VSC Technologies, open source intranet

A new open source project for VSC

Created in June 2000, Voyages-sncf.com is the leading online travel agency and top French web retailer with more than 9 million unique visitors on average per month. In 2006, Voyages-sncf.com became the VSC group and was organised into three units: Voyages-sncf.com, the agency Voyages-sncf.com and VSC Technologies. VSC-Technologies provides hosting and carries out IT developments for Voyages-sncf.com, iDTGV.com and Eurostar.com. In September 2006, VSC Technologies began a project to redesign their company Intranet. The aim of this project was to regroup and structure access to information and tools for all company' employees. Much more than an Intranet system, this tool meets the characteristics of a true company portal. After putting their faith in the CMS tool eZ publish to create their websites VoyagesSNCF.com, IDtgc.com and eurostar.com, VSC Technologies again called on Smile and open source solutions to produce this project.

Liferay, the new portal

Following an initial presentation of tools, VSC chose the J2EE open source portal Liferay which provides a rich and scalable environment providing standard features of a company Intranet portal: SSO authentication, user management, security, synchronisation with a LDAP directory, content management, implementation of Workflows, integration of existing applications, libarary of standard application modules (forum, shared calendar, wiki, blog, flux, RSS etc.) The objective of 'VSC's Intranet portal is to provide access to all resources used on a daily basis by VSC's employees from within one site. Resources can be grouped into four categories:

• content maintained within the intranet;
• documents located in network directories or on the internet;
• existing application modules such as applications for managing absences, activities etc.
• unique features of the portal such as a shared calendar, forums, FAQ, wiki etc.

Some data from RSS feeds and Excel files was also integrated. The Intranet site is split into five tabs corresponding to different VSC departments: HR, CE/DP/CHSCT, communications/Marketing, Technical Department and Customer Service Department. The access to and display of different information is subject to a secure access system so that the site can be personalised to suit the user's profile. Liferay connects to the Intranet by using the authentication system Windows NTLM. This enables users that are already connected to Windows to access the Intranet (with their profile) without having to enter their log in and password. The portal centralises access to all the group's internet sites, intranet, blogs, forums and applications.