Sanative Launches Flex-based Conference Center Search for IACC

Posted by TJ Downes at 5:04 PM
0 comments - Categories: Site Launches | Cool Stuff | Adobe Flex | Adobe ColdFusion

Over the past two months we have been busy collaborating with Cardinal Communications to develop a new conference center search utility for the International Association of Conference Centers. The previous tool utilized image maps in conjunction with JavaScript menus to guide the user to various pages to find the conferences centers they wished to research.

The objective of the new application was to provide an easy way locate a conference center in an intuitive interface that also allowed filtering based upon regions and keywords. Cardinal Communications provided the project management, design and backend database interaction (in addition to the new website and design!). Sanative worked with Cardinal to develop the Flex application, utilizing Google Maps API, which provided a fast an effective way to quickly locate and view details of conference centers without the need for page loads.

One of the significant challenges in developing the solution was loading and displaying over 280 properties in a single interface and still making these properties easy to find. The use of the filtering functions allows the user to filter data in real time according to their needs. Since the data is loaded into the application at initial load, there are no wait times to load the desired properties.

The application also provides the client with the capability to create new content tabs within the Flex application using their content management tools. Delivery of images or Flash content can be pushed to these tabs to highlight information on the website in a flexible and user-friendly manner.

The Flex application interfaces with ColdFusion and Microsoft SQL Server to provide a robust and scalable backend that will be utilized to enhance the application in months to come. The client has already realized the power of the solution and is excited to begin working on Phase 2. We will tell you about that in coming months!