If time were a factor, how would you build this computer repair website?

Question

I own a computer repair business and I would like to build a website that does two things:

1. Has a homepage where customers can login and check the status of their repair service.
2. Allows the technicians to track the orders behind the scenes (i.e. repair status, repair notes, etc.).

I have been programming for almost 15 years and could build this site from scratch if I had to, but would rather use already existing technology that I might not know about.

Any suggestions?

If time was a factor, how would you build this website?

Answer 1

If time was a factor and money wasn't, I'd get some consultants to do the initial build and make a few parts of the site for me, like an administrative section to manage users as well as the entry points for customers, technicians and managers as I suspect managers may like to see various reports about how the repairs are going in terms of time. I think building out a map of what you want the site to do may be useful, in particular get down into the details like would users see a complete history of their work 5 years later or are there limits to be placed on some of this? How would they learn of their username/password to use the site.

My big first suggestion would be to figure out what stack you want in terms of things like web server(Apache, IIS, WebSphere, or something else), database server(Oracle, MS-SQL, MySQL, DB2 or something else), web server OS(Linux, Unix, or Windows) and server-side programming framework(PHP, ASP.Net, Java, or something else) to complement the business analysis at the end of my first paragraph.

Answer 2

I'd be using a CMS - many questions on SO already about which is best, that will give you basic web sites, login and authentication. I'd then use your coding skill to combine that with an existing bug tracking system, it's not too far a jump from registering and communicating about bugs, and doing the same for hardware. I'll leave it to others to suggest which is the best combination of tech.

Answer 3

If time was a factor, and you wanted to use existing technology, I would sign up with an existing "support desk" provider, such as these random ones I just found on google:

http://www.e-supportportal.com/features.html

http://www.kayako.com/solutions/hosted-support-desk/

Answer 4

Trac would be the first thing I looked at. It would allow multiple user logins and give them the ability to raise repair requests and monitor the status of them. I would guess it has email update capabilities, RSS and so on too.

Answer 5

How much is your time worth? Figure out your hourly wage from your net profit divided by the number of hours you work per year.

Multiply that by the number of hours it will take to design, code, deploy, debug, and maintain something you made yourself. Compare that to the cost of using someone else's pre-designed, pre-coded, pre-debugged service. Go with the cheaper option.