Providence Health & Services discovered a major technical issue during UAT (User Acceptance Testing) that could jeopardize the launch of their new site. Crowd Favorite was recommended, at the eleventh hour, by a previous client to find a new solution utilizing their legacy code. Conducting rapid requirements gathering, design analysis, and implementation, Crowd Favorite’s team was able to not only fix the errors, but also keep the schedule for the initial launch date!
Challenge
After a third-party designer revamped their website, a late-stage compatibility requirement nearly jeopardized a successful, on-time, launch. With less than a week to launch, Providence Health & Services believed the only option was to delay the website launch.
Providence Health & Services hired a third-party designer, who subcontracted the WordPress development, to revamp their eight existing foundation websites. During user acceptance testing (UAT), and just a week before the launch date, several major technical hurdles had yet to be addressed. Among these technical hurdles were QA, cross-browser testing, lack of responsive web design, and other late stage “fix-it” tasks.
Providence Health & Services’ existing contractor (and subcontractor) informed them that no technical solutions existed to solve these late stage problems, primarily because the main issue was the use of legacy systems within the organization and among donors. The proposed solution was to update every internal system and inform external users that a system update would be required in order to access the new website.
The foundation websites aim to gather resources critically needed in the communities Providence Health & Services serves in five states plus international locations. The lack of a solution would create a critical failure for the foundations to achieve their goals. Providence Health & Services refused to accept a lack of a solution as a viable path forward and began looking for a digital technology agency with sufficient depth and resources to find a solution, get the systems fixed, and launch the website on time.
Solution
Within the confines of the given schedule, Crowd Favorite’s project management team took upon the challenge of conducting rapid requirements gathering, freeing up the right (and enough) resources to accomplish the task, while Crowd Favorite’s development team simultaneously began analyzing the existing work to determine the best path to success. This rapid, concurrent interaction, development cycle was completed without sacrificing the high standards expected of traditional development cycles.
Crowd Favorite also discovered a plethora of opportunities for Providence Health & Services to streamline their own workflows, increase the use of dynamic content on their website, and follow the best practices for a content management system (CMS). All of which were outside the original scope of work. Nonetheless, Crowd Favorite and Providence Health & Services expressed a goal of doing more than simply “getting the website finished”.
Results
Within hours, Crowd Favorite’s team put together a six-step process to fast-track Providence Health & Services from initial meeting to a fully tested and launched website within a week. Utilizing Crowd Favorite’s European-based development team and US-based project management team in tandem created an around-the-clock momentum to achieve a successful launch.
Crowd Favorite enabled Providence Health & Services Providence Health & Services to begin leveraging dynamic content management across all websites for all clinic and hospital locations- saving both time & resources.
The result was a website that is 100% backwards compatible with all legacy systems within Providence Health & Service’s network and external users. Furthermore, Providence Health & Services asked Crowd Favorite to join them as a Digital Support Services (DSS) partner to continue building upon the momentum created during the first phase of development.
Crowd Favorite refactored code written by the third-party subcontractor to ensure legacy browser compatibility. Furthermore, the team was able to leverage WordPress multisite, which allows multiple virtual sites to share a single WordPress installation, to enable Providence Health & Services to begin leveraging dynamic content management across all websites for all clinic and hospital locations.
Furthermore, Crowd Favorite implemented the best practices for responsive web design, an approach in which the design and development of a website responds to the user’s behavior and environment (screen size, platform, and orientation).
Crowd Favorite approached this project from the standpoint of a “shorter timelines does not mean cutting corners”. A month’s worth of traditional analysis, development, and testing was completed within a week in order to provide Providence Health & Services a fully-functioning website, with refactored and custom code, operable on legacy systems.
Providence Health & Services trusted in the team at Crowd Favorite to integrate new solutions with their legacy code in time for the launch of their new site. Crowd Favorite continues to support them as a trusted digital partner. If your team is looking to add a digital support partner or is in need of a digital expert, contact us here.
