reddot – a critical business application internet world 2008 project

RedDot – a critical business application

Internet World 2008

project

About CDS RedDot Premium partners (Partners since 2000)

Over 200 communications professionals

Specialising in Central Government Catalist - Prime contractors COI framework

End to end service provision Internet Solutions Concept to delivery Hosting and on-going support Web and Technical authoring

Assurance on data security and quality BS7799 – Information security (CLAS consultancy) ISO 9001:2000 EMS ISO14001 – Environmental Mang’t system

Long term client relationshipsPartnership approach

Passion, Integrity, Trust.

CDS – RedDot experience

RedDot - A critical application

project

About the Highways Agency Established in 1994 - an executive agency of the

Department for Transport Corporate centre in London and eight locations

across the country Traffic officers working on motorways based in 7

Regional Control Centres and 28 outstations Responsible for England's strategic road network

managing traffic tackling congestion informing road users improving safety and journey time reliability respecting and minimising the adverse impact on

the environment Putting customers first,

listening to them, and gaining a better understanding of the way the

network impacts on them

Highways Agency in context

• CoverageManagement of Motorways and trunk roads within England

• Equates to a public asset worth over £81 billion

• Environmental responsibilityLand managed by the Agency – “off the tarmac” equates to an area the size of the Isle of Wight!

• The Agency are the second largest tree planter next to the Forestry Commission!

Why is the site so important?

Providing a vital service commerce industry Media and individuals and communities

Provision of critical information effecting the network Real time traffic reports Critical news alerts Weather alerts – flooding and severe

weather conditions Breaking traffic news

One of the primary communication mediums within the Agency

Why is the site so important?

Providing a vital service commerce industry Media and individuals and communities

Provision of critical information effecting the network Real time traffic reports Critical news alerts Weather alerts – flooding and severe

weather conditions Breaking traffic news

One of the primary communication mediums within the Agency

Some stats March 2008 23m hits 2.7m page requests 570,000 visitors 355,000 unique visitors

The project

The need for change

Previous site Several years old Difficult to maintain Legacy technology – difficult to support

and develop further Inconsistencies evident Not completely accessible Centrally managed – no opportunity to

open management up to the wider business

Not as widely used as it could have been

High level requirement

CMS Easy to use Distributed content creation 130+ users Migration of existing content, images, links,

metadata Ability for Internal and External authors to

contribute content – GSI Integration with external applications static

and dynamic Branding and consistency controlled by the

system not authors

Web site Resilient system providing fast access

to multiple information sources

Easy to use by diverse range of website users

Delivery of multiple channels of information delivery

Accessible to WAI level 2 AA

Extensible for future requirements

Any many more…,

Management and on going support of the full solution

Professional website targeted at the needs of increasingly sophisticated users

simple to use and administer

Delivering the solution

RedDot chosen CMS

CDS build

deploy

on going support and development

Some of the challenges

RedDot made the development of the site easy. There were however one or two challenges: Security restrictions (GSI and external network interfaces)

Critical information facility integrated with the CMS

Integration of third party content feeds and internal database driven content

Migration Over 10,000 pages of content,

Many thousands of images and links and assets (PDF, .Doc etc

Metadata to be preserved

Inconsistent content sources

Simplify long document creation and management

Addressing the challenges

Communication Close working with the Agency

Tried and tested project methodology Detailed functional specification

Technical specification

Rapid application development

Leveraging our experience gained across many projects

Security restrictions

Problem

Solution had to be located on GSI - behind the clients firewall

Agency required External authors to be able to manage certain content

External authors could not be granted access through the firewall

Critical information needed to be on the site immediately

Solution

.NET submission layer

Content immediately available on the website

Content simultaneously added to RedDot workflow

Internal Authors able to edit content via RedDot if required


External author

Client network

Submission layer


External author

Web server

Client network

Submit file

.NET layer

Submission layer


External author

Website user

Web server

Client network

Submit file

Updated project

.NET layer

Submission layer


External author

Web server

Submit file

Submission layer


External author

Web server RedDot server

InternalRedDot editor

Submit file

Edit project data

Submission layer


External author

Website user



Submit file

Updated project

Edit project data

Submission layer

MigrationProblem Over 10,000 content pages, several thousand

images, links, document references, PDFs, .doc’s etc Need to preserve existing metadata Disparate and inconsistent data

Solution Leveraged our significant experience in large and

complex data migrations CDS developed a web crawler to capture and index

all legacy website content RedDot RQL scripts to import content into the new

website RQL script automatically initiated workflow to allow

CDS and Highways Agency staff to quality assure content

Massive time and costs savings to the client by avoiding time consuming manual processes

Old

New

Migration

Old website

Migration

CDS webcrawler

Old website

Migration

CDS webcrawler

XML

Old website

Migration

RedDot server

CDS webcrawler

XML RQL

Old website

Migration

RedDot server

CDS webcrawler

XML RQL

Old website

RedDot workflow

Migration

RedDot server

CDS webcrawler

XML RQL

Old website

RedDot workflow

RedDot CMS


Multiple content sourcesProblem Several XML feeds consumed by the website

requiring editorial control Integration of database driven content into the

live website requiring editorial control

Solution Traffic feeds gathered by CDS .NET application

as XML and rendered directly on to the website News ticker Filtered lists on traffic feeds page

GNN Press Releases provided in XML format Harvested by CDS .NET app and imported into a

database for immediate searching and filtering CDS RQL application automatically imports

Press releases into RedDot allowing content editors to modify content and prioritise stories

