IBM WebSphere Case Study
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Client situation—Need for ease with a web portal
- There was a need for increased success, efficiency and user-friendly accessibility administrative staff, faculty and students of a school district to use their web portal more effectively.
- yy Get ongoing support from PCIS. Staff, parents and students wanted to use their school web portal to promote effective learning, communications and team work. The original company that developed the web portal was facing internal issues and was unable to provide essential services to ensure the portal was secure as well as useable. We were called to step in and provide a solution.
- Enable increased communications capabilities. The remedy was to create a web portal that included IBM Lotus Sametime to facilitate online meetings with IBM Lotus QuickPlace, to enable course content delivery, parent-teacher communication and the implementation of a Domino server with customized applications to support distance learning and email services.
PCIS approach—Clarity of community needs from the beginning
IBM referred us to this school district to improve the usability and effectiveness of its web portal for 30,000 people, including teachers, staff and students. We contacted the school district and recommended a rework of the portal that took into account design, usability, information architecture and workflow.
Overall, navigation and access to information was improved. Furthermore, web portal functionality was improved with further customization of themes and skins.
The project also included a system upgrade to enable better integration to supporting applications. We also updated the operating system, developed a backup and recovery system, configured five servers and installed the hardware. Additional skills included network directory management, stylesheet development and portal administration.
Our team created an attractive and user-friendly interface for the portal that delivered useful information to district staff and allowed one-click access to the school district blog, Quickplaces, and links to other school district systems. As well, users could personalize their profiles.
Security for the web portal was improved with better authentication. Web portal access control was deployed, allowing administrators the ability to enforce security more easily and effectively.
While the customer changed requirements for the design and functionality several times during the process, PCIS was still able to deliver services within the initially-agreed budget. The school district now has a functional and secure web portal that encompasses and serves the overall needs of its entire community.
