IN THE NEWS
Wordpress anyone?
In our last issue, we talked about the advantages of using the Drupal Content Management System (CMS) for managing your website.
Another option to consider is Wordpress as your CMS of choice! You'd be surprised at the multitude of ways you can use Wordpress as a CMS, and how easily the software can be customized to fit your needs.
For example, we recently redesigned and customized the National Cancer Institute's Benchmarks Newsletter site using Wordpress. With Wordpress their staff can easily update and post new information without HTML programming knowledge. Training employees was a snap, and their new online newsletter site with social media features was up and running in a very short amount of time.
Wordpress: A Strong CMS Option for Small to Mid-Sized Organizations
Wordpress is a powerful content management system and the software is open source, which means that it's free of charge. It is a perfect choice for small-to-medium organizations looking for a user-friendly and cost-effective way to manage their web site.
With Wordpress, you can easily publish and modify your website content, which means that your site will be fresh and up-to-date with the latest news. This is especially important since search engines are constantly looking for fresh, unique content. Better still, Wordpress lets you update your website with a new article or newsletter, and it's easy to tag that content for searching via the tag cloud or by using your favorite search engine! Need further convincing? Consider the following top 5 reasons to consider Wordpress as your CMS solution:
- Little training required: Wordpress is so user-friendly that content editors require very little training to learn how to use the software.
- Easy social media connections: The system gives you many "hooks" to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, so you can reach out more broadly to audiences.
- Built-In Features:You'll discover valuable features that make your job easier, including an easy upload function, tagging and a workflow function.
- Improved search engine results: Wordpress provides solid search engine optimization (SEO) to help your organization receive high rankings.
- Easy access to hosting and support:You'll find thousands of Wordpress hosting providers, plus broad support for the system.
Please keep in mind that Wordpress is not the best solution for all website needs. For larger, more complex needs, we recommend a more customizable CMS package. For example, if your organization requires significant changes to the existing workflow, you probably want to consider a more sophisticated CMS, such as Drupal.
WebFirst recently completed the first Drupal implementation for the federal government. Please keep reading to find out more about our project.
Want to learn more about WebFirst can help you? Contact Scott Bleggi at 301-670-1690x1 or info@webfirst.com.
Featured Case Studies
WebFirst Launches Social Media-Based Newsletter Site for the National Cancer Institute
The National Cancer Institute's (NCI's) Benchmarks Newsletter website is targeted to science writers, journalists and the public. The articles in this website cover the wide variety of research being conducted at NCI. NCI wanted to increase their reach and audience by leveraging social media.
The WebFirst team redeveloped the Benchmarks Newsletter on the Wordpress platform, which is an open-source CMS. WebFirst designed the website, used custom Wordpress modules, and developed a custom archive page for past newsletters.
The system allows for rapid uploads of animations, links to YouTube videos, and other media types. WebFirst created custom hooks into RSS feeds, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube. A Twitter Widget was installed to allow users to see a scrolling list of real-time NCI twitter feeds. A Tagging and Category system was also created to populate the Tag Cloud. WebFirst customized the Wordpress search engine to display the search results with thumbnail and excerpt. The new site is W3C and Section 508 compliant and was launched in November 2009.
Technologies Used: Wordpress, PHP, MySQL, Photoshop
WebFirst Delivers Data Warehousing and Reporting Solution for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
WebFirst recently completed a project with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), an organization that conducts and supports research on topics related to the health of children and families.
Previously, NICHD had an application that tracks grant applications for various funding opportunities. The grant application follows several stages - from applicant to scientific peer review, to funding review, and finally to approval or rejection.
This system was initially developed using Business Objects Reporting Services with an Oracle back-end for their grants management system. Due to standardization and cost considerations, NICHD wanted to migrate from Business Objects to Microsoft SQL Server reporting services. Business users are now able to use the Microsoft tool to build reports easily and efficiently. The result? NICHD now has a more efficient and cost effective tool to track and follow grant applications, saving them time and funds.
Technologies Used : MS SQL server and Analysis Server
Configurable Web-based Survey and Content Management System developed for USAID's Nigeria Expanded Export Program (NEEP)
NEEP is a technical assistance program that provides capacity building to Nigerian exporters. NEEP will support exporters in a subset of sectors including sesame seeds, specialty foods, shea, cashew, textiles, home decor and seafood. The NEEP staff came to WebFirst with a requirement to design and implement a website and allow for user-friendly content creation. WebFirst implemented a Drupal (open-source) based Content Management System that allows NEEP staff to easily update content via a web based WSYWYG editor. Moreover, WebFirst implemented a Drupal module to allow for configurable web-based surveys and program applications. NEEP staff can now easily add and change questions, form elements and can easily download the survey results into an Excel file. An event calendar feature was also implemented. WebFirst also applied the USAID branding and section 508 guidelines to the website.
Tools used: Drupal, PHP/MySQL
WebFirst Redesigns College Results Site; Creates User-friendly Data Visualization Solution
The Education Trust, established by the American Association for Higher Education, came to WebFirst with the goal of creating an advanced "peer comparison" tool to allow policymakers, researchers, and parents to compare colleges and universities This year, WebFirst re-designed the site to improve the user experience. The updated design has a clean look and feel, plus a new grid function to allow for easy sorting and customized display of the data tables. New data visualization features have also been implemented. An algorithm was developed to weight each factor for determining peering between two universities. Comparison factors include: selectivity, Carnegie classification, average SAT scores, and minority representation.
Technologies Used: ASP.NET, Microsoft SQL Server, Dundas Charts, Corda Highwire (PDF)
Federal Labor Relations Authority
WebFirst recently completed an exciting project for the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), a federal agency dedicated to promoting stable,constructive government labor relations. The FLRA was looking to enhance its website to make it easier for visitors to find information and for employees to quickly and easily post information to its site.
The WebFirst team helped the FLRA achieve its goals by redesigning their site and creating a decisions database with a customized Drupal Content Management System -http://www.flra.gov. WebFirst was proud to have assisted FLRA and to have created the first Drupal site for a primary federal agency.
The WebFirst team configured and customized the Drupal administrator to help the FLRA staff easily upload, and edit new authority decisions or topics. Now, website visitors can search for information in numerous ways, including by Case Number, Arbiter, and Issuance Date. What's more, our development team implemented a streamlined workflow that lets FLRA staff quickly upload information, including PDF documents. The web version of the decisions database is W3C and Section 508 compliant.
