Home Case studies Groupe Plein Air Terrebonne
Recreation and outdoorsApp, portal and websiteSince 2024
An outdoor organization replaces its manual processes with an ecosystem of three connected applications
An outdoor mobile app, a management portal and a website that all draw on the same data. For Groupe Plein Air Terrebonne, every piece of information is entered once and reaches users in real time.
The results
free and paid passes issued by the platform
to buy a pass or reserve equipment, without going through the front desk
for one piece of information to appear in the app, on the website and in the alerts
to produce attendance reports, at any point in the season
Project facts
Client
Groupe Plein Air Terrebonne
Industry
Recreation and outdoors
Scope
Trail and activity site network, seasonal clientele
Systems delivered
Mobile app, management portal with user access, public website
Timeline
Three phases, then continuous evolution since 2024
Platforms
iOS, Android, web portal, WordPress site, custom API
Status
In production, evolving continuously
The situation before
Groupe Plein Air Terrebonne gives access to its trails, its activities and its equipment rentals through a system of seasonal passes.
As in most recreation organizations, each area lived in its own tool: pass sales and tracking on one side, trail conditions on another, equipment reservations somewhere else again. None of these tools talked to the others.
The same piece of information therefore had to be entered several times, by different people, at different moments. A trail changed condition on the ground long before that showed up online. And the attendance data, scattered across systems, could only be consolidated through manual compilation.
This is the reality of most organizations that grow faster than their tools: the more the clientele grows, the more the administrative load grows with it.
What it was costing
Hours of duplicate data entry
Every pass, every reservation and every update passed through several tools. In high season, that time came out of a team that was already stretched thin.
Information out of step
Between the moment a trail changed condition and the moment a user found out, there was a delay. That delay translated into wasted trips and repeated questions at the front desk.
Data that was hard to use
The attendance numbers existed, but scattered. Consolidating them took days of work at the end of the season, when it was too late to act on the results.
Renewals with no follow-up
With no automatic reminder, renewal depended on each user’s initiative, or on manual follow-up when the team found the time for it.
The ecosystem, built in three phases
The three systems were not delivered in one block. Each one was put into service and used before the next was built on top of it. That is why they work together rather than side by side.
Phase 1
The outdoor mobile app, on the user’s side
Available on the App Store and Google Play, the app brings together everything a user needs before and during an outing. They buy and renew their seasonal pass, check trail conditions and the groomer’s last pass on an interactive map, and reserve their equipment. They receive the alerts they have chosen based on their activities, along with upcoming events and promotions.
Phase 2
The web portal, for the team and for users
On the organization’s side, it is the management portal: the team tracks subscriptions and their expiry dates, equipment rentals and trail conditions, and monitors pass and attendance statistics on an ongoing basis. On the user’s side, it is a web version of the app, reachable straight from the website: pass purchase, conditions, reservations, from a computer or a tablet.
Phase 3
The public website, connected to the rest
The website was rebuilt so it would stop being an isolated storefront. It was at this phase that the three applications were connected to one another: three tools became a single system, reachable through three front doors.
How the three systems talk to each other
No data is copied from one system to another. It is created in one place, then travels on its own to the other two.
Trail conditions
Updated in the portal, they appear right away on the app’s map and on the website, and trigger an alert to the users who follow that trail.
Passes
Whether it is bought in the app or from the website, a pass appears immediately in the portal. Its expiry date triggers the renewal reminder.
Content
Events, promotions and articles are published once on the website and picked up automatically in the app. The team works in a single publishing tool.
Equipment reservations
The app and the portal read the same inventory in real time. Equipment reserved on one side is no longer available on the other, which eliminates double booking.
Statistics
Every purchase, renewal and reservation feeds the attendance reports directly, with no exports and no file merging.
The conversational assistant
Fed by the website’s content, an assistant answers users’ common questions around the clock. Repetitive requests no longer reach the front desk.
How we went about it
We delivered the complete mobile app first, on iOS and Android.
Users had a fully functional tool in hand from the first phase. What we observed in their real-world use then shaped the design of the portal and the website.
We designed the portal for two audiences.
For the team, the goal was autonomy: everything done more than once a week, such as alerts, conditions and promotions, gets published without going through us. For users, the goal was access: part of the clientele does not go through a phone, and they should not be cut off from the same services.
We built it so things could be added, without having to be redone.
From the first phase, the app rested on an API designed to take on other systems. The portal, then the website, plugged into it in turn, without us having to rebuild what already worked. For the client, each new phase cost what it added, not what had to be reconstructed.
We kept a single codebase for iOS and Android.
Every fix and every new feature ships to both platforms at the same time, after validation in a test build. The client pays once for each improvement, not twice.
The results in detail
More than 9,000 passes issued
Since launch, through the app or the web portal. Selling and issuing passes now goes through the system rather than through manual entry.
A service open at all hours
Buying a pass, renewing it, reserving equipment: it all happens from the app or the website, at any hour, without depending on front desk hours. The time the team used to spend on those transactions goes back to users out on the ground.
One entry, three channels
A trail closure noted on the ground reaches the users concerned within seconds. They arrive informed, rather than getting informed on arrival.
Reports in one click
Attendance data now serves to steer the season, and no longer just to recount it afterwards. The reports meant for partners are produced in a few minutes.
Renewals that follow up on their own
Every expiry date triggers its own reminder, at the right moment, without anyone having to think about it. Retention becomes a process rather than an effort.
What the client says
Guillaume Perreault followed the project on the Groupe Plein Air Terrebonne side, from the first phase to today.
“Great service and very efficient. Our new mobile app is of excellent quality and lives up to our expectations, and this despite the very tight deadlines we had to complete it. We strongly recommend LADEV!” (translated from French)
Guillaume Perreault
Director - Groupe Plein Air Terrebonne
The detail that made the difference
For an outdoor organization, demand follows the calendar. It climbs at the opening of each season, during the construction holiday and school breaks, then drops back between those periods. The system had to stay just as fast at peak traffic as in the quiet weeks, without being oversized the rest of the year. So we [planned an infrastructure that adjusts to peaks] and cut the purchase path down to a few screens, so a pass can be bought in moments, even during the busiest periods.
What comes next
Three systems delivered
App, portal and website, put into service in three phases between 2024 and 2026
Latest addition
The conversational assistant, which answers users around the clock.
Next step
Surprise
A system used every day is never finished. We stay on after delivery: fixes, updates required by the mobile platforms, new features added season after season.
See the result
The La Passe Plein Air app is available on the App Store and Google Play, and the website is open to everyone. See for yourself what a user experiences.
Do your subscriptions, your reservations and your communications live in tools that do not talk to each other?
That is the problem we solve most often. Tell us about your current process: in 30 minutes we will tell you whether a custom system pays off in your situation, and which funding programs can cover part of it.
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