We created an online platform for a hotel chain to make a process of booking conference rooms easier
Events is a web-based platform for booking conference rooms and ordinary rooms of a British hotel chain with an administrative panel for employees.
6 months
of the project work
3 main
areas of development
300 hotels
with rooms for booking
Task
It was necessary to create a platform for booking rooms and conference rooms for a chain of British hotels.
Hotel managers needed to automate this process. For example, to enable a system, but not people, to control the congestion of rooms.
The service was also supposed to help potential guests simplify the search and booking process for a suitable hotel or conference room.
Solution
We have created a web platform with a landing page, a booking system and an administrative panel for working with requests.
On the landing page, hotel clients can book a hall or room for an event. To do this, you need to go through a simple registration, select a city, hotel and requested dates. The history of reservations is available in your personal account.
The hotel management sees the requests, their details and payment status in the administrative panel.
Development Process
We began diving into the project in the fall of 2018 and the development of the first version took only six months. After the pandemic, development has paused, but we continue to implement new ideas from the client.
Most of the work on the project took place within our team: we received a vision and wishes for the result from the customer, independently drew up a detailed technical specification with references and comments, agreed to them and proceeded with development.
The work was carried out within three areas: the development of a landing page, the creation of the Best Fit booking system and the design of the administrative panel. Design was also made by us. As a result, backend and frontend developers, a designer, testers and a project manager were involved.
We handed over the project in stages: we made a block - we agreed to it. So we stayed in touch with the customer, showing intermediate results. And they could also immediately understand what was missing or what was done incorrectly, but not in the final, when it would be too late to introduce amendments.
The Hardest Part
The development itself wasn’t difficult. We finished it in six months, launched the service and continued the development of the project. Due to the covid, the development has stopped, but from time to time the customer comes back with new ideas for improvements. But this is a long-standing project - if some information on it has not been documented, it is difficult to be recovered.
Our conclusions
We usually involve an analyst to describe new requirements in detail before the development stage. So that developers and testers do not have to ask questions about reasons why something in the system works the way it does. Everything is described in the Technical Specifications.
Now we pay even more attention to the documentation of all points, so that new team members can more easily dive into future projects, and the former team can quickly remember what they worked on, introduce new features or make edits.
Technology Stack
Language: PHP
Framework: YII2
Database: MySQL
UI: ReactRabbitMQCustomer direct speech
Results
We implemented the admin panel in PHP, YII2 framework. The interface was made in React. We created a landing page with a form for choosing a city, a hotel, an ability to specify the details such as the number of participants in the event and a personal account where data on previous bookings is stored - it works with the Best Fit system, which also was developed by our team.
In the bookings section of the administrative panel, you can see the details of each order: the name of the applicant, the amount to be paid, the style of the selected room etc. In hotel cards, users can activate or deactivate the visibility of the hotel for potential guests on the landing page. There is a base of customers who have ever made an order through a landing page.
The customer can choose the type of event on the landing page: wedding, holiday or conference. The system will offer to specify the details and select additional services depending on the choice. The administrator will receive maximum information for further work with the client, and it will be saved in the panel board.
