SharePoint Public Website Development for a US Marine Technology Company
Summary
A US marine-technology group of more than 20 companies needed a single public website to showcase its full range of high-tech products and services and let customers find items and reach the sales team quickly — all within a tight three-week window. INNERLUXES deployed SharePoint as the content management system, implemented the supplied design responsively, and added the custom pieces that made the deadline achievable: a PowerShell import of 600+ products from Excel, a multi-image uploader, and a search tuned for 30+ properties per item. The content-driven website launched on time.
About the Client
The direct Client is a US-based Internet marketing agency specializing in SEO, conversion rate optimization, web development, and design. The end client is a US-headquartered group of companies that design and build a wide range of high-tech products for oceanographic research, marine transportation, offshore energy, water resources, defense, and more.
One Website for 20+ Companies, in Three Weeks
The end client needed a main website to bring together and showcase all the product lines, equipment, and services of the 20+ companies in the group, so customers could quickly find comprehensive product information and contact the sales team for a consultation. The Client supplied the website design to implement and asked for a powerful content management system filled with well-structured, detailed descriptions of every product and service, available on both desktop and mobile — to be completed in only three weeks.
SharePoint CMS Plus the Custom Pieces That Hit the Deadline
The Client chose SharePoint for its strong content management and search capabilities, and INNERLUXES was commissioned to deploy it as the CMS, implement the design, and make it responsive. Given the strict timeline, the team used SharePoint's out-of-the-box content management features and then concentrated custom development where it mattered most:
- Bulk product import — custom Windows PowerShell scripts imported the entire set of product and service descriptions from multiple MS Excel files into SharePoint lists in just two days.
- Multiple picture uploader — a custom component for the new/edit item page enabled simultaneous image uploads from SharePoint libraries and file folders.
- Customized search — tuned to let users quickly find the right equipment or service among more than 600 items, each with 30+ properties.
- Fast front-end via CSOM — the team used the client-side object model to build the front end quickly without sacrificing quality, dramatically reducing development time.
Special attention went to design: the team customized a master page and more than ten internal pages covering the group, corporate news, and equipment and services sorted by market segment, product line, and functionality, with a "contact us" button on each item for instant consultation requests. In the final stage, INNERLUXES adapted the desktop site to mobile devices and used a managed metadata service to create clean, pretty URLs for all pages.
A Content-Driven Website Delivered On Time
- INNERLUXES completed the project within the specified three-week timeframe.
- The Client received a full-fledged, content-driven website that aggregates all the important information in one place.
- Visitors can find the relevant services or equipment faster and contact a sales representative directly.
Technologies and Tools
SharePoint 2013, MS SQL Server 2013, Windows PowerShell, JavaScript, jQuery, HTML, CSS.