Our development workflow
The development workflow and tools we have adopted allow our team to consistently deliver stable, secure and high performing code that is tested and built in accordance with the latest best practices.
Development Environment Setup
We currently have in place an efficient and robust development workflow based on industry-standard solutions, which has significantly increased the delivery speed for shipping new work for a number of our clients.
Version Control
We use the distributed version control system Git, along with the GitFlow branching model, to provide both a full audit trail and to facilitate multiple concurrent streams of development work on the same project/platform.
When work is completed through a hotfix or feature branch, an internal technical QA process is undertaken before being merged into the main development branch for client review.
Continuous Integration
We also use the Continuous Integration solution Jenkins to automate deployments for all projects. In addition to providing a secondary audit trail for deployments and a very fast deployment and reversal system, Jenkins provides a further layer of Quality Assurance testing.
In particular, as part of the deployment task, Jenkins runs static code analysis against the codebase to confirm adherence both to Magento and general PHP coding standards.
Front-end Development
We employ a frontend workflow which focuses on optimisation and task automation. This comprises the use of Gulp, the JavaScript task runner which facilitates a modular frontend development process and helps us to automate processes such as the compilation and minification of styles and JavaScript assets, in addition to image optimisation. This pre-processing of assets as part of the frontend development process means we can ensure that assets on the live site are fully optimised and have the least possible impact on the site’s loading speed. Our frontend Gulp processes are integrated into our Build Server’s deployment process for each environment (Test, Staging, Production).
SixBySix provided a full integration between Magento and the Tesco direct marketplace, which has allowed us to trade successfully on the Tesco website and fulfil Tesco orders from our warehouse management system via Magento. They have also assisted integrations with our warehouse software Exchequer, several payment gateways, marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay and finance services such as V12 and Pay4Later.Scott Beveridge
Powerhouse Fitness
Key Projects
OrderFlow
A bespoke integration into RealTimeDespatch’s Flagship OrderFlow Warehouse Management System. Our Magento Module provides support for the full order lifecycle with real time catalogue, inventory, order, and shipment updates.
Tesco Integration
As part of a diverse range of work which we provided for Powerhouse Fitness in order to aid their web team on CRO efforts to enable integrations with marketplaces, gateways and ERP systems where no existing solutions were available, we built from scratch what we believe is the first full integration between Magento and the Tesco Direct marketplace through which Powerhouse are successfully trading.
TLOGS
A project to refactor, and consolidate the functionality from similar versions of a stand alone business critical reporting application into a single portable Magento module that could be utilised across all EWM Ecommerce brands.
In addition to the consolidation of the applications logic, custom reporting, and notification frameworks were layered into the module to provide EWM with full visibility of the complete transaction log lifecycle - from log creation within Magento to log integration into EWM’s ERP System.
PSL Dropship
For this project, we were tasked with developing the functionality to enable EWM to sell Jane Norman branded products via their Peacocks Ecommerce website.
After initial analysis of the problem, and definition of business logic with the client, a decision was made to build upon the functionality of our existing OrderFlow module.
We worked closely with both EWM, and RealTimeDespatch to ensure our solution provided full support for multi channel pick, pack, and dispatch, including splitting of orders based on their contents, and integration of inventory, order, and shipment notifications to, and from multiple OrderFlow instances.
Full visibility of the Dropship process was provided via custom interfaces within the Magento Admin Panel.
Omnico Loyalty Points.
A bespoke integration from Jaeger’s Magento Ecommerce website into OmniCo’s Loyalty Points Platform. This project provided Jaeger customers with the ability to make online purchases via their loyalty points balances.
Extending the native Magento Enterprise Edition Customer Balance functionality we worked closely with OmniCo to ensure customer credit balances were synchronised, updated, and refunded across the full order lifecycle including cancellations and refunds via an external REST API.
In addition to the backend development, Jaeger’s custom checkout was extended to permit customers to apply partial, and full loyalty points balances to their purchases - functionality that is not supported out of the box by Magento’s Enterprise Customer Balance Module.
Prior to launch we assisted Jaeger with ensuring that 86k customer records with loyalty points balances were synchronised, and up to date.
Special Price Scheduler
This module provides the Merchant with a tool to manage product special price adjustments, automate price adjustments via a scheduling system, and reindex affected products to ensure accurate pricing. The module allows for special prices to be imported via CSV to update multiple products instantaneously at the start and end of a scheduled time period.
The benefit provided is that the Merchant can preplan price adjustments, using a simple interface, and schedule the execution in advance.
Promotional Flag Manager
This module allows the Merchant to upload and assign promotion images, known as flags, to products in Magento. These flags are displayed on products in the product list template (as seen on Category pages, Search Results, and Related products).
Multiple promotion flags can be assigned to a product, with the ability to specify a visible date range, and z-index position.
Promotion flags can also be uploaded in CSV format via an import interface.
Improved control over faceted navigation
Magento allows the merchant to control an attribute’s presence in facetted navigation. This module builds on this logic and provides further control, allowing the merchant to control attribute presence at a category level. Some additional spill is required for this… something along the lines of improving the customers journey by providing a tailored group of filters for each category
Flexecash Payment Gateway
Flexecash (Love2Shop) is the UK’s number 1 multi-retailer gift card and voucher. We integrated with the Flexecash platform to allow users to spend using the Flexecash cards. Customers are able to perform balance enquiries, and receive refunds via the native Magento credit memo system
