Narrow-casting mailing list feature
The number one priority was to create the building block of
the solution: the Web site. The objective of the site was to
minimise the information gathering effort for the consumers.
Given that the two main elements driving decision-making
in the purchasing of air tickets are a) the destination and
b) the price, these two elements were to drive the overall
architecture of the site.
Despite the well-known fact that it is difficult to grab
the attention of on-line users for more than a couple of
seconds, traditional airline sites seem to make it particularly
difficult to obtain the necessary information driving purchasing
decision (i.e. price and destination availability).
It was therefore decided that the content of the new site
needed to be price-driven so that it would deliver real value
to users and stand out from the competition.
The site was designed and developed using a catalogue-type
approach driven by a database of fares. Remembering that
'Content is King', it was essential to enable intuitive remote
control capabilities so that the content of the site could
be frequently changed.
Comprehensive Web-enabled administration consoles were provided
so that the client had total control over creation, categorisation,
attributes and reporting of all airfares in the system. For
example, the administration consoles allow for modifying
ranking orders of regions and destinations, total control
over published information such as airfare conditions and
where an airfare should be published.
Finally, given the exposure of the site, the technology needed
to be extremely robust, reliable and scalable. The system
was deployed on clustered servers running on a Microsoft
environment (Windows Server, Active Server Pages and SQL
Server).
Designing and deploying a world-class site was by no means
sufficient to meet the ultimate brief of increasing on-line
ticketing sales. Thanks to Working Systems multidisciplinary
skills, an integrated communication strategy was devised
to invite visitors to using the redesigned site.
The objective was to not only build up traffic, but also
build up sustainable momentum and retain visitors' information
for future narrow casting.
In today's Web environment, it is essential to deliver value
for a click. Capturing information explicitly (i.e. with
the visitor's knowledge and approval) is increasingly difficult,
not mentioning capturing correct information.
The challenges were addressed cost-effectively with three
promotional campaigns and the creation of a new branding
identify for the Web site.
Subsequently, Singapore Airlines revamped their global website.
This application was the only incumbent application to remain
and was also promoted to their worldwide home page.
South Australian Lotteries Commission
Working Systems were selected by the South Australian Lotteries
Commission to design, develop, implement and support their
corporate website. The scope of this project included all of
the following service:
- Design and development of
the database, the application and the website
- Design of
the navigation style and structure
- Monitoring of the
application performance
- Content management functions
- Maintenance
and enhancements to the website
- Unit and integration
testing for each module and system testing
- Acceptance
tests and handover to the client
- User training on the
administration side of the application (website)
- Help-Desk
establishment
- Support.
This website needed to provide multiple levels of information
and interaction from visitors viewing to the playing of online
trial games and a membership system to allow access to additional
information. The ability of Agents to access database information
was also a requirement.
Key features of the site include “how-to-play” information,
frequently drawn numbers, up-to-date Keno results and a service
for automatically e-mailing draw results and dividends to registered
customers.
The website was designed to be database
driven, and automatically handles the upload of games results
for many different types
of games and lotteries. Components of Working Systems e-switch" middleware
technology were embedded in the application to automate these
transfers.
From a website design perspective,
Working Systems performed all the graphical design for the “look and feel” of
the website, and produced a dynamic, content rich site with
considerable “stickiness”. Currently, Working Systems
provide all maintenance services for this website.
The website is the public face of the
SALC, and is extensively accessed for its games results.
As such, its success has been
very important to the SALC’s corporate information delivery
strategy. As an indication of the importance of the site, over
500,000 visits were recorded in the 2002/2003 financial year,
an increase of 200,000 over the previous year.
The results
of this project can be seen at http://www.salotteries.sa.gov.au. Subsequently, Working Systems were also chosen to design,
construct and maintain a website for the World Lotteries Association
Congress 2002, which was successfully hosted by the SALC in
November 2002.
This website, which made extensive and dynamic use of Macromedia
Flash content, was operational during and for some time after
the Conference. It had a range of information for interstate
and overseas visitors, including registration, event information,
tourism features and interactive games designed to familiarise
overseas visitors with the Australian lifestyle and idiom.
|
