REIMAGINING DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS
University of Colorado
[UC DENVER]
The University of Colorado (CU Denver) web content team had a unique challenge. The organization's executive team had decided to migrate their extensive public-facing customer portal from Sharepoint to a new content management system. Sharepoint had become increasingly difficult to manage and support especially given how large the organization had grown over the past few years.
Their portal is home to five campuses, each with numerous departments operating independently as mini-websites. Department content managers were spending more time fixing issues with the system rather than generating new content. Developers spent more time trying to keep Sharepoint running rather than adding new features to the system that the organization desperately wanted.
After an exhaustive search, CU Denver chose the Sitefinity Content Management System (CMS) for managing their 30,000+ pages. REDEVTION was able to help the University of Colorado take full advantage of the Sitefinity platform and roll out a working solution in months (as opposed to years). And we did it by leveraging our expertise in the Sitefinity platform and existing infrastructure.
REDEVTION seamlessly collaborated with the wonderful internal team of developers, designers, and content authors.
Sitefinity
Content Management System
System Migration
Problem Definition
How do you consolidate over 50 Sharepoint sites spread across the entire organization and manage the content for over 30,000 pages and associated assets?
Sitefinity is a great platform that has numerous features and is incredibly flexible which means you can implement in any number of ways. This is where REDEVTION came in.
The University of Colorado sought out a local Colorado technology partner that had successfully implemented large-scale enterprise Sitefinity websites in the past. Rightfully so, they wanted to plan out as many details as possible up-front and try to avoid as many pitfalls as possible. REDEVTION was fortunate enough to be chosen as that partner. Our no-nonsense approach to architecting Sitefinity and our willingness to be brutally honest about what the product can and cannot do made us a good fit.
Leveraging the existing staff and infrastructure was critical to the success of this project. Everyone from the University Web Content Team brought tremendous experience in .NET development, content management, design, system architecture, and a key understanding of how the business needed to operate. However, not a single person internally had any direct Sitefinity experience, so that is where we helped.
We immediately recognized the immense talent of this group. Together we began working on a plan to start architecting the system while at the same time training the in-house group on the ins and outs of Sitefinity. As we do with most of our clients, our staff became entrenched as valued members of the team acting as experts to help answer questions and overcome obstacles on the spot.
Solution
Our approach was relatively simple. After reviewing each of the business drivers as a group, we were able to identify a high-level technical solution to achieve that goal. This was invaluable in helping us get up to speed quickly. Then with the entire team’s help we held two, all day “developer sessions” to plan out and architect the best solution possible.
We brought on two of our solution architects so that we could address Sitefinity questions or shortcomings right on the spot. After those meetings, the entire team was confident we had the best architecture possible and our chances of successfully delivering the new portal were extremely high. We also knew we were leveraging Sitefinity to its greatest potential at that moment in time. The following is an overview of the major milestones associated with this project.
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Project and environment setup for SiteSync and automated builds.
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First step was setting up the solution in Visual Studio and automating the build to defeat browser caching and simplifying deployment. This is essential in this day and age, to prevent mobile devices from caching styles and javascript which typically renders the site broken. Setting up the environment next was essential so that we had a plan in place for SiteSync. We knew we wanted to have a staging server that exactly mirrored production which is where all campuses and departments go to launch new “sites” so they can be audited and proofed before going to the live production environment. SiteSync in Sitefinity is a very useful tool, but if used incorrectly it is very easy to lose content so it had be implemented and tested early in the process.
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Prototype and build the most important, highest-risk items first.
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In this case, we knew that there were severe limitations with Multisite in versions 8.x and 9.0 of Sitefinty, making it not a viable option. We knew we had to implement a custom solution using page properties to allow site sync to work properly, but still give each department total control over their specific area of the site. Templates per campus cross-matrixed with 20+ departments per campus allows the University to support 60+ sites with over 30,000 pages all from one management console.
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Security.
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Security was essential and like most large organizations, CU Denver has a single-sign-on solution to help manage the users and permissions for the entire organization. Overriding the built-in security provider was paramount to ensure that Sitefinity leveraged its existing security infrastructure. One of the challenges we ran into was in version 10.x of Sitefinity, was that they completely changed their security provider model which broke custom implementation. The new security features in Sitefinity are better for the community at-large, because it now allows for more common security models, such as open ID, but was a tad bit frustrating, to say the least. But you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
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Work with Progress directly to address issues with the core product.
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This is where we must give Sitefinity high accolades. We have a wonderful relationship with the engineering team at Progress. Some issues were deemed so important Progress addressed immediately and rolled those solutions out to the community at large. One of the issues we identified that was addressed in that version of the software is the ability to play videos stored in the Sitefinity database on iOS and Mac devices. CU Denver and CyberLancers discovered the issue early and created a custom solution that we provided back to Progress which in turn was folded back into the core product.
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Integration with third-party Content Delivery Network (CDN) for managing all larger video assets.
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For larger assets, it makes sense to store them in a CDN to take advantage of bandwidth and speed. However, since there are hundreds of content managers within the CU Denver organization and each one has a great deal of control over their particular department or area, we had to allow both the built-in features of Sitefinity as well as our custom components to work virtually identical. This simplifies the job of Content Managers and allows them to add new video content without worrying about where it is stored.
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Business Benefit
“How do you eat a three-ton elephant?”
Well, you don’t because we love elephants, but as the adage goes, “One bite at a time.”
When dealing with sites this large we knew this would be a slow transition. Each department is responsible for migrating its own content to the new system and cleaning as they go. Not only are they improving their system they are improving their content. REDEVTION was able to stand up all the features needed within months and then the University could slowly transition departments in a more manageable approach. By rolling out the product quickly, CU Denver immediately gained a return on their investment,while lowering risk by not breaking any of their existing infrastructure.
Managing all your digital content and assets across your entire organization can be a daunting task, especially when most of that content is locked in antiquated systems that are difficult to use. University of Colorado Hospital knew that a new integrated solution for managing all their digital assets was necessary. They wanted to put the power of content back in the hands of the people that created it.
Sitefinity was a big part of that solution but implementing a Content Management System of this magnitude, necessitated a partner that understood the product inside-and-out. REDEVTION was honored to be chosen as that partner and was thrilled to help CU Denver deliver the portal on time and on budget. We were also happy to help train their internal team, ensuring they became experts themselves so they could fully support their new site.
By implementing this new CMS, the University was able to migrate and streamline all of its campus sites and individual mini-sites into a single cohesive system. This action not only made work more straight-forward internal IT teams, but it gave the organization a strategic advantage for future growth. Implementing Sitefinity meant that as the organization grew, it could quickly scale the website resources to better serve their employees, vendors, and patients.
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REDEVTION has implemented several data migration projects similar to this one. Contact us today to get more information about how we can help you with your business needs.