Platform Strategies - Help

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Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications such as Core dna provide access to data from any networked device while making it easier to manage privileges, monitor data use and ensure everyone sees the same information at the same time. You can work with a team in real time without conflicts. 

With the SaaS model, you can customize with point-and-click ease, making the weeks or months it takes to update traditional business software seem hopelessly old-fashioned.

Different from the traditional model, Core dna is a fully managed solution, meaning the application comes fully ready to use and a new website can be up in minutes. This reduces the time spent in installation and configuration and can reduce the issues that can get in the way of the software deployment.

• B2B eCommerce: The definitive guide

A 7-minute overview on deploying to different environments on Core dna.

Video transcription: How to Deploy to Different Environments on Core dna

So in this video we're going to see how development is done on coordinate by front end teams. The coordinate platform is completely decoupled from the UX. So front end development teams can actually build complex front end users lined interactions for customers while being able to use standardized language to talk to Core dna.

I've just logged into an IDE, just a normal IDE. And what you'll notice about this on the left hand side is a structure of how this particular site, this demonstration site that we're working from, is structured.

You'll see that it has assets that are there. It'll have the modules which are the Core dna applications that are being used. It will have a templates directory where we have the base templates. It'll have a template directory which is where the compile templates go.

It may have a web images directory. You'll see the node modules has been installed as we'll be using Gulp in this particular project to build out our JavaScript and we'll have our source JavaScript and then finally we'll have a distribution JavaScript.

So as a developer you can establish your own environment the way you'd like to work on it. And as long as you stay within the standards of the modules directory, the web images and the template directory, then your site should function normally. 

In addition, what you'll also notice down the righthand side here is that this site is connected to the Git repo. And it's a very straightforward approach to once you have either use ours or use your own repo, you're able to look at all the remote branches, all the different branches that have been developed for this website, and you're able to create new branches and check out branches. 

So Core dna has complete integration into Git and offers you the ability to push your changes to a QA environment for testing and then to merge those changes into production. But before you kind of get into the QA environments and pushing to the repos and all that, most developers just want to be able to quickly develop.

  And what Core dna has is a SFTP environment development environment that we've established. And it's very simple to configure. You go down to deployment, you can go down to configure and you can establish your connection to the host. 

You can set up your mappings for how you want the site to map, and you can then establish it as a connection. So really, to deploy to those environments is very simple. You make a change to a site. So I'm going to go into a site here, and I'm going to update this tag here to say Sam was here, and all we do is save. 

And you'll notice that the changes are sent instantaneously to our dev server. And when we look at the environment, we can see here that if we press refresh on the dev environment, all of a sudden now Sam was here on the dev environment, and if we want to remove it, it's a simple case of just removing the content. 

And it will automatically transfer and then just press refresh and the change will be gone. So in this way, developers can quickly create UX's and themes and solutions for their customers in a very localized approach. 

And then when they're ready, they can then push those changes into production. And so we have here the production version of the Media Center and you'll notice that it has a number of similar directories. 

You'll see here is the source files we can return and then we have the all JS files. We then have the modules that are being used and they generally mimic the modules that are here. Now, once a developer is ready to push their changes into testing, they're able to then come to their IDE and do a commit and a push. 

And what happens then is through the use of webhooks, Core dna is able to then apply those changes to the production environment. If we take a longer look at the repo itself, we're able to see that this keeps all the commits that you do. 

And so this hasn't been updated in a number of months, but we can actually go into those commits and have a look at what were the changes, what exactly changed, and if we want to, we can actually back those changes out. 

In addition, we can see all the branches that are currently available and at what progress these branches are in terms of the master branch. So we can actually switch between them. We can also see the pull request that have occurred and so on. 

So all the sites that you work on actually can be found here and you're able to navigate between them. You could do a you can go into a site, clone the site, pull it down, it then becomes available in your IDE, and you can begin work either by doing a deploy to your deploy environment or by doing a commit and push for small changes straight through to your Bitbucket account.  The IDE itself supports the inclusion of Git. It's very simple to set up and also includes the ability to deploy. So as long as your server or your ID can support it, you can then use Core dna to develop out of the box. 

