Microsoft is now working in collaboration with New Media Labs to generate a case study out of this project. The project makes a good case study for Microsoft’s new Rich Internet Application technology known as Silverlight. This project is being billed as the largest Silverlight implementation in Africa.

Domain Driven Design was utilised extensively to model the specific banking domain. The Service Layer Data Contract and Service Contract models were modeled using the web service software factory.

The site has now moved into user acceptance phase and should be launched shortly.

Our base layer CMS was used for the development. Often when you tell clients you own a CMS they are skeptical – “why would you want to own or build a CMS when there are so many out there”. The reality is, a site like this is not only managing textual content it is managing the business content too. In other words you have to manage the data for each investment fund, the allocations of the fund and price performance over time. These are the kinds of systems NML has become experts in developing.

NML do not claim to own a packaged CMS or CMS framework. Packaged and Framework are words we’ve become skeptical of. We have a base layer of CMS code , that has been designed with integration in mind, to tie the company’s business model into the content management system. Our CMS allows for the usual features such as adding pages, changing navigation and publishing workflow.

The trustees are Alan Knott-Graig (MD IBurst), Tracey Lee Cohen (ex-Marketing Head of Blue Label Telecommunications), Gordon Douglas Stuart (Sentinel International Advisory), Dr Andile Ngcaba (Council of the University of South Africa (UNISA) and was an advisor to the Digital Inclusion Programme at Harvard University Law School), Jonathan Ackerman (Marketing Director Pick n Pay).

NML have integrated with the MyGate payment gateway and also MiMoney and UKash payment methods. We also integrated EFT back into the payment assurance processes.

NML have developed and commisioned this project at reduced rate as part of our corporate social responsibility.

Who is The Trust?

The Trust is a web portal that aims to make it easy, affordable and risk free for individuals and corporates to find and contribute to charities throughout South Africa and other African countries. The Trust provides a network for reputable and accountable South African charities who have been qualified through ongoing due diligence – irrespective of size, purpose or geographical location.

The Trusts’ web portal is your helping hand. The Trust aims to streamline the act of giving by creating a single access point for a range of causes. The idea is to boost the fundraising ability of charities by consolidating marketing efforts under one umbrella. By focusing on international celebrity endorsement through its many high-level contacts, The Trust is able to marshal significant support around several causes, from animals in distress to women and child abuse.

Charities affiliated to The Trust are expected to adhere to strict reporting and accountability guidelines in order to continue receiving support from us. Every cent of every rand donated to our causes is tracked, accounted for and distributed to charities with maximum efficiency and transparency. In addition, to all of the above, The Trust has the active support and buy-in of many of South Africa’s leading businesspeople. This means we are able to benefit from literally decades of cumulative business experience and the result is a charity run on business priorities for maximum effect.

The social elements are tied into the business model of this division of the bank, making this a complex development and integration exercise.

This will be NML’s second large Silverlight implementation and is being touted by Microsoft as the largest implementation in the EMEA region. Even thought this project is in the early stages it is being looked at closely as a case study by Microsoft.

Given the number of databases and stored procedures the system has to tie into Microsoft Repository Factory was the natural choice for Middle Tier. The service layer was developed using the Web Service Software Factory and the WCF .NET3.5 implementation technology.

The video content was originally going to be provided by youtube. But due to the complex authorisation workflow process brandhouse required, we decided to build our own video encoding and streaming service. The videos were then encoded using the Silverlight2.0 Encoder (apparently the first production purchase of this software in South Africa).

This was a very fun and exciting project. The application has come out of the testing phase so watch this space…