Sigma Infosolutions developed a robust Liferay-based portal for an online business network in the environmental sector, aimed at enhancing collaboration among suppliers, buyers, and organizations. The portal, completed in three months, offers features such as a knowledge repository, resource filtering, and internationalization, and integrates seamlessly with a third-party ad server for revenue generation. The project was delivered on schedule despite initial challenges with a previous vendor and compatibility issues with the ad server.

1. www.sigmainfo.net
Rapid Liferay-Based Portal Development for an
Online Business Network in the Environmental Sector

2. The Client
The client runs an online business network that singularly focuses
on bringing together various players like suppliers, buyers,
manufacturers, government and private organizations, research
institutes, and educators in the environmental sector. They cover
various topics including air quality, water quality, land quality, energy
efficiency/conservation, environmental assessment, environmental
engineering, natural resources, and urban planning across North,
Central, and South America and the Caribbean. Through this business
network they envision to promote innovation in environmental
policies and technologies through information exchange and trade.
Business Case
Since, the portal is a combination of knowledge repository,
professional and business networking, and a discussion platform; the
client wanted to have a robust Content Management System (CMS)
along with collaboration features. They wanted a CMS that would
help them organize and display various knowledge pieces by topic,
author, and access-level. The client wanted a portal that extends
flexibility and ease-of-administration. With this vision they partnered
with Sigma Infosolutions.
Challenges
Since, the previous vendor had failed to deliver the web portal as per
the client’s expectations, it was a challenge for Sigma Infoslolutions’
team to showcase its expertise and win the client’s confidence.
The other challenge was to automate different access controls to
showcase knowledge articles, news, and other benefits based on
the kind of member logged-in (individual or a company) and the
information the member is entitled for.
One of the major sources of revenue for any online portal is built
on online advertisements. Therefore, it was imperative for Sigma
Infosolutions team to ensure that the portal seamlessly supports
text, HTML, and image based advertisements on the third party ad
serving server – OpenX.
Executive Summary
Withanextensiveexpertiseon
Liferay and web technologies,
Sigma Infosolutions quickly
built a comprehensive portal
for an online environmental
business network. This
portal allows collaborators
and members to not only
exchange information in the
environmental sector but
also evaluate various business
opportunities and build a
trustworthy network. It
consolidates various points of
user access, reduces manual
intervention, and provides
consistent interactivity.
sales@sigmainfo.net

3. The Solution
Sigma Infosolutions had existing technology skills and project
management processes for this portal development project. The
team leveraged its expertise on Liferay and other web technologies
to develop and test the portal from scratch in just 3 months.
The portal was a central point of access for thought articles, news,
documents, business opportunities, and connecting with other
professionals in the same sector.
Apart from architecting a comprehensive theme for the portal, some
of the key features developed for the portal are:
1. Asset Publisher Portlet: Enables the client to showcase
thought articles by various topics like air quality, water quality,
land quality, energy efficiency/conservation, environmental
assessment, environmental engineering, natural resources,
and urban planning.
2. Filtration: A feature that ensures display of articles by
premium, paid, and unpaid order depending on the role-based
access granted to the site user.
3. Internationalization: A one click toggle between two
languages: English and Spanish, to aid usability for the site
user.
4. Sigma Infosolutions integrated the portal with a third party
ad server called OpenX to build a strong revenue channel of
digital advertisements.
Technology
Sigma Infosolutions used the
following technology for this
project:
• Liferay portal development
environment (EXT and plug-
in environment)
• XAMPP 1.7.2 server
• OpenX 2.8.5
• Java 1.6
• MySQL 5.1
• Eclispe IDE
Business Benefits
The client enjoyed the following
business benefits:
• End-to-end portal
development with zero
deviation on effort and
schedule
• A trusted off-shore
technology partner for
future development
www.sigmainfo.net
Also, just at the completion of the project, the client wanted to
upgrade the ad server to the latest version. The latest version of
ad server was incompatible with the XAMPP server’s version in use,
which resulted in significant data loss. And therefore, the entire CMS
system had to be upgraded to seamlessly support OpenX’s latest
version. However, Sigma Infosolutions team ensured that the project
still rolls-out on the pre-decided delivery date.

4. Sigma Infosolutions LLC-USA, California
2082 Michelson Dr.
Suite 100
Irvine, CA 92612
Telephone: (714) 717-1826
Fax: (866) 405-6750
Toll Free No.: 1-888-861-7360
Sigma Infosolutions Ltd.-India,Bangalore
Sigma Towers
#66/A, 13th Cross
6th Main, JP Nagar
3rd Phase, Bangalore- 560078
Telephone: +91-80-40865100
About Sigma Infosolutions
• Sigma Group, an Indian conglomerate has more than 4 decades of experience in Mining, Chemicals Manufacturing &
Export, Handicrafts Manufacturing & Export, and Software Development
• Sigma Infosolutions is a TUV certified ISO 9001:2008 & ISO 27001:2005 company
• Headquartered in US with presence in India
• Some of our esteemed customers include Airtel, Zyme Solutions, Yodlee, Celerity Consulting, Resolution Economics,
Birla Global Asset Finance, Fosroc Chemicals, Surgery Planet etc.
• Sigma Infosolutions’ services comprises of application development, application management, IT consulting, offshore
testing, and website and portal development
Home page of the portal
End-to-end portal development with zero deviation on
effort and schedule
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