A 15-minute overview of different marketing, eCommerce & intranet solutions that run on Core dna.

Video transcription: Core dna Solutions overview

Welcome to the introduction of Core dna. Over the next few minutes, I'm going to take you through some of the solutions that we've developed on Core dna to give you an insight into the versatility of the platform and also what is possible from one single platform with endless solutions. 

So, starting off, we have of our friends at Nintendo. This is a site that delivers over 200 different assets that drives all the marketing for the business in Australasia. There are many features on this site to go through, but some of the key ones are each of the games gets their own page and for each page it can actually have its own built in site. 

Recently, Nintendo moved into doing some ecommerce from the same site and also provides their customer service and support from here. So anytime someone has some questions they need answer, they can come into the portal and have a look at the questions and answers and also engage with the through a ticketing system. 

Another type of marketing site. It's driven by a company called Seek. This is a very good example of an integrated platform to a master platform. So here the main business that Seek are involved in is job search. 

So this job search environment here is driven by their own platform, their own server farm and their own infrastructure. But anytime you go outside of the job search, you end to coordinate seamlessly. 

And this has been done using. Reverse proxying and our sophisticated infrastructure to be able to easily transition people from one site to another while maintaining the look and feel and also the site credentials. 

Here is another example of a marketing site where we are able to provide content. We're able to provide home designs and more of a B2B offering for people looking for something to showcase their customers. 

Another example here is King and Wilson 100 year old removal company who uses core DNA to drive all their legion. So this site itself not only provides the content marketing, but also provides the quoting engine for people to be able to convert from an inquiry through to the implementation right through to their back end system. 

Coordinate doesn't just do content, but it also can do what we call directories. Frontier is one of the largest, if not the largest, Asia Pacific tour operator who brings concerts and comedy tours and has a database of over 3 million people. 

What we have here is an example of the platform where Frontier is able to showcase each of the events, the venue dates, people can buy tickets, we're able to see some of the videos, some other types of media in terms of music, various packages, and also tour information that people may be interested in. 

All the tours that are currently running are here and what we also have is everything to us stored since the organization started. The challenges with a site like this. Is the spikes in traffic that occur when people are looking to buy their tickets for concerts. 

They all come at once and try to get their ticketing as quickly as possible. Venues to Events is another example of a directory system. And here what we showcase is venue operators, suppliers and wedding operators in one easy to use website. 

We can see here the various search criteria that you can have. You could pick a state. Once you pick a state, you could pick a region, you could pick types of venues you're interested in and then once you find your venue you can just press search and the system will go away and find all the venues. 

Now venue operators have the ability to log into the system and provide updates to their content, to their function information, to image information and provide specials. In addition, all inquiries are actually sent through the venue and are managed through the platform.  This is another example of a similar system and similar implementation. But this is more for restaurants and function venues. So you click on restaurants for a particular city and you can scroll through and see the restaurant. 

And again the venue operators here have the ability to go in and update their imagery and also take bookings and function inquiries. We also do a lot of work for government and so here is an example of a government site in one of the dates of Australia and this is really three sites in one.  

So you can see here we have community health care professionals and health service providers and we can actually switch between them and see the information that's presented. In addition, here they run according to Events platform and people are able to look at events that are up and coming.  And register for them. And in the back end there is the ability for the administrators to administer the system in terms of the event. Another example of a government site more around donations and making people, people aware of what's going on.

Again, they run the events environment and they're able to gather donations. cordine also has a recruitment system built into it for jobs and job search. And this is an example of some of the abilities that we have. 

So you can actually filter through job types and find jobs that are posted here. And candidates can also leave their own resumes and engage with the recruitment company directly. One of the major pillars of the platform outside of content is its ecommerce capabilities and we offer a variety of ecommerce. 

So starting with a consumer ecommerce so this is a good example of a consumer site where people can engage. We have the shopping cart and within the shopping cart we can have hundreds of features including faceted search, a variety of really cool features in terms of making products seamless and easy to engage with and be able to run sort of endless scrolling for those that are interested in it. 

