The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) provides training materials to member companies, individuals, and training providers. CITB was one of 21 industrial training boards established in the United Kingdom after the passage of the Industrial Training Act of 1964 to address concerns about skills shortages. Serving England, Scotland, and Wales, they work with the construction industry to attract talent and support skills development for workers.
The Challenge
CITB works with third party APIs in order to provide subscription services and both ebook and hard copy publications to members. They needed a webstore that integrated all the pieces seamlessly and automated workflow.
CITB provides electronic skills training publications through an ebook download or a hard copy, and so they needed to design a B2B ecommerce website with serialized ordering so that they could give purchasers of the ebook downloads a unique license key to access their materials. For hard copy materials, the purchaser’s address must be on file for delivery, requiring a system to communicate with the third party provider that prints, warehouses, and distributes the publications.
Another issue was that employer members needed a way to manage their subscription to CITB through the website.
The Solution
Cloudfy integrated the CITB shop with the CITB website to streamline orders. To purchase materials, users must create an account and login. They can search for publications by ISBN without an account. External links are also available for courses.
For electronic downloads, Cloudfy automated the purchase process. A unique license key is sent to the purchaser, and each license key is customized and used only once. A list of license keys is available, and the system updates automatically to show which keys have been used and which are still available for purchase.
Cloudfy also helped automate the process of hard copy deliveries. Previously, CITB had to manually update the API with address and purchase information for PSL Print Management, the third-party provider, which took time staff could have spent on other tasks. Now, CITB’s ordering process is integrated with the third-party provider API so that data such as available stock and the customer’s address are readily accessible when an order is placed.
Cloudfy also automated the subscription piece to provide custom menus for each subscription level, such as corporate users or training users. The updated subscription pages allow employer members to purchase a new subscription, update an existing one with more users, or renew a subscription. The API Cloudfy built sends subscriptions to third-party provider Imagitech, which then updates subscription data.
Another new feature added by Cloudfy is the issuance of an email receipt for credit card payments to confirm the financial transaction has gone through.
If you’re in need of a B2B ecommerce portal that makes it simple for your constituents to easily purchase and download your selection of e-materials, contact us now to discuss your project.
