Project: Enterprise shopping cart
Primary UITS contact: Larry Butcher
Last update: March 26, 2009
Description: The E-Commerce team, along with the Indiana University Treasurer's Office, is considering the purchase of an off-the-shelf enterprise shopping cart application for IU schools and departments as a replacement for the E-Store service currently being supported.
IU developed its own shopping cart application, E-Store, in 1999. E-Store was designed by UITS for use on central web servers. Used together with product pages designed by the merchants, it creates an Internet store with which the merchant can also optionally use the IU Internet Payment Authorization Service (IPAS) to securely accept immediate credit card payment for purchases from customers.
As our merchants have become more experienced with ecommerce, they have requested new features that can be found in many commercially available shopping cart applications, such as:
- Database connectivity
- Enhanced discount capabilities
- Acceptance of e-check payments
- Enhanced shipping charge calculations
- Online access to sales data
- Sale and delivery of items in digital form
- Real-time access to transaction data for support
- Reconciliation reports
- Real-time integration with merchant application for confirmation of transaction and reconciliation data
Because of the time and effort required and the need to upgrade the technology architecture of the current shopping cart solution, building these functions into E-Store would not be a good use of development resources. In February 2008, an RFP for a commercial software solution was resubmitted. Volusion was selected as the vendor in fall 2008.
Outcome: Upon completion of vendor selection and addition of any necessary enhancements to meet our merchants' needs, the new enterprise shopping cart will be made available to IU schools and departments. The new system will adhere to IU's strict security standards, requiring PCIDSS compliance. The new system will also be built upon standard J2EE web-based technologies and architecture supported within UITS.
Milestones and status:
- February 2008: Enterprise shopping cart RFP released
- Summer 2008: Responses to RFP evaluated, gaps identified, and enhancements prioritized by merchants
- Fall 2008: Volusion selected as our shopping cart vendor
- Spring 2009: Contract signed and purchase order issued on March 25th
- Summer 2009: Implementation of pilot with one or two select merchants willing to try the new shopping cart application
- Fall 2009: Enterprise shopping cart to be made broadly available to all IU merchants
Benefits:
- Much-needed new features and functionality for our merchants
- Added features making the enterprise solution more attractive to our merchants and encouraging a standard approach to revenue-generating activities at IU
- Major technological upgrades to enterprise shopping cart application
- System hosting in our standardized, virtual J2EE environments
Primary client: Staff and faculty in departments with approved revenue-generating activities
Client impact: Clients conducting approved revenue-generating activities will have an easy method for displaying their offerings to potential customers, managing orders, and providing a secure method of conducting the financial transaction.
Project team: Larry Butcher is the lead developer for this project.
Governance: The Office of the Treasurer provides policy and functional guidance for the creation and management of revenue processing centers at IU.