The look and feel of all these sites varies considerably but the majority of everyone runs off the same core platform. So moving along, what we also have is an example of language modification. So typically run over 30 different sites around the world and each one has its own language and products and. 

And eCommerce back end in terms of warehousing and ERP system. In addition, Tivoli also use Core dna to drive their media center. They can select images and then download those images either as a package or as a zip file to be used in their own media. 

It also supports videos and other forms of media like documents and so on. So this is Ego Pharmaceuticals. It's a pharmaceutical provider. 

So these companies require a higher level of security but also a significant ability to offer various standards and documentation for the products that they sell. We also have other customers that are what we call direct-to-consumer clients who manufacture their own products and then have multiple brands where they distribute those products, both in an omnichannel way. 

PMI is a good example of this. This is a company that produces thermoses on a number of different brands and Core dna drives all the different brands themselves. So from their major brand called Stanley, where you have thermoses and vacuum flasks right through to Slant, which is Party products, and Aladdin, which is different types of water bottles and coffee mugs that they offer.  Northeast Nursery is another example of an eCommerce platform that we support. 

The reason this is. An interesting platform to go through is that it's complexity in terms of the products that it has. So you have everything from turf right through to seeds, right through to plants, supplies in terms of clothing, landscape supplies and also seasonal supplies like at the moment snow shovels and ice melts and so on. 

Core dna here provides a flexible infrastructure for people to get to what they need really quickly and once they've arrived, they can then refine their search based on the criteria that they have. 

Northeast Nursery is also now moving into what we call a wholesaler portal. And in this example here, what we're seeing is we're moving far more to an eCommerce that is easy for people to use and engage with. 

We've rewritten the back end system so it communicates asynchronously so if someone's on their mobile phone, they can quickly add something to the carton. And you can see there that I'm adding two items one after the other or they can favorite a product to then have a favorite for later on when they want to reorder these products. 

The wholesale portal uses a different engagement on the front end to make it fast and also to be easy to use on a mobile. Gifting is also another area that we do well with. So we have a Langham Hotels as a customer and we're able to create gifts and gift vouchers. 

And these vouchers then processed using a system at the back end and the vouchers are sent out to the customer in paper form and they're able to be redeemed. Either partially or wholly at the hotel itself. 

So there's a management system around the gifting that's provided. We also have a large number of B to B clients who use the eCommerce for their beta B applications. So we have here a company called Designer Doorware that uses core DNA for all its door handles. 

And you're able to configure the door handle and you're asked a series of questions. And once that's done, you can actually add it to your shopping cart. And once you're ready to go, you can then process your shopping cart login and receive quotes or send a spec sheet to yourself. 

Fuse code is also another good example of the reason I'm showing you this is that it's an example of a complex product. So low voltage fuses and the fuses are categorized in a variety of ways and people then want to be able to engage with a specific category of fuse they can, and within that you can see the different voltages and currents that are available. 

This site does not engage in any transactions, but people can send a quote for the particular fuse that they want to inquire with. In addition to all those products, we also have solutions for the internet. 

So a number of our clients use our product to drive their intranets. So they have document management, they have various dashboards that they run for themselves, they're able to promote news. And here you can see a company that has multiple retail outlets that uses the product for merchandising, for all the people and policies, for a bunch of their marketing, finance, retail operations and supply chain. 

Another example of an Internet is Teamflow. This is the product that Courtney uses itself and this system offers four major functions and solutions. Firstly, project collaboration. So you're able to go in and see the various projects that you're you're working on and within those projects you're able to see tasks, activity, milestones, timesheets and the people that you're collaborating with.  

It has a support ticketing environment where people can lodge tickets either through email or through the ticket system itself and others can collaborate on it. A Wikipedia that allows you to create a series of markdown or HTML or any other forms of pages that can then be used for documentation and to be searched. 

Ideation engine for people to engage with interesting ideas they may have. And a time sheeting system that allows you to capture time shooting for service workers on a daily basis. So you can see progress, you can see how accountable they are, what kind of billable versus non billable, and how they're progressing to budget. 

