Digital Experience App for VW

VW wanted a digital companion for its dealer conference. The app was designed to guide visitors through the day, provide additional information and offer opportunities for interaction.

The event and its content were internal and were not to be made publicly accessible. Consequently, the requirement was to run the entire system locally on a closed network.

Q3i’s role

As a subcontractor, we designed the system architecture for operation without an internet connection, defined the APIs for the relevant systems, programmed the visitor app and provided the content management system. Other service providers and agencies contributed the accreditation software, the real-time server, the hardware and the network.

Challenge

The biggest challenge was offline operation: all components and services had to be self-hostable and able to work together without an internet connection.

Furthermore, it was clear from the outset that the integration and coordination of content, as well as the translation, would only take place on site shortly before the event. A CMS was therefore absolutely essential.

Solution

The core components of the system architecture:

• a real-time server with a control dashboard for remote management of the apps
• a visitor app as a PWA connected to the real-time server
• a TYPO3 headless CMS
• an offline-capable accreditation tool

To ensure that no information could leave the event, the client decided against a ‘Bring your own device’ policy. Each visitor was given an iPad with the visitor app pre-installed upon check-in and returned it upon check-out.

We entered the content and photos provided by the departments into the local TYPO3 CMS on site. Following consultation and approval, we exported all texts via the L10N Manager for translation and then re-imported them. As guests were travelling from all over Europe, the app’s content was translated into 15 languages.

Digital Experience App

Check-in was carried out using a unique QR code, which was generated by the accreditation software and printed on the visitor pass.

Visitors were automatically divided into groups, which visited the exhibition halls at staggered intervals. Visitor flows were managed from the control room to ensure an even distribution of visitors. The app’s content was activated individually for each group throughout the day.

In the exhibition, visitors were able to access in-depth information about the vehicles. During the brand show, they took part in polls, reacted to the topics using emoticons and asked questions, which were edited in real time in the control room and forwarded to the presenter.

At the end of the day, every visitor rated the conference. We compiled the results daily and handed them over to the event management team.

The local platform integrated a visitor app, real-time control and content management without the need for an external internet connection.