Located in rural Australia, 4G connectivity, Wi-Fi, power and traffic flow (both foot and vehicle) were technical concerns to address at the outset, if this project was to succeed. High traffic flow was a safety priority for the Willinga Park, where the entrance is serviced by a single lane road, terminating at the entrance gate.
A fast, error resilient application able to handle poor connectivity were benchmark acceptance criteria for this project. Other concerns were:
“way+bu made the mobile component of this project smooth and simple”
We knew a straight Salesforce solution would not meet our internal acceptance criteria or our clients. Inherently a ticketing system requires a messaging service, opposed to traditional Post/Request/Response network architecture. Ticket validation needed to be answered instantly, and the only way to meet these standards was to implement a messaging service, which Salesforce isn't designed for. We proposed an intermediary and Soda Strategic built the integration from the ticketing system in Salesforce to a Google Cloud Platform, which delivered ticket status updates instantly across all connected devices.
The CAG-Ticket Scanning application was delivered for testing a full month ahead of schedule. Scanning on site at the event exceeded our internal expectations and met all acceptance criteria. In the field, scanning, validating tickets and displaying information was blindingly fast. Reports from users expressed appreciation for the extended battery life, removing the need to carry juggle a portable power device while scanning.
Internet access at the entrance gate was reliable, offering continuous Wi-Fi. This ensured devices running the CAG-Ticket Scanning application remained constantly synced. In the field, we noticed only one or two scanners were used at any given time and no reports of error were cited from the 2000 tickets scanned for this event.