All this is also wrapped in a reporting engine that can produce a number of different reports for you to drive the business. I hope this has given you a good insight into what's possible. 

A 15-minute overview of the administration panel for Core dna's digital experience platform (DXP).

Video chapters

1. 1. Log in to Core dna platform (0:38)
2. 2. Core dna dashboard overview (0:47)
3. 3. Managing websites (2:23)
4. 4. CoreContent overview (4:32)
5. 5. CoreCommunity overview (6:22)
6. 6. CoreMarketing overview (8:24)
7. 7. CoreCommerce overview (9:06)
8. 8. Hooks application overview (13:01)

A 10-minute overview of why Core dna and how we help our customers build, manage, and scale websites.

Video transcription

Welcome to the Core dna customer Introduction.

In this presentation, we will showcase the key reasons that Core dna is a platform of choice for mid-market companies . We will demonstrate some of the values that Core dna has for your business and also some use cases where Core dna is being used.

Why Core dna is a platform that has been around now for over five years, and it was born out of an agency in Australia. The name Core dna is a reference to the DNA that we all share and the fact that what makes us unique is the way that DNA sequence, in the same way Core dna brings together a large number of pre-built applications under the same dashboard.

Using a single platform, we're able to build and manage content marketing, eCommerce, community and intranet properties. 

Some of the key advantages of Core dna is that the product is ready to go. It's been pre-built, so there's no need for plug-ins, there's no need for backend development, and it is hosted on an enterprise platform that is extendable and ready for your business.

In addition, you get the enterprise value. Without the enterprise price tag, Core dna comes prepackaged at a fixed price per month and all you pay for is what you use.

Finally, Core dna will never be out of date. We have a team of R&D developers who are constantly putting in new features, updating patches and providing improvements to the infrastructure to make your website faster, more secure and scalable.

 A lot of the development in R&D comes from our customer requirements. We don't just build technology for technology sake, we build it based on the needs that our customers share with us. So why does is there a need for a product like Core dna in today's digital landscape is transforming very quickly. 

Our customers are far more demanding and as a company you need a platform to stay ahead of both your competitors and the demands that the digital landscape puts on you. We believe that Core dna is uniquely placed to help with the acceleration and growth of your business. We help with simplifying website complexity, making it easier for you to get onto a platform and grow as that as your needs and your business require coding assets in the cloud. 

As a product it allows you to scale quickly without the infrastructure requirements and needs that you would if it was on-premise. You can turn on Core dna very quickly. 

As a platform, we allow you, the customer, to focus on value adding for your customers, not spending your budgets on technology builds or technology fixes, or the latest ideas that your tech team may come up with.

In addition, we provide a platform that allows you to deliver a stronger engagement as all our applications are on the same platform and can speak to each other.

Finally, speed. 

Speed is one of the elements in the digital landscape that people now looking for long. Gone are the times where you could deliver a solution in months. People are now looking for days and weeks. 

So in terms of the value that I can deliver to your business:

Firstly, no software licensing. Our our fees are one flat fee per month that is based on your traffic usage. The platform is pre-built, so all the applications exist. They're ready for you to use. All you need to do is put a skin or a template over the top and they're ready for you to use within your environment. 

We deliver enterprise cloud, so we have redundancy, we have infrastructure that can scale globally, we have high availability and we have continuous backup. 

In addition, we also deliver advanced security. Not only do we have white hat hackers on the team, but we have built into our infrastructure network layer, application layer an intrusion detection to ensure that no one comes close to your valuable data. 

We also have what we believe is speed to market. Because of the way the platform has been built, we're able to reduce the risk of your technology projects and get you to the market quicker. With over 4500 updates a year, we believe our platform will never be out of date. You'll never need to read a patch or fix a security bug. It will always be there. 

And from a support point of view, we have a 24/7 DevOps crew who manage all the upgrades, all the infrastructure and keep an eye on all the things that are happening in the platform. 

