A luxury automotive dealership network relied on a complex hybrid system combining a legacy CodeIgniter events platform with WordPress for dealer management and communications. The system required significant modernization to support marketing planning, photo management, and enhanced dealer collaboration tools.

84EM rebuilt the functionality from legacy theme code into a modern WordPress plugin. This included developing custom photo storage integration and building a bulletin board system for dealer communications across both platforms.

Solution

84EM overhauled the system by refactoring legacy theme code into a standalone WordPress plugin with enhanced capabilities. This rebuild introduced interactive calendar views, quarterly planning tools, and comprehensive data export functionality.

A custom photo management plugin integrated Amazon S3 storage to handle dealer event photos with automatic image resizing, batch processing, and background export capabilities. The bulletin board plugin enabled dealer-to-dealer communication with role-based permissions and automated email notifications.

Technical Implementation

• Rebuilt system from theme code into a modular WordPress plugin with an interactive calendar interface and filtering by region, dealer, event type, and vehicle target.
• Developed Amazon S3 photo integration plugin for event photos with automatic image resizing, batch uploads, RAW format support, and background processing for exports containing 250+ images.
• Created an Excel spreadsheet export system with customizable layouts, quarterly breakdowns, cost calculations, and automated email delivery with 48-hour expiration links.
• Built a bulletin board plugin with dealer-specific filtering, broadcast messaging, comment threading, read tracking, and role-based admin controls for dealership editors.
• Implemented user synchronization scripts to migrate accounts between WordPress and CodeIgniter databases while maintaining authentication across both platforms.
• Enhanced CodeIgniter platform with PDF generation for event waivers and agreements using the mPDF library with email attachment support.
• Maintained Salesforce API integration for automated contact syncing and marketing campaign data flow.
• Integrated WooCommerce Action Scheduler for reliable background job processing of photo exports, spreadsheet generation, and email notifications.
• Developed WP-CLI commands for administrative tasks and database maintenance operations.
• Built a dynamic cost calculation system for marketing events with support for co-op requests, customer contributions, quarterly totals, and actual vs. estimated tracking.

Results

The rebuilt system provides dealers with interactive planning tools for event coordination. Regional managers can filter views by multiple criteria and export comprehensive reports with attached event photos delivered via automated email.

Photo management now handles hundreds of images per event with automatic optimization and cloud storage. The bulletin board has become the primary channel for dealer announcements, with read-tracking ensuring critical messages reach their audience across the nationwide network.