SMC Enterprise, the Web portal specialists, recently launched a portal to enable South African Hajj pilgrims to register online. Each year, more than three million people converge on Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for the five-day pilgrimage. A Muslim is only required to perform pilgrimage once in a lifetime if by the means.
Pain points:
The local authority that governs Hajj in South Africa, SAHUC, previously had to contend with a manual paper-based process that resulted in long queues at their offices around the country. These manual processes, coupled with the physical logistics of catering for large numbers of applicants, was becoming difficult and expensive to manage.
In addition, each country is provided with a quota of pilgrims they may send, which required SAHUC to provide a mechanism whereby it could track whether pilgrims had previously performed hajj; thus giving first-time pilgrims an advantage.
According to SAHUC's Project Manager, the organisation is a voluntary organisation with little manpower at its disposal. He further added that the hajj period puts tremendous strain on the available workforce, thus a solution with optimum levels of automation was needed.
SAHUC experimented with an online solution in 2008, and therefore had an initiation of the value that an Internet-based registration and accreditation process would add.
Online solution
Early in 2009, SAHUC contracted Microsoft Gold Partner and portal specialists, SMC Enterprise, to build a solution to meet its requirement. The solution was launched on time and went live on 1 May 2009. In the first week alone, approximately 2 500 people registered and paid a nominal registration fee.
The portal consists of features to register different types of groups, make payments, confirm details and later on, verify acceptance. It also enables other stakeholders like agents and SAHUC to access pertinent information.
“This portal addresses such a simple requirement and provides such a tremendously useful function that we had to get involved. Our team did a fantastic job and definitely improved this very painstaking process “, says Allie Khan, Project Manager at SMC Enterprise.
The hajj portal is visible at http://www.sahuchajjregistry.org.za.
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