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Autodesk, Inc. is the world leader in 2D and 3D design software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets.
the challenge
Autodesk University is the world's largest annual gathering of Autodesk customers, working professionals, industry experts, and executives. For the biggest Autodesk University to date, Autodesk asked SolutionSet to enhance the Autodesk University website to revolutionize how all Autodesk University attendees, speakers, and enthusiasts would view and use the website before, during, and after the annual event. To truly transform the website into a year-round destination, SolutionSet needed to upgrade Autodesk University 1.0 to be more flexible, robust, and user-friendly.
Along with the task of building and implementing a richer user management, content management, and reporting system, SolutionSet incorporated a "single sign-on" to a registration website hosted by another vendor. This allowed users to register for the "AU Online" website and seamlessly transition into the official registration process for the actual event using the same login. While user and session data remained on the external registration website during registration, all relevant user and session data needed to be migrated back to AU Online to ensure a solid and unified user experience.
the solution
SolutionSet worked closely with members of the teams at Autodesk and the registration site vendor company to understand the challenges and complexities involved. Once the plans were made to resolve open issues, SolutionSet set out to upgrade the site's infrastructure from an older version of the Community Services Platform to the latest one, build the new custom features, incorporate state-of-the-art systems for caching and performance, and prepare for the complex task of migrating large amounts of data from multiple sources. The final product: one of the most complex implementations of the CSP yet, on top of a scalable and powerful hosting environment ready for the loads expected from a high-traffic website.
the result
The Autodesk University community has unquestionably extended over to the AU Online website. Members are actively visiting the website for the latest news and content via the two blogs on the site, one for general AU updates and the other for informative podcasts. RSS feeds help readers remain up-to-date on session and blog updates. The Network and Session searches are better and faster than ever. Autodesk University administrators can benefit from more comprehensive metrics reports and more control over search results. Attendees can network and stay in touch with their speakers and fellow attendees. Speakers can contribute to the content of their session pages by uploading documents as well as setting the access permissions of their documents.