Projects
eCommerce for the Swiss Pharmacy Union
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Project overview
The Swiss pharmacist professional association
For Ofac, the professional association for Swiss pharmacists, we developed a shop that delivers medicines from more than a thousand (330 active) medical shops throughout the whole of Switzerland. Every canton in Switzerland had its own rules but we built a system that gathered them all under one roof and made it for general use.
The idea and the goal of the project was to connect more than a thousand different pharmacies all over Switzerland’s cantons into one central system in order to offer patients an online shopping experience & reservation of their medications. Through this central system, both patients & pharmacists could also access e-prescriptions. By connecting all the pharmacies into one central system, it was considerably easier for pharmacies/pharmacists to administer their daily tasks, as well as for patients which now had a central point for all what they need. This central system works both for B2B & B2C. The initial goal was to connect 1000+ pharmacies, of which more than 300+ are currently connected (this phase was obstructed due to the Covid-19 situation).
The development phase started with 2 months of exploring the Elastic Path platform and its features. We had to learn the ins and outs of its functionalities and the way it operates. After the gap analysis was finished, we defined a list of functionalities that had to be additionally developed – those which weren’t predefined by the platform.
Most important work included primarily the development of the cart (enabling customers to put the products in the cart) and checkout system integration with e-prescription module, in order to check the rights of the patients for ordering medications and complete the buying process. In order to deliver one integrated solution, we had to collaborate with 2 teams from different countries in different time zones which had overlapping development tasks. Although we encountered many challenges, we overall proved to be very successful.
The project features: we did work on the Elastic Path (e-commerce platform), and on the frontend (React, Typescript), complex integrations, OAUTH.
How does it look
Challenge
Ofac Abilis
Technical challenge – to learn the ins and outs of the Elastic Path eCommerce platform which we never used, quickly adapt to it (under two months), and become productive. The even bigger challenge was solving the complex crossword of integrating various different components into an integrated solution.
The organizational challenge was the coordination of a multinational distributed team. with different time zones & overlapping development tasks.
Project Highlights
1
Health & Pharma Expert
2
Software Architect
2
Senior Software Developer
2
Junior Software Developer
1
Project Manager
Services Provided
- Dedicated Team Extension
- Custom Software Development
- MVP Clickable Prototype
- UI/UX Design
- Quality Engineering
Technologies Used
- Java
- Spring
- Angular
- React
- AWS/Kubernetes
- ElasticPath (e-commerce platform)
Methodologies Applied
- Agile
- Scrum
Benefits
The flexible team
Ofac’s Abilis was ready to roll out – a whole new digital health platform offering innovative services designed to make pharmacist’s work and patient’s lives easier.
Our excellence was proven in integrating various components of the system (e.g. Elastic Path into existing microservices, warehouse quantity checks, Datatrans payment gateway) into the final product and getting the user used to looking at it as a whole.
We provided a flexible team that quickly grasped the concepts of the platform. Our past knowledge of e-commerce and platforms in use proved really helpful.
Our team brought great methodological knowledge, Agile/Scrum teams were well prepared and could provide valuable advice during the development processes. Domain knowledge, especially about the processes in the pharma, as well as an understanding of how the information about the medicaments is structured also proved very useful.
How does it look
Client Testimonial
“The cooperation with Notch was characterized by a high level of technical excellence and a high degree of independence within the scope of our guidelines. In Notch we found a trustworthy and reliable partner that delivers cost-effective IT solutions.”
Independent Swiss IT company supporting digital transformations. With 50 years of history and over 1300 specialists, they offer a broad spectrum of experience, skills and technical innovations to support digitization.
No. 1 company in Switzerland on Netzwoche Digitalranking 2019 and 2020.
Outcome
Total cooperation period
20
Months
Total number
40+
Sprints completed
Our flexible team quickly grasped the concepts of the platform, and managed all the project challenges.
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