Background
ÖKK is an insurance company operating throughout Switzerland. The range of insurance solutions includes products and services in the areas of illness, accidents, loss of earnings and occupational benefits.
With Simpla, ÖKK would like to offer a bilingual Internet platform that primarily - but not exclusively - enables its customers to easily arrange everyday services. With an attractive bonus programme, Simpla users can collect points which they can exchange for products or services.
Simpla is an innovative solution that offers its customers real added value and creates the opportunity for a continuous, valuable dialogue. In addition, loyal customers can easily be rewarded for their long-term loyalty.
Goal
Different service platforms will be able to present their offers on simpla.ch. Users of the Simpla portal should log in directly to the partner platforms with their Simpla profile (Single-Sign-On / SSO), so that they can easily and uncomplicatedly obtain the offers there.
It is possible to reward specific ÖKK customers with points on the Simpla portal. For long-term customers, for example, points can be credited for an anniversary or customers who have not reported any damage within a certain period of time can be rewarded with points.
Furthermore, purchases on the partner platforms are to transfer bonus points to the Simpla Internet platform, which can then be redeemed either on simpla.ch or its partner platforms. ÖKK customers benefit more because they receive twice as many bonus points.
With its functionality, the platform is therefore the ideal basis for the implementation of campaigns. Both the partner network and the offerings are to be continuously expanded in the future.
Results
The simpla.ch platform was created on the basis of Primer, which provides a CMS optimized for typical applications. After activating the option "Community" for the user account administration with user profiles and "Multilingual" with the second language "Italian", the page architecture can already be built with content tools. The content work can thus begin without any development effort. In order not to delay the launch of projects, additional languages can be activated and prepared for content with Primer at any time before this becomes visible to the users.
Simpla's API enables a comprehensive and simple integration of the partner portals. This API allows partner portals to automatically register Simpla users on their portal, exchange profile data and report user activities (including credited bonus points). This exchange is based on the OAuth2 standard and the OpenID Connect extension. On the Simpla portal, all these data are aggregated in the user profile. The collected bonus points can be redeemed by the users on the partner portals.
It is also possible to redeem the points directly on simpla.ch. Therefore a webshop based on Commerce 2.0 was implemented. Those responsible at ÖKK can create both physical and digital products in the shop, which can be purchased by users with points. If there are not enough points, the missing amount can also be paid by credit card.
In order to follow the CI/CD guidelines of Simpla, a customer-specific design was implemented. It was important that the content components provided by Primer continue to function in different layout variants and that the styles specified by the design can be selected by the editors.
These many functions make simpla.ch a powerful platform that is optimized for all common browsers and devices and on which editors can create rich content with the greatest possible freedom.
The simpla.ch project was awarded 1st place in the Commerce category at the Splash Awards 2019.
Technical challenges
The exchange of information between different platforms posed a number of technical challenges:
The implementation of the OAuth2 API was very efficient thanks to the existing Simple OAuth Drupal module, but several extensions were necessary to implement the specific requirements. Much of it could be returned to the community as a contribution.
The REST API to interact with the points & activity system of simpla.ch was designed from the ground up. The focus was put on the fact that no abuse is possible, all changes are traceable and the user data are only accessible for the partners after explicit consent of the user. The API also had to be as simple and well documented as possible so that it could be implemented by the partners with as little support as possible.
Another challenge was the shop, where you can pay with points and credit card. For the payment with points an individual solution was implemented, which is integrated with different existing functionalities of Drupal Commerce 2.0. The modular and expandable solution of Commerce 2.0 with its comprehensive functionality proved itself once again.
Contributions for the Drupal Community
The requirements of the Simpla portal required improvements and extensions to the Drupal Simple OAuth module.
For example, the possibility to integrate with OpenID Connect had to be implemented. In addition, it was implemented that users only had to confirm data release once for each partner portal.
In addition, the Simpla project with its numerous improvements and extensions for Paragraphs UI provided an important basis for the release of Paragraphs 8.x-1.3.
With the many customer-specific design adaptations, the BS Base theme was also greatly improved, stabilized and updated to the latest bootstrap versions. This basic theme makes it possible to implement very flexible bootstrap-based designs, which is one of the outstanding qualities of Primer.
Primer benefits
Primer has once again proven to be the optimal basis. Thanks to the wide range of standard functions, it is possible to focus on individual requirements during the project. Due to the high degree of standardization, the platform remains efficiently maintainable despite strong individualization, which significantly optimizes the total cost of ownership.