Joomla Public Sector Intranet
The Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire District Councils have embarked upon an exciting experiement in public sector efficiency through the development of "shared services" in procurement, back office systems and processes, and the delivery of front end services.
One task was to commission a joint intranet that used Open Source to reduce costs and helped bring the two councils together. The Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire District Councils appointed Fresh Web Services to redesign and re-engineer a joint intranet for both councils. The council wanted a design that incorporated the branding elements of both councils and improved usability and navigation.
They also wanted improved access control and workflow so that editors could only edit certain articles and only approved content was published.
The Outcome
After careful requirements analysis, we were able to produce a design that immediately won approval. While subtly incorporating the branding of both councils, the design also managed to position the new intranet as an evolutionary development towards a common identity and purpose.
Careful consideration was also given to producing a clean and clutter free design. To that end "concertina" modules have been developed that allow the user to collapse content, so freeing more space for the main content.
The Joomla! search engine was replaced with the Council's own Google Mini application.
We also incorporated DocMan document management system, so that important files are accessible to all intranet users from a single repository.
A simple but flexible system of editorial permissions was added, so that content is centrally controlled and placed under workflow.