Case Studies
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Pittwater Council
Pittwater local government area is situated at the northern end of Sydney's Northern Beaches and just 45 minutes north of the Sydney CBD. In 2005 Pittwater Council set about the process of implementing a new Content Management System (CMS) to manage both their Internet and Intranet sites, and micro sites such as the library. Pittwater Council required a web CMS solution that would offer; distributed authoring; standardised web pages; provision for meeting agendas & minutes (PDFs); events calendar for library, sports, exhibitions etc; specialty search tools for find a park / find a centre; integration with the existing online payment system; and integration with Pittwater Online Mapping. Council were also very keen to establish functionality for ratepayers to track both Construction Certificates and Development Applications. Squiz was selected to implement MySource Matrix as we offered a cost effective solution that would satisfy Council's immediate and future requirements. Squiz has delivered services and provided solutions to Pittwater Council since 2005.
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Centennial Park and Moore Park Trust
The Centennial Park and Moore Park Trust Case Study discusses implementation of the initial Centennial Parklands project in 2004 and subsequent redesign in 2007 to ensure the site complied with the NSW Style Directive and be AA accessible. The redesign also delivered an events calendar and latest news listing using out-of-the-box MySource Matrix functionality. Also discussed is the design and development of three new websites that were seen as discreet business units requiring unique branding. These were; Centennial Parklands Foundation (incorporating ecommerce functionality), Friends of Centennial Parklands and Centennial Parklands Equestrian Centre websites. Squiz built these four sites in their entirety (with the exception of the Friends of Centennial Parklands design which was supplied by a third party based on pre-existing artwork).
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Office of Fairtrading - BLIS
The online NSW Business Licence Information System (BLIS) allows users to find all licence related information that might be relevant to them when starting or running a business. The website offers several licence search options and presents the information to the user in a PDF package which can be downloaded over the internet. There are several thousand licenses, application forms, guidelines etc. that are organised in a classification schema with several hundred categories. The system offers shopping cart functionality where users can add or remove licences from their ‘basket’ before progressing to the checkout counter.
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City of Newcastle
The Newcastle City Council website with an average of nearly 80,000 visitors a month had grown to become a key information delivery and marketing tool. An increase in user confidence and familiarity with Internet usage had raised community expectations to the functions, interactive facilities and currency of the information visitors expected to find on the website. Council’s Communications unit and IT department co-ordinated a website review and feedback process which identified a new Content Management System (CMS) would be required to manage content and provide enhanced functionality. Squiz was successful in winning the new website tender due to the user friendly MySource Matrix interface, holistic range of Squiz professional services (implementation, training and help desk support etc.) offered and a competitive price. The citizens of Newcastle now have a fantastic modern information portal that enables them to connect with the city and instantly receive help and assistance on a range of Council and Community topics. Users can also contribute to events online, lodge issues or concerns via an online form and pay their rates. Over time the site will become increasingly interactive, with the introduction of more online forms and Web 2.0 functionality such as public forums, membership areas and RSS feeds.
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University of Western Australia
The University of Western Australia (UWA) had been successfully running the Squiz developed MySource Classic (MySource version 2) for several years, but was now facing new organisational and technical web challenges including content sprawl, inconsistent governance, limited resources (website office staff) Highly devolved IT and a lack of web expertise. A comprehensive CMS review identified that MySource Matrix could offer reduced capital expenditure; improved and enhanced user interface; the ability to perform well for sites of a large size/scale delivering hundreds of thousands of pages and millions of hits per day; and that Suqiz could offer a fully supported solution. Because the majority of the implementation was undertaken by the University they additionally purchased specialist services from Squiz including assistance with the implementation, accredited training courses to bring staff up to speed, plus a Service Level Agreement for ongoing warranty and support.
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Discover Tasmania
When Squiz became involved in September 2007 Tourism Tasmania was looking to redevelop the Discover Tasmania website in conjunction with a re-brand of the electronic and print media. All of the graphic design was created by a 3rd party for Squiz to apply to MySource Matrix. The core technical challenge for Squiz was to integrate Tourism data from the ‘Tiger Tours’ data warehouse (Tourism Tasmania’s implementation of the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) database). This required the development of import scripts that would accept changes to the Tiger Tours’ database on a nightly basis. Additionally, the Squiz Content Migration Team was engaged to migrate content from the existing website into MySource Matrix along with any content written for the new site. Squiz delivered the revamped site in December 2007 to coincide with delivery of the re-branded electronic and print media. Squiz has subsequently been engaged to refresh the design and add extra functionality to the site.
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Griffith University
When Squiz became involved in the project there were several challenges facing the University. Griffith was very concerned that its major marketing tool - the website - was ineffective due to inconsistent use of the Griffith brand and poor navigation. Griffith was looking to create a much more user centered website. There was also a real need to remove the technical barriers to publishing so that the content was able to be maintained by the content experts and not by technical experts. Evaluation and research by University technical staff reinforced the potential of MySource Matrix to not only meet the primary objectives but to also provide options for other content management issues within the University. The University was fortunate to have strong in-house PHP skills and this coupled with the knowledge that they could engage Squiz for commercial support using (among other avenues) Support Packs, reduced the risk in going with an open source product. The MySource Matrix / Squiz solution delivered on the initial expectations. MySource Matrix was well received by the web publishing community - especially by those with little or no knowledge of HTML and CSS. It has enabled the University to release a new style guide that is enforced by the MySource Matrix design templates. This allowed the web publishers to concentrate on good quality content in a sustainable way.
