Widgets also enable your users to customize their portal page to best fit their needs. Each portal page contains one or more widgets. Widgets can contain content downloaded from other websites or applications, or you can create widgets that have their own content and functionality.
Backbase Portal
Superior Experience
In order to get ready for the Web 2.0 world, organizations have to start thinking 'outside-in', which means thinking from a customer's perspective, instead of the product or system (inside-out) perspective.
Backbase Portal is a new, User Experience layer you can put on top of existing systems. This User Experience layer helps you to compose truly customer centric dialogs, and enables you to combine content, data and functionality from different underlying systems (silos) within a new, fresh, customer-centric presentation. Of course, this User Experience layer has to work on all devices (e.g. regular browsers, iPad, Android, and iPhone) and has to know your customers' preferences, per device.
Widgets: Modular Mini Applications
At the heart of the new, user experience layer are widgets. Widgets are modular mini applications that reuse and combine content and functionality from different underlying systems into a different composite format. Widgets enable you to quickly create composite applications that aggregate and unify information and functionality from various systems (silo's). A widget can be personalized by an end-user by modifying its preferences, which are automatically saved on the portal server. Widgets are then aggregated into a single web page and displayed in the user's browser. Widgets can be reused everywhere: in your portal, in third-party websites and on mobile devices.
Rich Internet Applications (HTML5)
Backbase Portal relies entirely on open standards (HTML, HTML5 and modern Web 2.0 technologies such as Ajax). Backbase Bank 2.0 Portal supports all popular browsers and enables you to create highly-interactive and smooth, Rich Internet Applications. All your customers need is a browser. No plug-ins or downloads are required.
Loosely Coupled User Experience Layer
By creating a new user experience layer on top of your existing core systems you create a so-called 'loosely coupled architecture'. Your back-end systems continue to run independently, and modifications to them won't have a big impact on the user experience layer. Concurrently, the user experience layer can be optimized and enhanced without major back-end dependencies.
See the Backbase User Experience Layer in action
Widgetize Your Applications
Backbase offers a next generation, widget-based portal architecture. Widgets are mini, autonomous web applications that can be embedded in your portal page, but also in any third-party web page. Widgets are the building blocks of your portal and can be reused across multiple portals and devices.
Widgetize Your Existing Applications
If you already have successful applications, we don't want you to rebuild them from scratch. Your existing applications can be easily wrapped into widgets. Widgets are fully-based on open HTML standards, run in every browser, don't need a plug-in and don't have to be downloaded. Widgetize your current applications and use them directly in Backbase Portal.
Enhance the Look and Feel of Your Existing Applications
It is important that your portal has a consistent look and feel, even if it contains widgets that contain functionality from multiple applications. Backbase Portal makes sure that there is one look and feel that is optimized for every device, on top of all the widgets, regardless of the application or language they are running.
Building New Widgets is Easy
Building a new widget from scratch for your portal is simple if you have HTML skills. If you don't have skills see our online Knowledge Base for simple, one page How-To's. Are you looking for more in-depth technical knowledge? Backbase offers multiple training programs.
Put Your Customers in Control
Our powerful personalization and customization options give users their own personal and editable portal environment to fit their individual needs.
Customization
Enable your customers to create personalized home pages or dashboards that give users their own editable portal environment that fits their needs and wishes. Empower customers and employees to enable and disable widgets and define customized views for the content and functions they use most frequently.
Backbase Portal manages the individual page configuration throughout the individual user sessions. It connects to the security services to obtain user credentials and interacts with the visitor profile database, thereby maintaining the page configuration and validating actions that change the portal configuration. Users can give instant feedback and adjust their online environment accordingly.
Mobile Optimized: One Platform, Multiple Devices
As touch screen phones and tablets become very popular, mobile touch web applications are becoming the norm. Backbase Portal enables you to create websites and mobile apps that are optimized for both regular browsers as well as mobile touch devices, with finger friendly layouts and lightweight pages that are fast to load. Backbase Portal is ready to run on iPhone, Android, Blackberry, tablets and other mobile devices.
Write Once, Run Everywhere
Say goodbye to the need to develop different apps for different mobile OS-es. Backbase uses state-of-the-art HTML5 technology for mobile-optimized widgets and layouts that run on the most popular smart phone operating systems. Backbase Portal enables you to create mobile widgets once, and run them on multiple mobile devices and operating systems. Create mobile apps that drive real business value while radically reducing development cost, time to market and ongoing maintenance.
Hybrid Apps: Best of Both Worlds
Backbase HTML-based widgets can be wrapped within a native mobile application run-time (native wrapper), which gives them deep integration with the underlying mobile OS (e.g. iOS, Android, Palm) capabilities such as GPS, sound, vibration, camera, etc. The wrapper, including your fully-branded and mobile optimized web apps, can can be distributed via the App Store and Marketplaces.
User Preferences Per Device
Backbase Portal is context aware. When your users are accessing your portal using a smart phone, they are typically looking for a subset of the features they use on their desktop PC. Based on user preferences and dependent on which device is used, Backbase Portal can then present the right widgets.
