Challenge
The SCAND team has received the task from the customer to develop a module to integrate a gaming platform and SugarCRM and enable the elements of gamification. As the amount of the information to gather and transmit is significant, the main requirement for the development of the module was to prevent it from slowing down the work of the SugarCRM platform. The required functionality of the module covers:
- registration and transfer of data from the gaming platform concerning the users’ actions;
- receipt and display of users’ gaming statistics;
- convenient and quick module installation. Special skills on the level of SugarCRM platform administration shall not be required.
Approach
An inbuilt mechanism of the SugarCRM platform, Logic Hooks, was used to register the users’ events. It allows expanding the functionality of the platform by subscribing to the system events (e.g., account creation, going through the list of accounts, etc.) and by implementing our own handler for these events.
JobQueue, an inbuilt mechanism of the SugarCRM platform, was used to store the registered events and transfer them to the customer’s gaming server. It is a convenient mechanism to store tasks with the opportunity to add a separate handler for each. The use of JobQueue lets us separate the working logic of the gaming server API from the logic of the event registration. This minimized the probability of the module slowing the platform. The task handler was subjected to realize the interaction logic of the gaming platform API and enable the events transfer to the gaming server.
To visualize the gaming statistics, the SCAND developers chose a convenient mechanism to add additional dashlets to the SugarCRM platform. This action lets users gather individual dashboards with gaming data.
Description
The SugarCRM platform has a range of integrated mechanisms to cope with the task set. The use of these mechanisms reduces the development time and provides a convenient tool to expand the capabilities of the platform.
In particular, a manager of the gaming platform could create various tasks based on the data received from SugarCRM (users’ activity). For the tasks fulfilled, a user got a reward, f.e., an extra vacation day for 10 sales.
So, the gaming statistics displayed current ratings of users, their rewards, open tasks, and other information that motivated employees who worked with SugarCRM to deal with the tasks thus increasing productivity.
Additional API endpoints were implemented to provide the interaction between the gaming platform and dashlets.
The SugarCRM platform has a convenient mechanism of additional modules integration called ModuleLoader. This mechanism allows the upload of the archive with module source files and a manifest file that contains the settings for module installation.
Result
Lightweight and outperforming integration module for a gaming platform and the SugarCRM system.
The SCAND web development department created a lightweight and outperforming integration module for a gaming platform and the SugarCRM system. The module intensified the work of the employees due to the gamification elements implemented. This solution helps to spark interest and increase the motivation of SugarCRM platform users. In such conditions, the increased motivation is an important factor to lure the customers and retain the existing ones in the company.
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