Compass Project

We need to build a website to share expert knowledge between professionals in engineering. The website has to be built with Joomla. Two major features of the website are Database of issues and a Live chat. The website should have a Database of issues, consisting of problem descriptions and replies in the form of a tree structure. The user can search the database by entering key descriptors such as manufacturer and model of a car, date modified, tags, etc. The user can also create new issues, post replies in existing ones and endorse them, indicating the helpfulness of the solution and/or discussion (see attached – database). He can also create and view reports, which are similar to issues in nature but contain specific technical knowledge and not a request of assistance. When posting issues and replies the user is able to upload attachments and use an inbuilt spellchecker. He can also save the issue as a draft to be reviewed and posted for later. The user can preview issues and reports on the search page to quickly access if it corresponds with the problem he wants to resolve. The user also has bookmarks and history for ease of access. The Live Chat messenger should be developed for the website. Live chat will allow professional receive help in expedient way. The chat displays other online users, whose knowledge areas correspond to those of the current user. The contacts are organized in a tree structure in accordance with those knowledge areas. In the first tab of the main window (see attached – chat ex 1) the user can see all pending help requests which correspond to the user’s own knowledge areas, while other requests are filtered out for that particular user. He can also create his own help requests that are immediately added to the pool. The help request can be either directed to all applicable participants (i.e. everyone with matching knowledge areas) or selected groups or individuals chosen at the time of request creation. When the user tries to answer a help request, the creator is asked to approve this offer, after which a new conversation tab appears in the main window (see attached – chat ex 2). This conversation is logged and it has the same descriptors as the original help request. More than two users can participate in the same conversation at a time and any users added at a later time can see the whole conversation from the beginning. The conversation can be either ended or put on hold. An on-hold conversation can be re-initiated by the creator to enter the pool of active issues with the whole log available for viewing by any participant. An ended conversation is marked as either resolved or non-resolved and joins the website database where it becomes searchable together with all the issues. The website also requires a custom registration form for new users. Users have to be activated manually by the website administrator.