CISAC web platform

The project's primary goals were therefore:

• Modernisation: update the overall design and improve user experience and site structure.
• Multi-site capability: implement a new platform capable of easily managing several distinct websites.
• Consolidation and efficiency: migrate four smaller satellite sites onto the new unified platform to facilitate management and reduce complexity.

These goals can be expresed as:

1. Enhanced UX and communication: the previous site suffered from an outdated design and a cumbersome structure, hindering effective communication and navigation for users trying to access CISAC's key information and messages.
2. Modernisation and best practices: update the website to align with current industry standards and practices regarding content editing and presentation.
3. Brand integrity: maintaining a consistent core brand identity across multiple, distinct satellite websites was a critical requirement, balancing global recognition with individual site autonomy.
4. Improve operational efficiency by implementing a content management system (CMS) that enables CISAC staff to publish information in a simpler, more efficient, reliable and faster manner. There was also a need to simplify the future creation and management of new websites.
5. Facilitate the future creation of new websites that adhere to the aesthetic and technical standards set by the platform.
6. Performance and satisfaction: the former platforms did not deliver the expected performance or accessibility, potentially leading to user dissatisfaction. Additionally, the new platform allowed to significantly improve editor satisfaction.
7. An easy to maintain platform as Metadrop is also hosting the project

Additionally, this website meets some of the standard requirements that are probably essential for any modern website: cross-browser compatibility, no plug-in dependency, a responsive design and multilingual support. In this case, the site must be available in French, English and Spanish.

The platform also provides user roles for different tasks and a content approval workflow. This workflow enables content submitted by internal staff or external contributors to be validated internally before publication.

What makes this project remarkable?

There are two aspects that make this project stand out:

Firstly, we created a common front-end base of reusable and easily modifiable content blocks from a single site. These blocks can be used to quickly and easily customise each of the different sister sites while maintaining a clearly distinguishable corporate identity.

Secondly, we migrated pre-existing content from two different CMSs to Drupal: WordPress and eZ Publish. While migrations from WordPress were straightforward, those from eZ Publish were particularly challenging as the fields that comprise the main content were encoded in XML rather than HTML. A recursive algorithm was required to convert them to a markup language that could be utilised by Drupal.

Problems solved

• Maintaining the brand coherence and look and feel in several sites thanks to the common frontend base of reusable and easily modifiable content components was developed from a single Drupal installation. This enabled all satellite sites to share a consistent corporate line while allowing each site to modify these components as needed, enabling unique identities while upholding the overarching CISAC brand.
• Providing an editorial workflow to ease and improve the content publication process. The CMS supports defined user roles to manage permissions and workflows effectively. A content approval workflow ensures internal validation prior to publication, improving content quality and control. The new platform now facilitates the efficient creation and management of additional websites.
• A complex migration of content from the two disparate CMS types that existed was completed, allowing valuable information accumulated over the years to be preserved and made accessible in the new infrastructure.
• A custom login system was developed to integrate with CISAC's existing authentication for members, providing secure, permission-based access to restricted content.
• A custom module also integrated the cookie system with OneTrust for compliance and transparency.

Outcome

• Multisite platform: currently 8 sites in production
• Multilanguage: with a few exceptions, most of the sites are available in French, English and Spanish.
• Migration of content from two different CMSs
• Great performance/accessibility/SEO.
• All sites share a common theme with a set of components that are shared across al sites.
• Every site can modify these components if needed, allowing that every site can have its own identity and be completely different from the others.
• Faceted content search.
• Usage of next-gen image formats to allow less data consumption and faster downloads.