The City of Gresham
The C2 Group partnered with The City of Gresham, Oregon to continue to evolve and enhance the web property with ongoing UX, .NET development, CMS, and DevOps support.
The Challenge
Representing Oregon’s fourth-largest city, the City of Gresham’s website plays a vital role in connecting the public to information and essential services. Gresham originally partnered with The C2 Group on the award-winning redesign of www.greshamoregon.gov in early 2016. Since launch, Gresham has leveraged C2’s Continuous Support and Optimization (CSO) offering to continue to evolve and enhance the web property on Ektron. The service provides needed support and access to UX, .NET development, CMS, and DevOps experts as an augment to the Gresham team.
Rather than redeveloping Gresham’s web presence every couple of years, the city wanted a highly available website that continued to evolve over time. The Gresham site is maintained by the city’s Information & Innovation Department, which at any given point may be tasked with upwards of 40 technology projects competing for the staff’s time and attention. A small team charged with making effective use of time and public funds, Gresham quickly realized the need for continued support beyond the initial launch to augment the in-house team. Gresham needed assistance with tasks such as setting up its AWS environment, applying CMS updates, administering code deployments, monitoring performance, resolving bugs, and executing design and functionality enhancements.
Goals:
- Ensure a highly available website that can deliver information to the public at a moment’s notice.
- Augment the Gresham team with expertise across UX, .NET development, CMS, and cloud.
- Continue to evolve and enhance the web property over time.
“Our goal for the site was not to have to redevelop it every few years, so we’re trying to continue to evolve it. … When we see we need to make a change, we’re not sitting back by ourselves wondering how to make that happen. We can leverage C2’s expertise on both sides– development and CMS – and say, ‘how can we possibly pull this off?’”
Keith Sheehan, IT Applications Manager at City of Gresham
Harnessing C2's Continuous Support and Optimization, the City of Gresham transformed its digital presence, delivering a constantly evolving, high-availability website.
Harnessing C2's Continuous Support and Optimization, the City of Gresham transformed its digital presence, delivering a constantly evolving, high-availability website.
Harnessing C2's Continuous Support and Optimization, the City of Gresham transformed its digital presence, delivering a constantly evolving, high-availability website.
Solution
Continuous Support and Optimization (CSO) through The C2 Group provides increased productivity, cost savings against staffing up, predictable budgeting, and immediate access to expertise not available on staff. For less than the salary of one entry-level employee, clients like Gresham are able to customize a package of monthly hours that can be used to access any part of the C2 team. Working with a dedicated support manager, teams are able to plan, prioritize, and queue up work for a vibrant digital presence that continues to evolve and to ensure that hours do not go to waste.
The Results
Here’s how Gresham has used its ongoing web support:
- Design and user experience enhancements, including a homepage redesign
- New functionality, including form work, new park directory and detail templates, and a charges calculator
- Cloud managed services for CMS updates, code deployments, and performance monitoring
- Ad hoc design, testing, and user research needs
- Ektron CMS leadership, including training for site administrators, workarea optimization, and best practice use
- Bug and issue resolution
“Overall, it provides the confidence that we have a highly available website that serves the community. That’s super important. Our uptime from post-go live has really helped me be confident that the right solution is in the right space and in the right hands.”
Keith Sheehan, IT Applications Manager at City of Gresham
