Project Manager for RoweCom

Client

Rowecom (recently acquired by Divine Inc.) has a range of service offerings that focus on collaboration, interaction, and content management technologies.

Roles

Project Manager
System Architect

Technology

Active Server Pages (ASP)		Microsoft SQL Server 7.0
COM		Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 (VB)
DCOM		Microsoft Visual Interdev
Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)		Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (VSS)
Microsoft Site Server 3.0		XML

Project Description

One of Rowecom's service offerings is an Internet-based application called kStore. This application was built in response to Rowecom's goal of selling books and journals not just to consumers, but also to corporations. Rowecom expanded on the idea of selling books and journals by focusing on providing corporate clients with features like centralized subscription management; company specific product lists; and corporate payment options.

Unlike some of the other clients I have worked with, Rowecom was an established business with its own team of developers. However, these developers lacked the web development skills needed to create the application they had in mind. They also did not have any graphic designers in house to assist with the creation of the user interface. As the project manager, I coordinated the efforts of Rowecom's developers and the third-party web developers and graphic designers. My primary goal was to make sure everyone had the information they needed when they needed it so that they could get their job done. This included meeting with Rowecom management on and offsite, documenting requests, setting timelines, ensuring that site components were fully tested, and presenting portions of the site as they were completed.

The following paragraphs describe some of the features of the kStore site.

The product list page (right, top) shows the products in the Medical Technology sub-subject. All of Rowecom's products are organized in to a hierarchy of subjects. This makes it easier to find items of interest. Notice that users can add the item to their shopping cart or to a wish list. A wish list allows a user to save items they are interested in between sessions.

Although a seemingly simple idea, the wish list caused quite a bit of contention with everyone having an idea about how a wish list should work. Fearing that we would go around in circles I took it upon myself to gather all the suggestions and then identify the pros and cons of each suggestion. At the same time I remained

conscious of the possibility that an improperly presented argument could put someone on the defensive which would have made it next to impossible to reach an agreement.

Common to most e-commerce sites is the concept of a shopping cart (right, middle)). Rowecom's vision of a shopping cart has many familiar aspects, but there are also corporate specific features such as billing codes and department fields. This site also implements an address book so that administrative personnel can order items for members of their department and have the order shipped with that employee's name to that employee's address.

The address book thumbnail (right, bottom) shows what the address book mentioned above looks like. Users have the option of having their address appear in another user's shopping cart or not. This allows users to maintain private addresses e.g. for home delivery.

Addresses and user information are provided by Rowecom's corporate clients in an electronic format which is parsed and imported in to the application. This allows the corporations to determine the format for usernames and passwords as well as to ensure that unauthorized people are not able to charge orders against the company.