Social Networking for Attorneys website with directory listings and account management features. Micro site with Yellow pages for legal people

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Case Study
Counsel Edge

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Client Requirement
 Counsel Edge portal is a web application which will serve as a valuable platform to
attorneys.
 Attorneys will facilitate with their own account management from where they can
track status of their transaction.
 In order to incentivize the attorneys to use our service, the portal offers them a
website/micro-site.
 Main network portal will allow the users/visitors to browse the attorney’s directories
and directly contact them.
The web portal has three main users:
Visitor
 Visitor of the site can view access to all those functionalities which do not require
authentication.
 Visitor can view main network portal as well as professional’s micro site.
Registered Users
 Registered users (non-professionals) of the site can view and access all those
functionalities which are available after authentication on the portal.
Attorneys
 Attorneys are the main actor of the site.
 They can be referred as individual or customer.
Project Challenges
Team faced the following challenges:
 Developing application in PHP platform.
 Developing Counsel Edge portal functionality as per the client’s requirement.
 Developing Counsel Edge (Main Website), Network Portal, Professional/Individual
Website, Professional/Administrative area and Global Administrative area forms came
as a challenge.
 Generating Authentication.

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Technologies Used
Manpower
Planning
Keeping in mind the enormous structure of the website and the challenges involved a
four-tier development approach was adopted consisting of:
 The Database layer containing MySQL Server Database, Tables, Stored Procedures and so on.
 The Interface layer and Database Abstraction layer for converting data between the
incompatible type systems in databases and accessing data from the database respectively.
 The Business Logic layer consisting of all the business logic procedures for modules.
 The User Interface layer which forms the Graphical User Interface of the website.
Operating System &
Server Management
Red Hat Linux OS, Multi-Server Architecture with Staging &
Production Environment through Version Controlling releases, Server
Optimization, Security & SSL Implementation, Scheduler for Back-ups,
Alert Monitoring System Integration, Server Performance Tuning at
regular intervals, Software Firewall Configuration & Maintenance
Development Tools &
Environments
PHP5+, WPF, LAMP, Apache Web Server, HTML, CSS, Java Script,
AJAX etc.
Database MYSQL Database Server, DB Clustering, DB Optimization, Master
Slave Replication, Query Optimization, Scheduler for Backups
Project Leader 1
Developers 2
Designers 2
Quality Assurance Testers 1

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Architecture
The Counsel Edge portal is built around PHP and the modules were developed in such a fashion
that they can be executed directly from the UI layer. The PHP files consisted of all the business
logics used for respective modules like Save (Add/Update), Delete, Get Single Object, Get
Multiple Objects for Listing etc. and were designed to be capable of handling many more logics
which were not related to the database. In order to most effectively access the database in an
object-oriented context, an interface translating the object logic to the relational logic was used
to communicate with the relational databases in an object-oriented manner.
An intermediary abstraction layer was created for accessing data from the database. Stored
procedures were used only for complex retrieval of data from multiple tables and were entirely
avoided with conditional syntax to ensure smooth performance of the website. The UI layer was
kept free of any business logic with images, applications and data being called from their
respective servers.
Development Highlights
The site was equipped with a robust architecture to offer centralized access for numerous users.
Extensive pre-development research was carried out to make the entire database compatible.
SEO activities performed ensured high visibility for the site over the internet. Web usability
guidelines were strictly followed during development and the interface was made easily
navigable through judicious use of AJAX, CSS and HTML controls.