- The UK Civil Service implemented BuddyPress to create a new community website to replace an outdated custom-built system in a cost-effective way. - Key features of the new BuddyPress site include groups, forums, profiles, activity streams, and integrated plugins for additional functionality. - The implementation took 6 months including proposals, development, and user migration. The new site launched in March and saw more users register than the old system within the first month.

1. GCN & BuddyPress – a first in the Civil Service

2. History Previous site: Around since 2005(ish) Huge amounts of static content Custom built CMS EXPENSIVE High admin burden Not much interactivity outside of forums Gradually introduced 2.0 Blogs Media wiki

3. Why we chose Buddypress Low-cost ‘ community-in-a-box’ allowed us to get up and running very quickly Innovative Flexible – themes/plugins etc Innovative OpenSource

5. GCN implementation – set up BuddyPress Social theme Enabled: groups, forums, extended profiles, activity stream and friend linking Disabled: private messaging (FOI, email, proprietary reasons) Extra plugins to provide each group with: Blog Document archive Email notifications Calendar Other tweaks ‘ Premium’ theme (how the site looks/page templates) Members only plugin (people have to register) Auto group join plugin (automatically being assigned to groups when you register Customise login plugin Restrict group creation (plugin or built into some themes) so only administrators can create groups Cloud hosted – piggybacking with Cabinet Office

6. BuddyPress Social theme 3 page templates Customisable welcome message Choose your home page layout (3 column or 2 column) Choose your blog page layout (3 column or 2 column) Home and blog page templates Home pages feature block Home page featured block styles (gallery or article) Privacy options: Allow only logged in users to view members profiles along with members directory and switch to stop normal users creating groups or joining ones unless created by admin or editors Parent and child themes

7. Launch 6 months of proposals and approvals 6 weeks to deliver final product 10 days dev time ‘ no deliverables’ contract £9,999 3 weeks to migrate users Launched - 3 March More users registered on new site than old on 31 March (old site closed)

9. ‘off the shelf’ and/or modified AutoChimp External Activity (modified for authentication) Group Email (allows for weekly/daily/etc bulletins Event Brite Events Calendar Group Autojoin (modified) BP Group Blog Group Calendar Group Docs BuddyPress plugin (patched) BP Profile Privacy Restrict Group Creation Custom Log-in

10. From scratch Export Users (for membership stats) Password strength meter Inactive users GCN members only Google Analytics

11. Post launch 50 members shy of 5000 Community participation slowly growing Heavily reliant on pushing out content 36 groups Blogging open across the site New developments: Inactive users Mail Chimp integration

12. Lessons learned / issues ‘ no deliverables’ contract – You’ll get something….but what? BuddyPress out of the box v. strength of extendibility Pushing updates back to plug in developers Contacting Interest ‘ what is a patch’ Using ‘off the shelf’ plug-ins v writing your own reliability Parent/child issues in theme Group mail – failed spectacularly Search Hosting/Management Ongoing CS Jobs issues/API

13. Future plans User satisfaction survey Follow up with focus groups (capacity permitting) Focus on content community development Add more functionality thru plugins Rate this Achievements Polls CS Jobs API? Better events plugin (re visit Eventbrite?) Working with other professions/orgs on BP solution

14. Questions? http://gcn.civilservice.gov.uk [email_address] @annkempster