Watch the Backbase iPad Demo
Easy Portal Management
Backbase Portal Manager is a graphical user interface designed for e-business teams to manage their Portal directly, without IT support. With Backbase Portal Manager you can manage, monitor and optimize your portal on your own.
Portal Dashboard
The Portal Manager Dashboard is your central control center to monitor all activities within your Backbase Portal. It includes widgets such as: To Do's (your tasks within the the portal management workflow), Analytics (key metrics to monitor your portal's performance), and your Most Popular Widgets. You can easily extend your Dashboard with your own custom widgets. Custom Dashboard Widgets can either include new views on Backbase Portal functionality, or can contain content and functionality from any third-party system, such as your favorite e-marketing and e-support tools.
Portal Editor: Change Your Portal on the Fly
Backbase Portal Manager comes with an easy to use 'What You See Is What You Get' portal editor that enables you to change your portal on the fly -- where and how you want it. 'Select', 'Drag' and 'Drop', that's all you need to do to expand your portal with a new widget. Want to add a new banner, change a form field or add a new content block? Select the appropriate element and change it on the fly. Of course, you don't want to make mistakes so Backbase Portal also offers audit trails, a staging and test environment, multi-eye check and approval procedures.
Access Rights: Decide Who Can Do What?
Backbase Portal can help you to offer differentiated product and service capabilities to different customer groups, while keeping costs under control. Within Portal Manager you can create groups and assign access rights or permissions to a specific group. Backbase Portal users are assigned to groups, and through those group assignments acquire the permissions to utilize portal and/or widget functionalities.
Content Manager: Edit Your Content in a Single Location
With Backbase CMS you can manage all your online content in a single location. All your content updates are automatically synchronized with the underlying CMS infrastructure and your changes can be embedded in an approval workflow before being published to the live portal. You can also choose to edit your content directly within the context of the end-user portal page, exactly where you want it to be presented.
Publish: Instant Execution of Your Changes
With the Backbase Portal Manager, you can preview changes to your portal, and subsequently you can publish your changes to either the staging (QA) or to the live production environment. Just click 'publish' and your changes are live. No lengthy IT change cycles, just instant execution of your publishing instruction with the touch of a button.
Personalization: The Right Content to the Right Person
With Backbase Rules you can target customer segments and individual users, based on their behavior and profile. Backbase Portal's advanced targeting rules enable smart cross- and up-sell scenario's. For example: show a different widget when the user logs in more then five times per week or show a banner to all users with a certain profiles status. Your targeting rules can utilize both customer data from your CRM and your online customer data (preference and behavior data).
Watch the Backbase Portal Manager demo
Easy Content Management
With Backbase Portal you can aggregate content from your multiple locations into a single page or application. Backbase Portal comes with a centralized content repository and advanced indexing and search capabilities that enable super fast content retrieval and personalized content delivery scenarios. With all your content accessible, Backbase Portal enables you to create content-centric applications that are easy to use, personalized, blended with application logic and accessible on multiple devices.
Backbase CMS
In case you don't have a CMS, Backbase Portal offers an add-on CMS module that enables you to manage your content and publish it in the Portal delivery platform. You can create and manage different content types (e.g. structured content, video, images, documents, feeds), merge and combine content items, enrich content with meta-data for every content type. With Backbase CMS your are in control of your content. The Backbase CMS module is based on Alfresco ECM technology and is seamlessly integrated in the overall Backbase Portal architecture.
Integrate Your Existing CMS
If you already are using a CMS, we don't force you to switch. Just keep using your current CMS and we use our widgets, mashup engine or content hub to integrate and assume your existing content directly to Backbase Portal.
Easy Forms Management
With Backbase Forms (add-on module to Backbase Portal) you can create and edit forms, but most importantly: manage the business logic and business processes behind them. Backbase Forms not only helps you to create intelligent forms, but also helps you to design the process that routes the form input to the right systems and people within your organization.
Backbase enables you to design interactive forms and online advisory tools that make all interaction with your company intuitive and efficient. With Backbase you can significantly improve your self-service processes, response times, and drastically lower your operational costs for customer enrollment or case management.
Backbase Forms is an add-on module to Backbase Portal and offers the following capabilities:
Manage Your Interactive Forms
Backbase helps you to create and manage interactive Web 2.0 forms. Your forms will be equipped with subtle animations, contextual help, guided navigation, conditional questions, real-time feedback, direct validation, auto summary and auto save. Backbase Forms easily integrates with your back-end systems and helps you to streamline form handling processes.
Create Online Advisory Tools
Backbase Forms comes with a powerful rules engine that enable you to easily implement calculators, simulation tools and advanced advisory tools to help your customers make complex decisions or product choices. The underlying business rules can be directly edited by business analysts enabling you to quickly respond to market dynamics such as competition and new regulation.
Advanced Forms Design with Forms Studio
Backbase Forms Studio is an advanced forms design environment. It enables business analysts to work directly with business owners to translate their needs into quick prototypes. Business teams can quickly design new forms, observe and measure the results, and make the appropriate updates and modifications -- all without programming. Backbase Studio offers approval workflow for multi-eye check, and a preview-stage in production for publishing that enables business teams to publish forms updates safely to live production systems.
