Shipping application

Our client is a transportation platform that connects customers (both companies and individuals) with transport services providers or individuals that provide services to facilitate the shipment of goods. This shipping marketplace allows customers to compare suppliers offers from multiple transport providers and choose the most cost-effective and reliable option. The shipping platform offers various transport moving services and shipment categories, from furniture and cars to animals and fragile items. There are also real-time updates on the shipment status, the possibility to rate a transportation services provider, check warranties, and more.

Services:

Industry:

Logistics

Location:

Business Context

Our client is a shipping company developing a car delivery application, which includes features such as job proposals, shipment offers, active job tracking, payment information, reviews, and an admin panel. The application is supported by Venmo for business and Stripe integrations for payment and verification services. The client’s company faced challenges managing courrier services and shipment processes due to a slow and non-scalable legacy on-premises system. Partly system is placed on Digital Ocean, and this disintegration also served our client a lousy service. Our client chose to cooperate with Geniusee as we are a trusted and experienced Amazon partner with various AWS designations in multiple fields and a team of certified AWS experts. We are thrilled with the outcome of this project, and we look forward to deliver more innovative and successful solutions in further iterations based on our implementation plan.

Key challenges:

Conduct a fully-fledge migration of moving company assets from Digital Ocean to AWS;
Provide a CI/CD pipeline-based delivery of transportation services marketplace in a new cloud environment;
Integrate multiple 3d party solutions to ensure secure data management and transactional payment process;
Deliver component-based solutions to make movement on SDLC (software development lifecycle) more straightforward and faster.

Work approach

SCRUM

Our SDLC (software development lifecycle) is based on WBS (work breakdown structure) we approved with a client during the discovery phase. We work with pre-release’s demos and after-sprint retrospectives to evaluate our work and identify areas for improvement. With SCRUM, we can maintain a consistent and iterative approach to development, ensuring that we deliver high-quality products to our clients.
CI/CD pipeline development

The CI/CD development pipeline is a crucial aspect of modern software development. It allows developers to continuously integrate and test code changes, ensuring that the codebase is always working. Through automated testing and deployment processes, the pipeline ensures that code changes are thoroughly tested and deployed to production as quickly and efficiently as possible. This results in a faster time-to-market, higher quality products, and a better user experience.
Component-based approach

Component-based software engineering (CBSE) is a software development approach that emphasizes separating concerns within a software system. CBSE involves the design and development of computer-based systems using reusable software components, which are assembled using a well-defined architecture delivered by Geniusee experts. This approach allowed us to deliver software of a high quality faster and cheaper with an output of systematically reused coarse-grained components.
Focus groups

Our client decided to go with focus groups to ensure the delivery of all necessary functions for the end customers before the complete market release. Through focus group reviews, we identified pain points, usability issues, and feature requests that would be otherwise difficult to uncover. This feedback allowed our developers to make informed decisions about the development of the product and prioritize features that are important to the end users. Ultimately, this resulted in greater customer satisfaction.

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Process

We started our cooperation with a client from a discovery phase to analyze the market, discover competitors’ landscape and establish a business model. The Geniusee team also presented a work breakdown structure (WBS) to plan our collaboration process and collect project requirements.

Besides evident close communication with a client, task, and people management, we cover a significant amount of work during this process. Our project management team leads the change management process, confirms it with a client, conducts ideas and requirements validation, administrates risk register, and creates project road map, RACI matrix, project timeline, and supervises roles and permissions logs.
The main task of the business analysis process is to identify business problems and find ways to fix them. Our client lands an ear on our recommendations and ideas, making our collaboration process more efficient and proactive. Besides that, our business analyst manages backlogs and requirements, components and stakeholders registers, facilitates refinements and planings, handles all necessary project documentation in Confluence, and monitors our plans and approaches list.
The design stage began during the discovery phase when our designers presented blueprints and core flow wireframes. We also presented UI pillars during the I stage and developed them deeper later. Design iterations were conducted every day and discussed with a client. We went through similar platforms to discover how their designs work and understand the user flow and system logic. That allowed us to pick the best solutions and filled us with ideas.
We decided to go with native applications for iOS and Android that are held tightly together with Java at a backend part. One of the main client requirements was to make the shipment application light and fast. Hence, the Geniusee team chose a component-based development approach to make both the transportation platform and the mobile development process easier. After the MVP release, we obtained even more work and features to implement.
DigitalOcean and the legacy on-premises system were not scalable, so multiple difficulties occurred with the shipment process, such as overstocking, frequent stockouts, and increased operational costs. We migrated their inventory management system to the cloud. As a result, the shipment app is scalable and secure. We set up the AWS environment with all the necessary services and tools for the shipment application. The transportation platform was deployed using a CI/CD pipeline, and documentation and training were provided to the client.
As we mentioned previously, the high app, its high performance, and its speed were essential to us. Another way to empower these characteristics was integration with third-party providers. The Geniusee team decided to go with Google Map API for shipment tracking and authorize users with the possibility to choose the most suitable delivery route. We also used Chart.JS based on Java Script as an admin panel.
To guarantee the highest level of project quality, we developed functional and non-functional testing methods. We primarily used manual testing, but we now use automation. Geniusee team automates the testing process by adding autotests for endpoint, end-to-end tests, and unit tests to the functionality. From the beginning, we created test cases and test documentation. Smoke and regression testing, as well as load and performance testing, were utilized frequently.