And finally, we have a support desk that is there to help you when you have questions that need to be answered. When you look at our stack, we've actually transformed the way that websites are now billed. Historically, on the left is an indication of all the different components and not all of them. 

Actually, it's a subset of all of the components that you would need in today's environment. Coordinate takes care of a large proportion, leaving the UX and design and the front end templating for you to to build quickly and build in in an agile manner. You don't have to commit to a large, complex project. 

You can phase these features in over time, allowing you to get a product to market, get some customer feedback, and then make refinements as you move along. We also power some of the large brands in the world. We have companies like Nintendo, like Siku are one of the largest recruitment companies and online search companies, and we have a diverse cohort of customers ranging from hotels to fast moving consumables right through to B2B organizations. So looking at some of the examples that we've built out, this is Nintendo.

One of the key elements company was security. They joined us back in 2007 and and have had over 200 website properties that have been built on the platform. So coordinated multi site management features were a key consideration when Nintendo were looking for a platform. 

Today, hundreds of changes find their way to the website and allowing the company to make releases quickly, allowing them to also develop in parallel, not having to wait for the first release to go out, followed by the next one. Teams are able to develop concepts and ideas in parallel and deploy them as needed. 

Frontier Touring is also a large customer that has been with us for many years. Frontier is an event management and concert management company, one of the largest in Australia. In terms of database, they have over 3 million subscribers who joined to receive event tickets ahead of the public. The system allows you to see the concerts that are there, engage with the concert and buy tickets for those concerts. 

As an example, traffic flows through the system can reach over 30,000 concurrent users. And second, and we have to manage the large traffic flows when when concerts go on sale and consumers are looking to get the best seat. 

Provision is one of the largest optical franchise companies in Australia. One of the key features of this solution is the franchise application, which allows provision to list its over 500 retailers, their locations, and allow them to manage all the marketing information that they have at a local area.

From the platform. Retailers can log into Kodi and upload changes to their personal franchise store and also upload specials and events into the back end of the system. A booking engine manages all appointments and allows each of the franchisees to liaise directly with customers. In addition, Provision has a personalization engine that fits for their four segments, making the site change completely for each of the segments of their of the community. 

North Nursery is a local Bostonian, B2B and B2C retailer. The interesting challenges with this organization was the diversity of its products. With over 50,000 products in the catalog, there was quite a complex multi tier pricing and also advanced shipping to allow them to be able to shift soil and gloves with similar orders. Recently. Northeast Nursery has now moved into the B2B and wholesale world where the existing catalog was used to create a wholesale version of the website for them to be able to have on mobiles and make ordering quick and easy for their customers. 

Slim Road is another example of a franchise, but with in this case, with a specialized e-commerce that was tailored for each of the website franchisees that use the slim road product. Franchisee C's would get a custom look and feel with a centralized e-commerce that they all used.  This allowed the integration of an e-commerce into the existing franchised website without any impact. Tivoli Audio is an example of a complex e-commerce delivery with over 15 stores globally. 

System was used to provide both B2B and B2C solutions, the beta based solutions for distributors around the world and the B2C for all the various customers. The system also had a complex integration with SAP for both client product and order information. And for each of the sites there was localization required for payment gateways, third party logistics and also inventory. 

Pacific Marketing International, or PMI, is a good example of a data set customer. The manufacturer of iconic water bottles and thermoses was looking for a platform that could deliver its multi brand experience. The company has over four brands and is looking to drive both B2B and B2C for those brands using Core dna. 

They were able to deliver an advanced marketing platform coupled with an e-commerce platform. What we're also able to do is provide seamless integration into their Oracle ERP system to help provide inventory information and support request information. When you think about Core dna. 

Just finally, this is the status of our company. Been in business for a number of years and launched Core dna in 2014. We have over 40 staff in four countries. We have over 2000 websites, 400 customers.

A "Request" is a call to Core dna engine over the Internet which resolves as a dynamic web page or structured data content. For example, AJAX requests, headless queries, and REST API calls.

