INTELLECT: Second technical meeting in Vienna

On 12.-14 April the second technical meeting in the project INTELLECT took place in Vienna. The second meeting was located completely in the character of the specification of the module interfaces, which are used in the INTELLECT Shop. All partners, which are entrusted with the technical conception, were present. There were the actual INTELLECT user too, which stated their own request in detail again.

Specification of the modules

On the first day the pending Deliverables was discussed, on the entire second day the in-terfaces and modules of INTELLECT were discussed in a 12 hours session. It came to the following final result of the specifications:

• The e-shop can have two definitions depending on the point of view:
  - from the user point of view, the e-shop is the place which describe the products and which allows ordering them,
  - from the developer point of view, it is the infrastructure that defines all the functions required to run the shop and interact with the customer.
• The configuration module (or configurator) is the module in charge of defining the possible configurations of products. All the products are assumed as configurable products. The configurator also contains a set of pre-configured product that can be modified by the user or ordered as it is. To avoid inconsistency, the customer never start configuring an empty product; he has to select a pre-configured product, and then he can change some components or their properties.
• The 3D module can be assumed as an interface to the configuration module. It shows a 3D view of the pre-configured product and allows its configuration. When the user selects a component of the product, the 3D module ask the configurator for the possible modifications and allows the user to choose one of them. Excepted few cases where the configurator has the possibility to directly adapt a pre-configured product for a customer (changing the size for example), the customer must go into the 3D module to configure its product.
• The help desk allows the customer to communicate with an assistant. When the customer needs help, he can ask for help, and is put in relation with an assistant who gives him some information according to his situation and needs.
• The order-processing module is the link between the shop and the back-office system. It can check if a product or a component is available, and proceed the order. It gives the customer a confirmation.

Database application The e-shop contains only one central database containing all data, in which every module could access without any rule. The partner OptiNet/WWL is responsible for the database design, because the e-shop can be assumed as an interface between the product and the customer, so it is more relevant that the database belongs to the e-shop than to another module even if the configurator needs also to access very often to the database. Finally, the database will be divided into several parts. Each module will be in charge of one part of the database, according to its special needs, the other modules cannot access this part of the database directly; they have to ask the responsible module for the information it contains.

The database contains two data types:
- the customer information contains all the data relative to the customers (registration information, size, weight, previous orders…);
- and the product information contains all the data relative to the products and components (prices, multimedia data, 3D representation…).

The database can be divided into seven parts, as shown in the following diagram:

The functionality of the total system will determine the data exchanged between the different modules. The data exchanged between two modules can be from five types:

• The customer data is the responsibility of the e-shop. If another product needs it, it has to ask the e-shop.
• The product key is a reference to the product.
• The component list is a list of components that makes up a product.
• The possible components/features is a list given by the configurator that can change a component or its attributes.
• The availability data or back-office data are checked by the order-processing module and send to the help-desk or to the configurator.

The 3D-Interface communicates with the e-Shop by the product configuration key and receives the data of the customer. Thereby the product configuration data can be also transmitted to the Help Desk. The e-Shop is likewise in a position to access direct the Help Desk system and to help the customer with the product configuration. On this way also customer data is transmitted to the Help Desk system. The 3D-Interface exchanges itself however with the configuration module very strongly, regarding component list, product configuration, possible component/features and customer data.

Also the configuration module is very strongly merged into the order processing, which appends to the Back Office System. In this area customer data, Back Office data, component/features and component lists were exchanged. The configuration module is likewise merged into the Help Desk system. Within this area component lists and product configurations are exchanged. The Back Office attributes were transmitted by order processing to the Help Desk system. The e-Shop forwards product configuration data and the customer data to all modules.

General operation functions of the Modules

E-shop

• Navigation
• Basket
• Catalogue (product information and comments)
• Customer registration
• Personalisation
• Localisation
• Indexed search
• Secure communications
• User Interface for payment
• Multimedia presentations
• General user interface
• User behaviour analyses
• Administration
• News and customisable community issues (low priority)

Configurator

• Serving interfaces
• attributes calculation

Order-processing module

• Back-office systems integration
• Order status maintenance
• Payment
• Administration
• Communication with customers/suppliers
• Availability information
• Workflow control
• Order archive (clean configurator)

Help-desk

• Communication (chat, voice over IP, video conference)
• Browser mirroring/synchronising
• Shared workspace
• Help-desk agent user interface
• Incident logging

3D Module

• Navigation (zoom, rotate, predefined point of view)
• Change component (add, delete only if allowed by the configurator)
• Add/delete avatar
• Play (avatar) simulation
• Display non 3D information (general description of components)
• Call basket functions
• Save/delete configuration

User demands

On the third day in Vienna the user demands of the individual partners of INTELLECT were discussed. It was determined that it concerns three different scenarios, which will increase the expenditure of work in the project.

table 1: User demands of the INTELLECT-User

The next important steps made in the INTELLECT project will be to combine these different and to make a detailed software/module specification. Up to the next meeting in June there is a lot of work to do. In summary all users of the technical meetings in Vienna were satisfied of the results of working and a real project team was formed, which wants to achieve a common, positive result of the project.