Phases of the Digital Commons Onboarding Process
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1
Discovery
Digital Commons is a Drupal-based content management platform owned and maintained by the State of North Carolina with an accessible, secure, user and mobile-friendly interface.
During the Discovery phase, we help you understand our platform and determine together how a Digital Commons website can provide solutions for your agency.
AccordionTab/Accordion ItemsThe Digital Solutions team reviews your current websites, analytics, and technical requirements to create the initial scope. We work together with your agency team to help you plan a new modern website on our enterprise-level platform.
Digital Solutions will help you surface stakeholder expectations and key performance indicators of success.
- What problems will a new website solve for your agency?
- What do you want a new website to accomplish?
- What are your site visitors' needs?
A new website needs its champions! Start early in the process by properly staffing your Digital Commons website.
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2
Define
Website users and their top tasks have been identified. Stakeholders have offered feedback. Content and Technical audits have been completed. An Agency Strategy Owner and Web Manager have been decided.
Next comes the Define phase:
- We use everything learned and gathered during the Discovery phase to create the project plan.
- We define the project scope, goals, timeline and roles.
AccordionTab/Accordion ItemsAt this point, we analyze the results of the Stakeholders Survey. A new website is a fresh start and a good time to get assumptions out in the open.
Stakeholders need to align on what is most important to guide the vision for the new site, we help you surface stakeholder expectations through the Stakeholders Survey. When you bring the right people to attend our Digital Solutions workshops, we help spread that message and change mindsets.
Who uses your website, and what are they trying to accomplish there? Digital Solutions leads workshops and creates surveys for you to identify types of visitors and their top tasks on the website. See these SAMPLE surveys below:
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3
Design and Develop
Design
Having a site map is absolutely crucial before work begins. Our content strategists help you organize your future site information architecture in a clear and understandable way, allowing users to find what they need with less effort. Key stakeholders should sign off on it so there are no surprises or time-consuming re-work later.
We train and support your team members through the building process and advise you on the best approach to present information on your website within Digital Commons platform capabilities. Following these best practices ensure the website content is written clearly, formatted consistently, mobile-friendly, and accessible to people with disabilities.
Develop
AccordionTab/Accordion ItemsYour staff who will build the website will complete essential training for new content creators.
- Web Managers - All Web Managers must complete three levels of training: Orientation, Basic Training, and Web Manager Training.
- All Other User Roles - The roles of Publisher and below must complete two levels of training: Orientation and Basic Training.
Select a Color Palette
Six accessible color palettes are available for Digital Commons websites. State agencies and organizations may select the most suitable palette from the following options:
Examples:- Primary - Used on Information Technology Services
- Raleigh - Used on North Carolina Office of the Commissioner of Banks
- Wilmington - Used on the Museum of the Albemarle
- Durham - Used on Digital Commons Support
- Asheville - Used on Department of Environmental Quality
- Charlotte - Used on NC eProcurement
Provide a Logo
Digital Commons platform logo size: 250px x 75px.
Digital Commons platform offers a range of pre-designed default views that are integrated into the platform's core and styled to offer the best possible user experience.
Our team is ready to collaborate with you to develop custom views tailored to your specific requirements, and we also offer comprehensive training to ensure you can make the most of these views.
Consider utilizing available default options:
- /blog (grid view of blogs)
- /blog-entry-list (listing view of blogs)
- /events (listing view of upcoming events)
- /past-events (listing view of past events)
- /upcoming-events-page (upcoming events in a grid view)
- /news/press-releases (listing view of press releases)
Webforms provide online forms accessible to website visitors. Submission results and statistics are recorded and accessible to privileged users. We train and help you create webforms tailored for your needs from simple Feedback forms or more complex forms with pagination and conditional logic.
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4
Deploy
After testing and agency approval, your site is officially live and available to the public.
We help you set up proper Google Analytics tracking of your new site data. After Google Analytics is set up, we create a Looker Studio Analytics Dashboard for you.
We can further assist you with Website Quality Monitoring tools and consulting, if desired.
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5
Sustain and Support
You can rely on our team's support for the life of your website. Join our Sprint Review sessions to learn more about platform updates, new features and bug fixes. Keep learning about our platform as it evolves through Lunch & Learn events or open office hours, our blog and newsletter.