Easy Forms Editing with Forms Editor
Backbase Forms Editor is a simple, browser-based forms editor. It enables business users to make changes directly in existing forms, giving them control over text, sequence of questions and forms layout, all within carefully designed structures to prevent them from making mistakes. Forms Editor can be used by any business user and requires no training.
Manage Your Business Rules
Forms Studio enables you to define and manages business rules to streamline both your online customer interactions, and the way you integrate your online channel with your internal systems and other channels (call center, branch). Rules enables you to formalize policy, regulations and legislation and business best practices in a manner that is both comprehensible and maintainable. With business rules you can use customer information to make a diagnoses and to determine logical, next steps such as the execution of cross- and up-sell scenarios.
Manage Your Business Processes
Backbase Forms enables you to define and manage business processes and workflows to streamline both your online customer interactions, and the way you integrate your online channel with your internal systems and other channels (call center, branch). Processes can be started by users and invoked by Web Services. Furthermore, it is possible to state within a process when the application needs to communicate with external systems (databases, enterprise service bus, ERP systems, etc.). Using Backbase Forms, tasks that would normally be performed manually (for example assessments) can now easily be automated and offered to third persons as assessment modules.
Integrate with Existing Systems
Backbase Portal sits on top of your existing IT systems and enables you to re-purpose their capabilities in a more integrated and customer-centric manner. Backbase Portal provides a single point of access to applications across the enterprise. The business driver behind integration is the fact that content and functionality from multiple back-end systems are often required to create a seamless, online customer journey.
Mashup Services
Backbase Mashup Services helps you to aggregate content and functionality from different backend systems into a seamless customer journey and enables two-way communication between your portal and the various back-end systems. In many cases Backbase enables straight-through processing, where an whole user request (e.g. product activation or transaction) is conducted entirely electronically, without the need for manual intervention. This is subject to legal and regulatory restrictions.
Proven Security Model
Backbase Portal enables you to give different customer segments (groups) different access rights and permissions within your portal. User rights can be acquired from your existing security systems or can be defined within the Backbase Portal Manager.
Role-Based Access Control
Portals can help you to offer differentiated product and service capabilities to different customer groups, while keeping costs under control. Within Backbase Portal you can create groups and assign access rights or permissions to a specific group. Portal users are assigned to groups, and through those group assignments acquire the permissions to utilize portal and/or widget functionalities. Since users are not assigned permissions directly, but acquire them through their group (or groups), management of individual user rights becomes a simple matter of assigning appropriate groups.
Integration with your IDM and SSO Infrastructure
Backbase integrates well with your existing security and single sign-on (SSO) infrastructure. User credentials can be directly acquired from your existing security systems and can be translated into access control rules within your portal.
App Store: Click and Run
Backbase Portal comes with pre-built widgets and Web 2.0 apps that are directly available in the Portal App store. Additionally, you can easily add any application (yours or third-party) into the Portal App Store and make them directly available to your portal users.
Backbase Collaboration
Equip your portal with modern collaboration apps such as wiki, blog, project spaces, document sharing and calendaring.
Smart Targeting
Every user is unique. Backbase Portal provides the machinery to create and manage customer profiles, and apply personalization rules, to target the right content and functionality for the right end-user. We do this using their personal preference or behavior data. Backbase also handles the interaction with the CRM domain for campaign management, data mining and master data management.
Behavior Tracking and Customer Profiling
Collect and store users' activities through the customer journey across channels. Customer behavior data is stored in the central customer profile repository. Create an online Customer Profile combining implicit behavioral data (tracking) and explicit data provided by the customer (preferences, account and CRM data).
Personalization and Targeting Rules
Show and hide Content, Widgets, Pages, and Sections based on roles, permissions, and personalization rules. Define cross- and up-sell scenario, whereby you target specific content to users based on their behavior or customer status.
Customer Segmentation
With Backbase Portal, you can target different customer segments with different portal concepts that are each optimized to the need of a particular customer segment. You can now can truly differentiate your offerings and service models per customer segment (e.g. high net worth individuals, small business owners, students, families, retirees).
Integrated Web Analytics
Know who is visiting and what they are viewing. Backbase Portal integrates with your favorite analytics software to bring you real insight into your visitors' behavior and therefore will help improve your online conversion ratios.
Integrate With Your Existing Analytics Software
Backbase Portal comes with an API to directly integrate with your current analytics software. If you are using Google Analytics, Omniture, Unica, Webtrends, Coremetrics or any other analytics suite, you don't have to switch. You can seamlessly integrate them with Backbase Portal.
- Goals: track sales and conversions
- Integrated with AdWords and AdSense
- Complete campaign tracking capabilities
- E-commerce reporting
- Mobile Tracking
- Internal Site Search
- Benchmarking
- Flash, AJAX, video and social network application tracking
- Advanced Segmentation
- Dashboards & Custom Reports
- E-mail reports
- Visualizing data: Motion Charts, Funnels, Spark Lines and Score cards
- Geo Targeting
