Five ways to save time with GovCMS
Saving time is a top priority for Alistair, a website manager responsible for nine websites across the Department of Finance. This inspired him to incorporate clever time-saving measures into the new Department of Finance website. Here’s his top five tips.
1. Understand your customers and how they use your website
‘By taking the time to understand our customers and their needs we could provide tailored information for common processes through self-service options. This significantly reduced customer enquiries,’ said Alistair, Website Manager, Department of Finance.
‘Website analytics also helped us to identify not so successful website pages. For example, we could see a bounce rate on our superannuation page. After further investigation we found individuals were looking for information outside our remit. We were able to guide them to the information they needed on other government websites.’
2. Streamlining content
‘Archiving up to 15,000 outdated and unused pages before moving to a new website saved time during the build. Maintaining only the pages needed also saved time. I have implemented regular review cycles to ensure the content on our website stays current and relevant and gives my team a more proactive role when working with our clients and stakeholders.’
3. Automating content
‘We have reduced the time it takes to publish monthly reports by almost 90 per cent using themed content types to automate formatting. This has saved the sanity of my team who are glad much of the time consuming part of a regular task is done for them.’ This new, easy to use form enables users to have ownership and has improved product delivery.’
4. Using workflows
‘I’ve saved time by not being involved in the creation of online content from start to finish. Workflows allow business areas to have some control over creating and editing content. Publishing is still restricted to find a balance. The content management system in Drupal is intuitive and easy for anyone to use.’
5. Good information architecture
‘When customers can’t find the information they need, they call us for help. We’ve made it easier for customers to find information for themselves by separating content into three customer focused sections — government, business and individuals. Tailoring content also means customers are just getting the information they need. Customers aren’t sifting through information that’s not relevant to them.’
‘We’ve also made it easier for customers to navigate through content by linking pages to other material which may be relevant. This sounds like common sense but it’s easy to find yourself working in silos creating content without thinking ‘what else might the customer want to know?’
Alistair and his team have created a website that empowers customers to self-serve. The team are investing the time they have saved into making the website even better.