<xml>

PDF

SQL

MS WordPPTXLS

Management of multiple content sources

XMLAtlas

newsfeeds

XMLGNN News

content

SQLRoad

Projects


XMLAtlas

newsfeeds

XMLGNN News

content

SQLRoad

Projects

Web server


XMLAtlas

newsfeeds

XMLGNN News

content

SQLRoad

Projects

Web server

Website user

Latest news

News ticker


XMLAtlas

newsfeeds

XMLGNN News

content

SQLRoad

Projects


RQL


XMLAtlas

newsfeeds

XMLGNN News

content

SQLRoad

Projects


Latest news

RQL

RedDot editor


XMLAtlas

newsfeeds

XMLGNN News

content

SQLRoad

Projects


Website user

Latest news

News ticker

Latest news

RQL

RedDot editor


Aggregated searchable content

Integration

Problem

Integration of SQL based (e.g. road projects) data, to allow editing within RedDot

Solution

RedDot plug-in developed to manage road project metadata

Information is gathered from the SQL database as XML

Processed into RedDot allowing content authors to edit and enhance information if required

Database

Integration

RedDot editor

RedDot

SQL

Client network

Integration

RedDot editor

XML

HTML

RedDot

SQL

Client network

Integration

RedDot editor

XML

HTML

Web server

SQL

RedDot

SQL

Client network

Integration

RedDot editor

XML

HTML

Web server

SQL

Web site

xHTML page content wraps and describes the integrated

content

RedDot

SQL

Client network

Integration

RedDot editor

XML

HTML

Web server

SQL

Web site

Searchable, sortable road project data from XML

xHTML page content wraps and describes the integrated

content

RedDot

SQL

Client network

Long documents

Problem

Simple creation and management of long documents

Solution

CDS developed RedDot plug in to process long documents automatically creating indexes and document navigation links

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Creating long story pages in RedDot

Create links


Run plug in


Add sections


Links and follow on pages

automatically created


Introduction


Part 1 etc

Next and previous links automatically

created


Published content

Print all pages option

Critical content

Problem Need to post immediate critical information

content from outside the network

Solution Submission layer extended to allow internal

and external authors to add critical content directly to the website. This includes: Crisis News Breaking news Weather Watch etc

All components dynamically change the appearance of the website

Immediate publication but still editable within RedDot

Critical content

Author

CreateCrisis news

Critical content

Author

Web server

CreateCrisis news

Critical content

Author

Website user

Web server

CreateCrisis news

Crisis news

Critical content

Author


CreateCrisis news

Critical content

Author



CreateCrisis news

Edit crisis news

Critical content

Author

Website user



CreateCrisis news

Crisis news

Edit crisis news

Critical content

Secure access to the submission layer

Access to RedDot from the same interface if

within the Agency

Critical content

Weather warning

Critical content

Critical content

Weather warning

Some key features

Key features

Integration of real time traffic information via Traffic England

Traffic information

Key features Traffic news

News feeds

Key features

Breaking NewsCritical alerts

Key features

Clear taxonomy

Key features – integration and alerts

Up to date searchable resource of road projects

eMail updates

How does this appear to RedDot editors?

Website

RedDot interface

Adding an image

Asset library

Adding and editing content

In-line editingIn-line editing

In line editing

Release and workflow

In-line editingRedline mode

Highlighting changes

Where has RedDot helped

Fast adoption within the Agency

Extensible to meet current and future needs

Fast and resilient method for getting important information to customers

Use of the website has increased by over 90% since re-launch* - the aim is to continuously improve on this by providing better services to customers

* Source – Corporate plan first issued 2005

Where has RedDot helped

Fast adoption within the Agency

Extensible to meet current and future needs

Fast and resilient method for getting important information to customers

Use of the website has increased by over 90% since re-launch* - the aim is to continuously improve on this by providing better services to customers

* Source – Corporate plan first issued 2005

In providing access to over 130 people in the HA with different business needs, the system has indirectly promoted the website as the forum for communicating our work to customers.

Before RedDot, we were an isolated web team in Leeds. Now the website has arrived at peoples desks with real-time access to information. In a strange way, people have harnessed that "power" to communicate and it has rejuvenated the authority and standing that our website has within the HA.”

“

Paul Knights Web manager

What next

Future consideration…,

Mobile channel via RedDot (XML publishing variants)

Personalised content targeted to the needs of users

Explore new social media applications

And more…,

My Highways

Thank you for listening Mike Collier

CDS

0113 399 4100

See more at stand E406

Key features In providing access to over 130 people in the HA with different business needs, the

system has indirectly promoted the website as the forum for communicating our work to customers.

Before RedDot, we were an isolated web team in Leeds. Now the website has arrived at peoples desks with real-time access to information. In a strange way, people have harnessed that "power" to communicate and it has rejuvenated the authority and standing that our website has within the HA.

The other point is that we are looking at ways to provide RedDot access outside the GSI using the .net module you have setup. This is proving to be a valuable area of our work and will form the basis for future developments within the HA. The restraints imposed on us by the GSI have been surmounted by the /publish module which has allowed us to create emergency messages (weather, press and traffic related) outside office hours from any pc in a user friendly manner. This access will be nothing new to the private sector, but to government working within tighter security constraints under the GSI, this is something of a revolution for us.

In the future we are looking to open up user registration that will enable them to interact with our information, and personalise our services to their needs. We are hoping to extend our mobile service and develop new applications for Facebook and in other dynamic areas of social media.

Why CDS and RedDot

Excellent track record in the public sector

RedDot Premium Partners End to end solution provision

by skilled in house team Ability to deliver

Structured Team Approach Structured Project

Methodology Trust Integrity Passion

Easy to use Solid investment

Intuitive easy to use interface – quick adoption

Maximise value for money

Tried and tested

Decoupled content delivery – availability assurance

Flexible and scalable Open API – platform for

integration

reddot – a critical business application internet world 2008 project

Documents

themhighways agency

executive agency

country traffic officers

primary communication

open management

content gsi integration

data security

external authors