Case Study: Justgiving.com

Fundraising site Justgiving.com has revamped its web site to process more donations using .Net developer skills and has created a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to support rapid international growth.

The business, which automates reclaiming Gift Aid on charitable donations, for which it charges a transaction fee, is focused on providing an easy-to-use service for fundraisers, equipping them with the online tools to raise as much money as possible.

Having a strong developer team with a dynamic software development strategy is crucial to fulfilling this aim, says Matthew Knights, technical architect at Justgiving.com.

The charity has been using the environment for building, deploying and running web services and web applications for the past eight months.

“We decided developers should work in an agile way and closely with the business so we could adapt to any changes quickly. The .Net framework was chosen because it allows for rapid new developments, is familiar as we have .Net skills within the organisation after building web applications using Microsoft’s ASP, and it allows us to scale out,” says Knights.

Justgiving.com has a development team of eight people in the UK and two in the US, and Knights says their impact has been maximised by adopting the right tools and programming methods to create applications the business wants.

The charity uses a so-called “extreme programming” methodology, which focuses on close liaison with users, rather than detailed specifications, to identify priorities. “Prototypes are built rapidly, played around with and tested, with business input to improve the user interface and developers left to define intricacies,” says Knights.

Pair programming, where two developers work together sharing a screen and keyboard, helps build strong code, says Knights. “With a second set of eyes, problems are less likely, and a pair is more willing to share difficulties with the team rather than one person having to own up to not being able to work something out,” he says.

The benefits are getting products to market quickly and achieving what the business needs in a shorter period of time.

“Rewriting the donation mechanism on the web site took just six weeks and now it can process 30,000-40,000 transactions a day,” says Knights. The next upgrade is already in the pipeline.

Embracing the principles of SOA has been made easier with the inclusion of Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation in the .Net Framework 3.0, which enable applications to work together seamlessly, says Knights.

“It has allowed us to build a true SOA with services clearly separated. We can now scale out internationally and scale up applications on the site. If we move services onto a new piece of hardware, there is no fear they will not work,” he says.

See also:

Driving up performance through better software development

We talk to IT chiefs who are using new software development methodologies to modify legacy systems and crank up web performance  08 Oct 2008

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