01 · Task
Task
EM-MED, a Polish manufacturer of medical equipment, sells through a network of distributors. Each of them needs up-to-date materials in the right language version: product sheets, leaflets, technical specifications, certificates and print files. Sending them by email meant that outdated versions stayed in circulation, while a public download catalogue would also have handed these materials to competitors. The client wanted one place that only logged-in distributors can enter, where different groups see different things and where it is clear who downloaded a given file and when.
02 · Solution
Solution
I built the portal on WordPress, because the client needed to add files and accounts without help from a developer. The whole website runs in closed mode. Every address redirects to the login screen, and the files themselves cannot be reached on the server without a session. Materials are organised by product line and language, and each file has its own access setting, so a document for one group of distributors is not visible to the others.
Distributor accounts are assigned to permission groups. Every download goes into a log with the date, account, address and browser, and the admin panel shows summaries. Sessions expire after a set period of inactivity, and one account cannot be logged in from two places at once. Where proven, maintained solutions were enough, I used them instead of writing my own, and with my own code I filled in what was missing in the way these parts work together.
03 · Result
Result
The client publishes new versions of the materials on its own, and distributors always download the current file. When someone at the company asks whether a given document has been downloaded and by whom, the download log settles it. The portal remains under my ongoing support, and requests about access and file settings come to me.
