H2GC - Recent Feature Updates

We started our journey with H2 Gambling Capital in 2014. A market leader who collects, analyses and provides the most up-to-date data for all of the major gambling markets globally. They use the data gathered and produce valuable and meaningful insights which are then presented to their subscribers in various formats, using their web portal. During the COVID 19 pandemic, they provided completely customised insights that were based on the fluctuating market data. A big focus for the company is to continually add more value to their subscribers through new features on the subscriber portal. This is where Absolute comes into it. We work closely with H2 to plan, build and implement new features. Let’s take a look at some recent ones…

Data Wall - A new way to present key insights

H2 gather and analyse hundreds of thousands of key data points. To give the subscribers a high-level view of the analytical data, driven by intelligence that they continuously produce, we have introduced a new section called Data Wall within the subscriber area.

This new Data Wall will give members easy access to key analytical data. Several charts and statuses are generated based on the data, which is regularly updated through the back office of the website. The data is mainly based on the global dataset, but in the future, we are planning to roll out data specific to the region, country, and even state level. The user interface of the Data Wall allows the user to change the data parameters easily to generate data based on their requirements. These parameters include product channel, year, currency, etc. The data from these charts can be downloaded as a PDF to use for other purposes. We have taken special consideration to implement H2’s branding in this area for consistency. With this, the generated PDFs look the same as what is visible on the portal.

The charts and data statuses can be easily generated and managed through the back office, which gives a great amount of flexibility. To make the process of regularly updating the data easier, we have introduced an option to import data from a complex spreadsheet, that the H2 team uses internally. To generate these charts, we have to process thousands of data points for all regions for each of the channels and products.

Completely customised newsletters

A useful and engaging feature of the portal is to send a summary of updates for all the markets as a newsletter to the subscribers, which we implemented from day one. This is a great way for the H2 team to communicate valuable insights with their members. Each week, the market update summary is aggregated and sent at a scheduled time. After further discussions, it was agreed that H2 was also looking for a more personal option to communicate with members, so we have introduced a customised newsletter solution. In addition to aggregating the key update information, the team can now add custom insights and market updates to the newsletter.

Team members can easily create blocks of information through the Absolute Control CMS admin area along with assets like charts, PDFs, etc. to include in the upcoming newsletter. We have personalised this feature further for the specific member by including any relevant market updates for any documents the member is following. This means that the members get more customised information in their inboxes every week.

Due to the high volume of subscribers, we are using external platforms to send and track emails, but we didn't want to bring the complexity of the integration to the admin users. So, they can do everything from the CMS admin, using their familiar CMS module infrastructure. We have introduced features like email preview, send a test email, and short-codes to further personalise the copy used in the newsletter.

 

Company Coverage

In addition to collecting and sharing information about markets, H2 is now providing key information about selected market-leading companies to assist subscribing organisations make key decisions. This works in a similar way as the Market section, but company information can be easily searched and key information and updates can be downloaded for each company. This is another valuable addition to providing data about suppliers and operators.

Market Update History

Both the Market and Company sections of the subscriber area list all the files with various information. This list can be easily filtered using several filter criteria such as region, type, date of update, file status, keyword, etc. Members can download these files and check further information within the files. We have introduced a feature to show the number of times this file has been updated and also the history of all the updates made. This is very useful for the H2 team to see in a nutshell the file update history. This can then be presented to the user for them to know if the update is relevant to them before downloading the file. To give more value to this feature, we have introduced a filter option for these updates per file, so that the subscriber can filter any relevant updates (eg: COVID) and then download the update history as a PDF file for their use.

Improved Home Page Charts

As the industry-leading market intelligence team, H2 has been providing key market insights not only to the subscribers but also to the public through the website and other channels. Especially during the COVID lockdown period, this was critical and they provided insightful market reflections through custom charts. We worked together to create these branded charts and showcase them on the website. But an idea that emerged from this was the ability to create these charts from the Absolute Control CMS. Thanks to the Absolute Control module system, where we built a custom module to create and manage these charts through the admin area. A variety of chart types could be created with all the brand aspects and with all the required customisations to showcase the information.

Conclusion

Being a part of our client's growth is a nice story to tell. But also as developers, we are thrilled about the opportunity to solve complex problems for our clients and to work with them to give more value to their products and services. Our in-house bespoke web application Absolute Control, built using the Laravel Framework is not just a CMS, it is a platform for building complex solutions for our valuable clients.

We are already discussing some more exciting new features with the team at H2 so watch this space!

Head over to our case study to read more.