Blog | 20 January 2023
Introducing new customers to Sitevision – the fun and the challenges
During the spring, our Most Valuable Professionals will be sharing their knowledge and expertise on the Sitevision blog. And what's better than sharing? First up is Björn Alexandersson from Limepark who talks about customers who are in the middle of their first Sitevision project. Stay tuned!
Over the years – and especially recently – Limepark has had the great honor of helping to guide customers who are new to the Sitevision sphere into Sitevision. I have seen that there are elements in these projects that differ from projects with customers who are Sitevision foxes and who know a lot about Sitevision. I thought I would briefly describe the steps and issues that we encounter when we work in projects where new customers are to implement a new website in – and at the same time be introduced to – Sitevision.
"This is how we did it in the old system. We are used to it and it works well. Can we do the same in Sitevision?"
Can we do what we did before?
This is one of the first questions we encounter. Sometimes already at the procurement stage. It's a fun question, because it opens up a lot of discussion. The answer is usually: Yes, you can, but there are probably more cost-effective ways to implement it if we use the functions built into Sitevision.
To be concrete, I can exemplify with Contact Cards. In many other systems, you build a structure or function to display contact information on the website. It becomes a central management of contact information that can then be used around the website. It is often a function that is developed from scratch with requirements and development hours.
To solve the equivalent in Sitevision, it is of course possible to develop the same functionality again – but Sitevision comes with extremely many small flexible functions that you can use out of the box.
- Sitevision has a structure for managing contact information in Users.
- Sitevision has the ability to link users to pages through metadata.
- There are a bunch of modules that can utilise users in different ways.
If the customer tweaks the way they work with something, there are usually very simple ways to solve things that will work over time. The sessions when we have these discussions are usually very rewarding for both the customer and myself – we talk in detail about how Sitevision works and how it is possible to work in the platform. Incredibly fun 😊
What level of self-drive do you want?
Everything we do, you can also do with the right education and experience, I usually say. But do you want that? It's very important to start by talking about how self-driven the customer wants and should be.
If the customer wants to be very self-sufficient but will not work so much with the web, we need to use as many standard components as possible and keep the complex solutions down. If the customer instead only wants to work with the content and the editorial piece and take help with the development, we optimise the delivery for it.
We have clients that we deliver a website to who then take it and fly themselves. When we visit them from time to time, they have launched everything from new websites to campaigns. They just needed a good start and then handle the rest themselves. Then we have clients who get in touch when they want something changed on the site. Depending on how self-driven you want to be and how much time and resources you will have at your disposal, there are different choices in delivery.
How flexible do you want to work?
During Sitevisiondagarna 2022, both Kungsbacka and Skellefteå talked about their deliveries. We at Limepark delivered to Kungsbacka and Soleil delivered to Skellefteå. These were two completely different deliveries – with two completely different requirements for flexibility.
Feel free to watch these two different lectures from the Sitevision days. Both are very good and instructive.
Flexibility requires more knowledge. If we take the example of text on colored plate:
- Without development
- Requires the editor to know how it works in Sitevision
- Requires the editor to have an eye for design so that there are nice color combinations
- Requires the editor to have knowledge of how to test accessibility (for example, contrasts)
- Through module with own choice of text and color
- Requires the editor to have an eye for design
- Requires the editor to know how to test accessibility (e.g. contrasts)
- Through module with choice of text and themes
- Requires that the editor can formulate good texts
The difference is how much thought and work has gone into the function before it is "released".
These are discussions that we and the client need to have continuously throughout the project. My experience is that flexible deliveries work over time in projects where there are few editors with a lot of time and knowledge. If the customer has several editors with varying knowledge, it is best to make as many choices as possible already in the development phase – so that the everyday work is simplified.
Guiding through functions in Sitevision
Guiding new Sitevision customers through the features and solutions available in Sitevision is a lot of fun. There are often at least three ways to solve something, and which one is best depends, among other things, on the factors I have mentioned above. So I do it with the utmost humility – I need to know how it will be used and managed to be able to propose a solution that works over time.
This is the point that I like to spend extra time on when I am project managing new Sitevision customers. It is a responsible job to make sure that Sitevision lands well in an organisation and great fun to see when the solutions come into use. Regardless of whether it is a customer that will fly itself or whether it is a long-term close development work.
Good luck to you! And let me know if you want to discuss anything 😉
