www.cityofeastlansing.comThe Goals, Challenges & Implementation of a Modern Municipal Website with DotNetNuke

BackgroundCollaborative effortThe existing site was originally designed in 2001Its technology and capabilities were quite datedIt was built using asp. I decided that DNN was the platform we would move to.East Lansing is a City with 46,000 citizens and encompasses a university with roughly 45 thousand students

Original East Lansing Site

Goals - OverviewThe most Critical goals were theseTo outline The Lookwe were hoping forTo define the Navigation schemeTo develop a Content Management system that would satisfy the needs of the many content editorsTo verify that we had The Tools to achieve specific functionality

Goals - The LookModern without becoming quickly datedWe wanted to avoid the popular for a day features like the web 2.0 shiny affects.Friendly & UnclutteredWe scoured the Web looking for examples but finding quality examples of Municipal was difficult.Many Municipal sites looked either inept, dated industrial, or clutteredCommunity FocusedWe wanted a look that reflected the character our community.Strong use of Local Photos

The FrontPage

Our Goals - NavigationIntuitive We worked to ensure that the navigation was simple and connected to our designSemantic Navigation was built around the following CriteriaUser Background, Page Popularity, Services, DepartmentsConsistentThe navigation for a section of the website remains the same as you move through that sectionSecondary Navigation allows you to reach related sub-sectionsPowerful toolsTabs, limited Dropdowns, AJAX Search, Sitemap, & URL Manager

Inside Pages

Our Goals – Content ManagementThoroughCompletely thorough Content Management is achievable but I wanted to push it as far as I could.Minimize the time & technical knowledge needed to make updatesI believe that people working on the web should be open to training. This helps them avoid technical issues and it elevates the content quality of your site. Still the tools should be intuitive and help them to avoid mistakes.Daily updates should be the simplestNews Releases, FrontPage Features, Calendar Events, BlogsAvoid redundant entryContent Editors shouldn’t need to update multiple pages with the same information

Windows Live Writer & MetaPostEntering a News ItemSelect Articles, or blogs

Event CalendarsInvenmanager CalendarSatellite Module

Our Goals – The ToolsFunctionally CompleteNews ReleasesCalendars & EventsCity MapsDowntown Business ProfilesFile Management (Minutes & Agendas)BlogsPhoto GalleriesElectronic NewslettersAnalytics

News Releases

Maps and Blogs

Managing Meeting Minutes

The ChallengesCreating a skin to match our graphic designJavascript to –Load background images based on site sectionsLoad Panelbar Manage MenusModule Updates –Tweaks to Telerik Menu to Set New Parent MenuCalendar Satellite Module with Date PickerDNNStuff Aggregator & Ventrian New Articles - RSS Feature

Mapping out content & creating a sitemap

File ManagementBring2Mind - Document Exchange is used for general file management Bring2Mind - Adapter module is used to manage meeting minutes and agenda filesWe also use Ventrian Filelinks module to give users access to upload files to specific directories

Events ManagementInvenmanager Calendar was selected for events management but was missing key functionalityAggregated CalendarsThe ability to create exceptions for recurring eventsDate selector for the Satellite module

What Modules to UseVentrianChild LinksSimple GalleryNews ArticlesFile LinksInvenManagerCalendarDNNStuffAggregatorBring2MindDocument ExchangeSatelliteZLDNN Module WrapperJetKeySmartMapEZModuleNetism Satellite FreeGumbosoftContent RotatorDataspringsOpt-in EmailIIT SitemapEvoticaBackup NativeIfinityURL Master & windows 2008AnalyticsMetapostTelerikMenu & PanelbarDNNHTMLBlogIframe