Optimizing the Technology behind Pageant Planet—the Leading Platform for All Things Pageant Related

As Pageant Planet’s influence in the industry grew, so did their partnership with Net Solutions. Steven continued to discover opportunities to better serve his target audience, and he relied on Net Solutions to make his vision a reality. Some of these game-changing features included the following.

• Site-based Messaging: One of Pageant Planet’s biggest draws was that it allowed contestants to find coaches and sponsors, but users had to employ other means to communicate. That’s why Net Solutions created a site-based messaging system. This made it easier for users to connect with one another, thereby keeping users within the platform longer and increasing the site’s overall value proposition.
• eCommerce Capabilities: Pageant Planet was connected to an eCommerce site, but the eCommerce component was built on a standalone WordPress installation that was separate from the main site. This meant that any reporting or administration was done through a separate dashboard. To create a more seamless interface, Net Solutions integrated an eCommerce shop on the Laravel instance which powers the Pageant Planet platform, bringing the administration to the main dashboard. It also included enhanced features that allowed members to sell products directly to each other.
• “Help Me Find” Wizard: Customer feedback revealed that contestants seeking coaches or sponsors don’t always know where to begin. They had plenty of providers to sort through, but they needed a little help narrowing their options. With this in mind, the team created a multi-step wizard that asks contestants simple questions to help them identify a shortlist of professionals who fit their needs. The feature also helps providers discover potential clients.
• Crowdfunding Tool: Participating in pageants can be expensive, and one reason contestants join Pageant Planet is to find sponsors. To serve this need, Net Solutions created a tool allowing contestants to run crowdfunding drives directly from the platform. The tool also enables contestants to spread the word through social shares and other channels, and funds can be transferred directly to contestants from the platform.
• Enhanced Search Capabilities: Pageant Planet was quickly becoming the definitive resource for information about the pageant industry. It contained large volumes of information—from articles to user profiles belonging to just about everyone in the industry. All this data produced lag in the website’s search feature, so Net Solutions replaced the basic search tool with Elasticsearch, a leading open-source search solution. This both sped up the search feature and added fuzzy search capabilities, where slightly misspelled words could produce relevant results. For example, just like Google, the system would interpret a search for “caoching” as “coaching.”
• Automated Clearing House for Payments: The platform had multiple finance-related workflows that involved things like accepting membership fees, People’s Choice Awards, eCommerce shops, crowdfunding for contestants, and more. Steven wanted to track these exchanges more efficiently, so Net Solutions created an automated clearing house designed to track the various programs and its payments. The system generates reports where Pageant Planet’s team can review the trends, drill down into the details, and receive alerts whenever outbound payments are due. Thanks to this highly-accurate and efficient system, which enables on-time payments without a hitch, Pageant Planet has an extremely high satisfaction rating from its partners and users.

Upgrading the Legacy Code

As the site grew, the legacy code began to negatively impact the pace of growth and the ability to implement new features. Based on Net Solutions’ recommendations, Steven decided to upgrade the tech stack from the original Laravel 5/PHP 5 to Laravel 7/PHP 7. The upgrade improved site performance and made additional functionalities available to the Pageant Planet team.