This excludes calls to static assets that are normally served by the CDN (Content Delivery Network), such as images, fonts, JS files, CSS files, etc.

Our engine supports a number of search tools, including customizable Elasticsearch (for facets, site search). If you have a specific engine in mind, we can also evaluate integrating it.

Yes, Core dna is can be used as headless or as a decoupled platform and by essence is fully responsive.

A responsive platform like Core dna is a great tool for developers who want to create responsive websites. It is easy to use and provides a wide range of options for how your website can respond to different screen sizes. 

You can also customize the look and feel of your site with this platform, making it truly your own. If you're looking for a responsive platform that will make your life easier, this is the one you need.

For more information, a decoupled platform is a web application platform that uses a decoupled architecture to provide a responsive user interface. A decoupled architecture separates the presentation layer from the business logic and data access layers, allowing each layer to be developed independently. This separation of concerns makes it possible to develop the presentation layer using a variety of technologies including responsive web design.

The advantage of using a decoupled responsive platform is that it allows for a more agile development process. The presentation layer can be developed and deployed independently of the business logic and data access layers, meaning that changes to the user interface can be made without affecting the rest of the application. This can be particularly useful when developing applications that need to be compatible with a variety of devices and screen sizes.

When it comes to the headless platform, it allows businesses to manage their e-commerce site without the need for a traditional web design interface. This type of platform uses an API to connect the back-end e-commerce system to the front-end content management system, making it possible to manage e-commerce site content from a single interface.

It gives you the flexibility over the front-end as well as the ability to integrate with all devices, support emerging trends like voice search, and more. 

Do you want to learn more about Headless Commerce? 👉 Download our Headless Commerce Guide 

Yes, we do. Our ability to support multiple brands and site instances (by geography, market, etc.) on one platform and access all data in a unified dashboard is one of the features that makes us attractive to multi-brand manufacturers and retailers. For more information about our multi-site feature, click here.

Core dna is a hosted platform, a true multi-tenant, single instance SaaS solution.

The "platform of tools" refers to the different product applications available within Core dna. The Core dna platform includes a range of applications that act as "tools" to make your website work for you and your business. 

Core dna is a fully managed SaaS platform, meaning that the network, platform, security, hosting and software are all taken care of, lowering the burden on your IT team and reducing your IT costs. 

Reduce your labor costs with pre-built applications and removing backend development, saving you money when you build your site, and in ongoing maintenance.

SaaS platforms are delivered for a fixed monthly subscription cost which allows you to pay for what you need and use. Move to a consumption based model, like Core dna, and away from large capital expenditures.

In SaaS, the user does not pay for the software itself. Instead, it works like a rental. They have the authorization to use it for a period of time and pay for the software that they are using. 

A great way to think about SaaS is like going to a public park. You go to the park to enjoy a picnic, play with your dog, have a pickup Frisbee game, etc. You have friends that also use the park. You might use it at the same time, or different times. You get to enjoy the park when you want to and as often as you would like, without having to mow the lawn, water the flowers and maintain the jungle gym. Instead, you pay a fixed amount of taxes per month and for that, the park is available to you anytime. The maintenance is taken care of for you, and local police patrol the area, keeping you and your family safe. 

A “park” meets the key characteristics of the SaaS model.

Software as a Service provides companies numerous benefits. At a high level, SaaS provides companies:

1. Pre-built web applications that are completely managed; from the software, hardware, and support.
2. Infrastructure that is enterprise, high availability and with support around the clock.
3. Continuous updates & innovation so you never have to re-platform again.
4. Delivered for a fixed fee per month.

SaaS application such as Core dna provide access to data from any networked device while making it easier to manage privileges, monitor data use and ensure everyone sees the same information at the same time. You can work with a team in real time with out conflicts. 

With the SaaS model, you can customize with point-and-click ease, making the weeks or months it takes to update traditional business software seem hopelessly old-fashioned.

Different from the traditional model, Core dna is a fully managed solution, meaning the application comes fully ready to use and a new website can be up in minutes. This reduces the time spent in installation and configuration and can reduce the issues that can get in the way of the software deployment.