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Sector Skills Development Agency (SSDA)
In April 2004 Foresite's existing contract to maintain and develop the SSDA's web sites and Intranet expired and the SSDA initiated an OJEU tender for the re-development and maintenance of their website, extranet and intranet. Foresite was successful in this tender and was awarded a further 2-year contract to re-develop all three sites as well as maintaining them over the 2-year period.
The Challenge
The project's main requirement was for the SSDA's three sites (website, extranet and intranet) to be re-developed using a single implementation of a powerful content management system. Other requirements included:
- The CMS needed the ability to use plug-in modules for custom functionality
- All existing website, extranet and intranet content had to be imported into the CMS
- The ability to allow multiple people to edit content
- The functionality for a complex content workflow (allowing content to be edited by one person and approved by others)
- The ability to allow users of the extranet to edit certain content which is then pushed into the content workflow to approved by the SSDA
- The ability to send HTML and text email newsletters to thousands of users
- The ability to create secure areas of the website
- The ability to host Intranet content on an internal server and publish web and extranet content to an external server whilst still managing all sites via a single system
- The CMS had to be scaleable and future-proof
- The new site had to conform to Government accessibility guidelines
The Solution
As part of the first stage of the re-development project, Foresite guided the SSDA through a structured, investigative process to firstly identify the Content Management System (CMS) that most suited their requirements and then to re-define the functionality, design and content of all three sites.
During a 1-day facilitated workshop, the SSDA's exact CMS requirements were mapped out and identified which enabled Foresite to identify and present 3 CMS options to the SSDA. The three potential solutions identified were: Active Edition, Immediacy and RedDot, three middle tier content management solutions. The vendors of these three solutions were asked to present and demonstrate the products to Foresite and the SSDA and the most suitable was selected. The chosen solution was Immediacy, a powerful .NET based, middle tier Content Management System.
One of the SSDA's key requirements was that a single CMS solution was required to manage all three sites within one single implementation. Immediacy had existing built in support to do this. One of Immediacy's other key strengths was that the company offers a number of plug-in applications which provide extended functionality.
Once the SSDA's CMS requirements had been mapped out, Foresite facilitated a second workshop with the SSDA in order to re-define the new site's design and information architecture. This exercise involved examining the aims, goals and requirements that the SSDA and its stakeholders had from the three sites.
Once the new site's design and information architecture had been defined, Foresite developed a number of design concepts for the sites which were then presented to the SSDA. After a few changes and refinements the designs were finalised and signed off by the SSDA.
The entire investigative process took approximately 4 weeks, after which time the most suitable proprietary CMS solution had been identified (Immediacy CMS) and the graphical design, functionality and information architecture of the sites had been re-defined and re-developed.
As well as configuring and implementing Immediacy and developing a number of templates, the project required the development of a number of custom plug-in modules to be created ranging from an events calendar to a custom newsletter manager. All of these plug-ins were developed in C#.NET. The project also required the implementation and management of a dedicated Windows 2003 web server running IIS and MSSQL server. This was all fully managed by Foresite.
The Result
After a 3 month period of development the new SSDA website was launched in September 2004 and the Intranet was launched a month later. The new customised CMS provides the SSDA with a very high level of control and flexibility over all three sites. The key result is large reduction in the SSDA's reliance on an outside agency in order to build new and edit existing website content.
As an NDPB, the SSDA had a requirement to conform to relevant Government and Accessibility web guidelines as well as other Government initiatives such as the e-GMS (e-Government Metadata Standards) which is a component of the large e-GIF (e-Government Interoperability Framework). Foresite has ensured that the new CMS and websites fully meet these requirements.
In addition to development and design services, Foresite has also provided a large amount of technical and web-policy guidance and consultancy to the SSDA. This has ranged from accessibility guidelines, online branding advice and help with conforming to e-government guidelines.