Project tech stack

The main technological challenge on this project was the delivery of a scalable and protected transportation services internet marketplace, so Geniusee recommended our client complete AWS migration. We used all required AWS tools and services to set up an AWS environment and deployed the app on AWS using CI/CD pipeline.

DevOps:

iOS development:

Android development:

Backend development:

Geniusee team

To ensure the smooth migration of shipment application’s from Digital Ocean to AWS, we allocated our top experts in DevOps engineering and AWS-certified specialists. Geniusee also assigned an experienced team of native application developers.

Product team

Development team

Ivanna

Project manager

Our team took on the challenge of delivering a full-cycle development project, starting from the discovery phase all the way to the MVP release. Geniusee team tackled this challenge with great expertise, leveraging their deep understanding of mobile development and serverless architecture. We used cutting-edge technology and tools to ensure the best performance and user experience. Throughout the project, we maintained close communication with the client to ensure their requirements were being met, and we were able to deliver the MVP within the agreed timeline and budget.
Andriy

Java developer

The transportation services internet marketplace project was a great success, and we are proud to have played a key role in its development. Our team demonstrated their high level of technical skill and project management expertise, delivering a high-quality solution that meets the needs of the client and end-users. The project required the development of two mobile native apps for iOS and Android based on a serverless architecture with Java-based backend solutions. We successfully completed the migration from Digital Ocean to AWS and created a safe and protected environment.

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Features

User roles and profiles
We designed user flow based on competitors’ analysis and came up with a decision to create an app for transport services with two different user roles: customer and transporter. This allowed us to make this online marketplace for transport services intuitively understandable and straightforward. We also provided an admin panel to manage delivery quotes, customer care, and security of the payment process for auto transport services and personal information.
Onboarding process
The onboarding process in apps of car transport companies could sometimes be tiresome and overregulated. To achieve a competitive advantage, we decided to go with interactive and gamified. The most critical processes, such as user verification, are required during registration, yet there are additional steps to ensure the increase of profile credibility. We made sure that the needs of users with different information consumption needs were covered, so created a section with various instruction types such as videos, texts, infographics, etc.
User navigation and filter system
Moving relocation services usually do not require an advanced filtration system. Yet during a deep market analysis, we discovered that end customers prefer to owe multiple choice possibilities. There’s an option to rank a supplier by the number of deliveries, location, type of vehicle, courier quote, parcel delivery quote, average rating, type of car or warranty, types of courier shipping services (type of a parcel, amount, weight, etc.), and more.
Delivery process
Sometimes, end users use vehicle shipping to transport expensive goods. That is why we decided to go with an advanced tracking system with the possibility of checking a courier not only using GPS, by also using photo and video materials to prove that shipment was not damaged during the car shipping process. There’s also a protected in-app messenger, so the user and driver can communicate with each other before, during, and after the transport moving services.
Security assurance
Our client is a new player among car shipping companies that aimed to develop a shipment marketplace to streamline the shipment process for individuals and businesses. From the beginning, we had to ensure the security of two extensive processes in the app: private customer data and shipment transactions. To cut costs and ease the processing of the moving services application, the Geniusee team decided to use the possibilities of 3d party providers using authorized APIs only. We integrated systems that kept essential and sensitive information at their side to fit under legal requirements. We also delivered a multifactor authentication and deployed proper session handling in the delivery service app.
Data analysis and presentation
We decided to use multiple interactive dashboards, ranging them hierarchically in the car delivery app. For example, there are reports about suppliers' activity, such as the number of completed orders, delivery time, rank, reasons for refusals, average price, typical issues if they have ever occurred, and more. The same functionality covers appliers’ activity, yet reviewing mode is limited for usual customers and could be viewed only in the process of shipment services order. The complete information is only available for the admin.