“SharePoint For Internet Sites” helps Government Department to Develops First-Rate Web site against Strict Deadline
The Queensland Government’s Department of Public Works (the department) delivers a wide range of services to the state government and its agencies, including communication technology. In late 2008, the Government asked the department to develop an online register of war memorials in time for the following Anzac Day commemorations. This required soliciting detailed information about memorials from 75 councils, including photographs and the precise location, then validating the information, and publishing it on a new web site. Using the Microsoft® collaboration tool, Office SharePoint® Server 2007, the department successfully launched the online register on time, integrating Microsoft Virtual Earth to pinpoint the locations of 400 memorials. Four months later, the site had 1,000 memorials, and now attracts far more visitors than forecast. Download full case study from here.
Situation
The Queensland Government’s Department of Public Works (‘the department’) delivers a wide range of services and facilities to the state government and its agencies. With 7000 employees, the department helps to build and maintain public facilities such as schools, public housing and hospitals. It also provides the public sector with support services including information and communication technology services.
On Remembrance Day 2008, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh announced that her government wanted to establish a register of Queensland war memorials. After a rapid investigation by the department’s Information Services Directorate, the
Within a very limited timeframe, we had to devise a fast means of collecting the information, as well as validating and checking it electronically. Then we needed to be able to publish it to the web. Geoffrey Hughes, Manager, Special Projects, Government Accommodation Office, Department of Public Works |
Minister for Public Works and Information and Communication Technology, Robert Schwarten, reported to Parliament that the online register would be up and running by the following Anzac Day, which was five months away.
“We were under a fair degree of pressure to produce a register quickly, but one which also looked good, performed well and was user-friendly,” says Geoffrey Hughes, Manager, Special Projects Government Accommodation Office, who was tasked with overseeing the war memorial register project.
Much of the information for the register had to be researched. The department immediately turned to the state’s 75 local councils and Australia’s Returned and Services League (RSL), which is the national defence forces veterans’ support organization. Both the councils and RSL sub-branches in Queensland helped the department with updating and revising existing information so the department could create an accurate database of war memorials.
The issue for the department was how to co-ordinate this complex effort.
“Within a very limited timeframe, we had to devise a fast means of collecting the information, as well as validating and checking it electronically,” explains Hughes. “Then we needed to be able to publish it to the web.”
Making the task more difficult was the skill levels of the people who would most use the site, as well as the technology they would likely have available. “We needed to restrict the size of the web pages because many of the users would probably be using dial-up services.” says Hughes.
Solution
As an experienced user, the department was confident that Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 could help manage both content gathering and publication.
“Public Works uses SharePoint extensively both internally and collaboratively with external parties,” says Allan Cloherty, the department’s business systems manager. “So we had an excellent idea how the solution could be made to work.”
The department created two ‘farms’ – or groups of machines that each hosted a SharePoint portal. One was for internal use and included an extranet, which enabled councils to feed templated information to the department. After validation, the approved information was then transferred to the second SharePoint farm, on which the public website was hosted.
“We had to figure out what details we wanted councils to collect for the site, such as place name, postcode, wars commemorated and the type of structure, such as a statue. We customized Microsoft Search within SharePoint so that people could identify the right memorial from these pieces of information,” explains Cloherty.
In addition, it was imperative that the finished web site include a map that showed where to find each war memorial. Here the department had a choice between Microsoft Virtual Earth and Google Earth.
“We chose Microsoft Virtual Earth because we could configure the software to fit our requirements,” says Cloherty. “In particular, we were able to use Virtual Earth to pinpoint the coordinates of memorial sites, which councils couldn’t do themselves unless they had GPS.
“The tricky part was transferring the longitude and latitude data from Virtual Earth to the SharePoint lists. However, once this was done, it was easy to marry up the data with the lists so the location of the memorial could be marked on the Virtual Earth map.”
Benefits
On 20th April 2009, the day the website launched, the department had approximately 400 memorials posted on with another 800 registered and being added gradually.
Increasing traffic
“One of the core strengths of SharePoint is that it can handle everything I had in mind for this service,” says Hughes. “It can be easily adapted or scaled to meet new needs and demands and I expect the product to serve us well into the future.”
With Microsoft Virtual Earth into the solution, visitors know exactly where to find a memorial.
“Originally, we expected a few hundred hits a month but, in a short space of time, we were receiving between 20,000 and 40,000 hits, including visitors from overseas.” says Hughes.
Tight deadline, tight budget
Speed and cost control were core success factors for the department – the memorial project achieved both.
“If we’d used ASP.NET with Microsoft Visual Studio as our development framework, for instance, we would’ve needed to adhere to specific methodologies, which would’ve taken the project longer to complete,” says Cloherty.
“SharePoint is simply easier and more efficient in creating web paths to search for content as well as approve and publish content online. By storing and organizing information centrally, we have a great deal of control over the content and flexibility in what we do with it. SharePoint was vital in meeting our deadlines.”
The department not only worked to a tight schedule but strict budget as well. Again, the ease and efficiency of SharePoint meant there were no cost overruns. “We had $100,000 for the whole project,” says Hughes, “and we haven’t gone over that.”
Community needs
By providing a map that shows exactly where each memorial can be found, the department has helped to create a service that gives veterans, researches and other members of the community exactly what they are looking for.
“We have clearly identified a community need for information like this, “says Hughes. “The Virtual Earth facility helps us connects the community with the war memorial. It assists people who wish to pay the memorial site a visit and delivers a service in a way that is accessible and engaging.”
The register’s acknowledged success has led to plans to expand the existing information on the website.
“As it is, we continue to receive information about other memorials. Fortunately, SharePoint can be scaled to handle far more than the demands we currently place on it,” says Cloherty. “Given its popularity, we are wondering what else we should house there. Currently we are looking at the potential for online services – and this includes multimedia.”
Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
For more information about the Microsoft server product portfolio, go to: www.microsoft.com/servers/default.mspx
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services in Australia, call 13 20 58.
For more information about the Queensland Government Department of Public Works, call +61 7 3222 2652 or visit the Web site at: www.publicworks.qld.gov.au The Queensland War Memorial Register can be accessed at: https://www.qldwarmemorials.com.au/