PHP-Based Platform for Major Incident Management & Crisis Coordination

As a PHP Software Engineer at La Banque Postale, I contributed to the development of an integrated suite of four web applications designed to manage major IT incidents across Groupe La Poste.

The platform supported the complete incident management lifecycle, from initial incident reporting to impact analysis, stakeholder communication, and crisis coordination.

We developed four interconnected applications:

1. Incident Reporting: Standardized incident declarations with role-specific forms and information.
2. Impact Analysis: Identified affected infrastructure components and business services through dependency mapping.
3. Incident Communication: Distributed targeted incident updates and resolution notifications while maintaining an audit trail.
4. Crisis Management: Coordinated expert meetings, tracked decisions, and maintained action plans during major incidents.

Built using PHP, a custom CakePHP-based framework, Angular, and REST APIs, these applications automatically exchanged information to provide a consistent view of incidents across different IT and business teams.

The goal was to simplify incident management, improve coordination, and ensure that relevant information was accessible to the right people throughout the incident lifecycle.

First Application - Standardizing Major Incident Reporting

Groupe La Poste operates a large and complex IT infrastructure supporting numerous business services. When a significant incident occurred, different stakeholders needed to report information, understand its impact, coordinate resolution activities, and communicate with affected users.

Our first application provided a standardized process for declaring and managing major incidents, internally referred to as Significant Events.

We developed role-specific forms adapted to different user profiles. For example, a branch employee could report an incident and describe its business impact, while IT operations teams could provide additional technical information, including:

• Technical analysis and diagnostic information.
• Logs and supporting evidence.
• Resolution plans and corrective actions.
• Incident communications and progress updates.

This allowed everyone to contribute relevant information without exposing unnecessary technical complexity to non-technical users.

Second Application - Building an IT Dependency and Impact Analysis System

The second application focused on understanding the consequences of an incident. We developed a dependency management interface allowing IT teams to register infrastructure components and define relationships between systems, applications, and business services.

When an incident was associated with a particular IT component, the application could identify related infrastructure and determine which business services might be affected. We also developed a frontend allowing users to:

• View the status of Groupe La Poste's business services.
• Identify ongoing incidents affecting specific services.
• Explore an incident and discover its potential impact across the organization.

This provided a common view of incident impact for both technical operations teams and business stakeholders.

Third & Fourth Application - Automating Incident Communication and Crisis Coordination

We developed two additional applications to support incident resolution and communication.

• Incident Communication

Using the existing business service database, the communication application helped IT teams identify the relevant audience and distribute incident notifications or resolution updates. Communications were recorded and traceable, supporting internal audit requirements.

• Crisis Management

For major incidents requiring coordination between multiple technical specialists, we developed a crisis management application. Based on the affected IT components, the application could organize calls involving the relevant experts. Meeting information, discussions, decisions, and action plans were recorded within the application.

These action plans could then be shared with the incident management application, ensuring that resolution activities remained connected to the original incident.

Connecting the Applications Through REST APIs

One of the most important technical aspects was integrating the four applications into a consistent workflow. We developed REST API integrations allowing information to be exchanged automatically between the different tools. For example:

• Creating an incident made its information available to the impact analysis application.
• Associating infrastructure components with an incident allowed affected business services to be identified.
• Creating an incident communication reused existing incident and service information.
• Recording decisions and action plans during crisis meetings made them available in the incident management application.

This reduced duplicate data entry and allowed users to access relevant information from whichever application they were working in. The result was an integrated ecosystem supporting incident management from initial detection through resolution.

• Full-Stack Application Development: Contributed to the development of the PHP backend and Angular frontend across the incident management suite, using our custom CakePHP-based framework.
• REST API Integration: Worked on the integration between the four applications, enabling automatic data exchange and consistent information throughout the incident lifecycle.
• Business Logic & Data Management: Implemented application features supporting structured incident reporting, IT dependency relationships, impact analysis, and incident-related workflows.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Worked with IT operations stakeholders and the development team to translate complex incident management processes into accessible web applications.

• Delivered 4 interconnected applications: Covered incident reporting, IT impact analysis, stakeholder communication, and crisis management through a unified set of tools.
• Enabled automated business impact identification: Connected infrastructure components to business services, allowing teams to identify potentially affected services when an incident was reported.
• Standardized incident communication and auditability: Centralized incident updates, targeted communications, and resolution notifications with traceable communication records.
• Reduced duplicated information across incident workflows: Used REST API integrations to automatically share incident details, technical analyses, crisis meeting information, and action plans between applications.