A Web Platform to Help Spread Mental Health Awareness

Startups and smaller companies often choose to start building their digital presence with online website builders. Those are cost-effective and relatively easy to use, even for people who have no technical experience. However, while such web pages can be utilitarian in the beginning, as the business grows and becomes more successful, the limitations website builders have may slow down said growth.That is exactly the problem our client had to face. The constructor they used to create their website didn’t provide many options for automatization (in terms of user management, social media cross-posting, content management, etc.), and had problems with blog and authentication functionality.Many tasks that could have been performed automatically in a custom solution were performed manually by our client’s team members, which brought productivity down. Moreover, regular technical issues couldn’t be resolved promptly as our client didn’t have full control over the platform (e.g. server-side functionality, third-party integrations, etc.). All of that put our client’s brand success at risk because it made access to their unique mental health training methodology difficult for the customers.Essentially, such drawbacks can be prevented with custom software development, which for many companies, is the next logical step in building a sustainable digital presence.

To offer our client the fastest time-to-market paired with all the necessary system customization, Light IT Global developed a bespoke platform that includes a wide variety of third-party integrations aimed to take care of specific tasks (e.g. Xero and Stripe as payment options, Amazon S3 for content storage, MailChimp for email management, etc.)At the same time, custom logic and application data are processed via a back-end API (implemented in PHP and Laravel). The data is saved in MySQL DBMS. The client side, in its turn, is developed using React, which offers a variety of benefits, including reduced likelihood of errors due to declarative syntax, easy UI development, and real-time user interface updates when it's necessary.As the training platform’s functionality is interconnected with media files (pdf docs, audio, video, etc.), the project required a smart approach to data storage. For this reason, we’ve utilized Amazon S3 cloud-based object storage service. It gives business owners an opportunity to store and retrieve an unlimited amount of data while simultaneously avoiding the bottleneck problem (limited server network bandwidth) when multiple users are simultaneously watching video materials via the platform.The following combination of technologies allowed Light IT Global to develop robust custom software that meets all of our client’s business needs while averting problems common for Edtech solutions.

A revamped platform is a modern fail-safe web application built with users’ comfort and security in mind. The solution is custom and created with our client’s business specific in mind, so any kind of necessary changes can be made easily.The application provides visitors with relevant information about the company and useful media resources. There also are five different access levels that offer different user rights and different functionality:

The platform is built in such a way that upon completion of the registration process, the user is redirected to the internal use portal that matches their user role. Depending on the access level, the users can perform the following actions:

Back-office tasks like user and content management, record keeping, reporting, invoicing, and others were fully automated and didn’t require manual work from the company’s staff as it was prior to the custom training platform development.The solution is utilized both as an independent training resource and as an additional digital tool that augments face-to-face mental health coaching conducted by our client’s company.

At the end of the development stage, our customer received a fully custom web solution that perfectly meets all the company’s business needs. The platform is flexible, scalable, and secure. Its introduction led to a visible productivity boost as many tasks, such as invoicing, notifications, and user management, were fully automated. Consequently, our client’s employees now have more time to focus on delivering high-class mental health training for businesses across the UK and around the world.The participants have particularly noted that the new system is extremely intuitive and easy to work with. The customer satisfaction rate and client retention have also drastically improved.100+ businesses have already received mental health and wellbeing training from our client. Examples include Swansea University, Maidstone Museum, Doctors Without Borders, Cardiff University, British Airways, and more.