Emmaus is a network of 24 facilities offering health and welfare care. More than 6,600 employees are available in hospitals, mental health care and care for the elderly. In order to bring the digital presence in line with the high quality of care, the websites were in need of renewal. 2 examples of websites that are online are AZ Sint-Maarten and Home Marjorie.
Launching new Drupal websites for the healthcare sector as a client
24 new websites with their own accents and functionalities, but without the cost of separate development. That was the nice challenge that Emmaus offered us. Using a flexible drupal 8 install profile, we enjoyed economies of scale and uniformity behind the scenes, but ensured sufficient flexibility and individuality for each website. Thanks to Calibrate, Emmaüs is able to roll out, design and launch its new websites itself!
Over Emmäus
Why a Drupal install profile?
- The objective was to be able to roll out multiple websites & subsites on the basis of a single distribution. To make this rollout as simple as possible, we developed a platform where the facilities themselves can configure their new website step by step. As they go through the steps, they can choose which modules (search bar, vacancy page, newsletter subscription...) they want to implement on the new website. However, the navigation structures, header, footer etc. are predefined for all facilities, so that the style of the new websites is always uniform.
- During the development phase, everything had to be aligned with a large group of stakeholders, namely the 24 facilities, each with several decision makers. The drual distribution is a common denominator that meets these different desires.
- Finally, we also had a tight deadline. We sat down around the table for the first time in August 2017. Delivery was in early May 2018. The install profile gave us a strong base from which any website could start. Since then, the new websites have been rolled out step by step through the facilities.
360° approach: more than Drupal development
This project can be seen as 100% Calibrate because it fully meets our credo: think, build, grow. As always, we started with an analysis phase in order to gain more insight into the needs of visitors. We did this by means of a competition analysis, top tasks survey & workshops with the different stakeholders. In this way we created a strong story that everyone took into account in the project and its objectives. We then carried out a technical analysis. This analysis gave a list of general issues that had to be done anyway, and specific functionalities; each with an estimate of the cost and lead time. Based on this, Emmaüs decided which features could and could not be developed in a first version.
All findings were then taken into the UX and design phase in order to arrive at an elaboration that was not only visually attractive, but also focused on the end user. Initially, we developed clickable wireframes for this purpose, with a focus on the user-friendliness of the websites. Later, we further developed this structure into a graphic design. See the images below: wireframes, design, live website.
After this, the project was ready for the development phase. Because the client wanted to determine the functionalities of each website himself, an automatic installation was opted for by developing a Drupal distribution. The client can select the functionalities himself and after a number of intermediate screens, such as entering API keys for Mailchimp and Google Maps, the website will be installed automatically. The customer received training on the technical side of the website on the one hand and practical guidance on installation and management on the other hand. In this way, they were already able to test the placement of home-made content and ask the necessary questions. An extensive manual was also written about the new website and all its functionalities. More technical manuals were also delivered, such as how to adapt and compile the front-end yourself, how to set up the website in a Windows environment or the different media formats used throughout the website.
Finally, we also supported them with the set-up and configuration of the hosting. We took care of the complete setup of a development street on Windows IIS. A separate server was also installed to operate GIT (version control of the code) and Jenkins (automatic deployments). On the basis of this development street, you can create and manage two separate environments (testing & production) for each distribution that has been rolled out. In this way, adjustments or new functionalities can be developed and tested in a secure environment before they appear on the live website.
Flexibility thanks to Drupal 8 paragraphs
In order to give them as much freedom as possible in terms of content input, we do not work with predefined pages, but with Drupal 8 paragraphs that offer extensive possibilities to visualise content. All these paragraphs contain a number of fields such as titles, text, image, call to actions etc.; but also a number of settings for background colour, position of the image, alignment of the text etc. An infinite number of paragraphs can be placed underneath each other on one page, so that text, media and dynamic content can be displayed alternately. In this way the design of the new website can be adjusted by each paragraph to create a beautiful but clear page.
Successful cooperation
This was a challenging project where our team together with Emmaus gave it 100%. So be sure to keep an eye on the websites of the 24 facilities as they are all about to roll out.