Another 12 months gone in the blink of an eye! 2018 was good to the CYBERsprout team, bringing team growth, new challenges, and many memories. Here are a few highlights from our team.
TEAM GROWTH
We were lucky enough to welcome a few new members to the team this year. In June, we welcomed Beth on board as a full-time web designer. She also tackles some of our content writing and handles our social media accounts. In August, we said goodbye to our design intern, Chase, as he headed off to college at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. His replacement, Colton, started with us in September and has been a great asset with his skill in graphic design. In November, Hailee came on board as our marketing intern and hit the ground running. One of our web designers, Whitney, also welcomed a new baby girl named Nova!
BY THE NUMBERS
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PROJECTS COMPLETEDWe completed 35 projects in 2018, pushing us past the 150-project mark!
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NEW TEAM MEMBERSOur team grew in 2018, and we are hoping to welcome at least one more full-time member in 2019!
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STATESWe added a few new states to the list this year, bringing our total to 12. We've also done work on three different continents!
CLIENT IMPACT
This year we completed our biggest project to date: Otter Tail County website redesign. There are a number of reasons this project was such a big undertaking. We've highlighted a few below.
Custom Dashboard & User Interface
The site runs off WordPress, but the dashboard can sometimes be a bit overwhelming for users that rarely update content. To make it a more seamless process, we created a custom interface to greatly simplify the process for employees within the county. This also allowed us to add resources for any staff members. To make access easier, we added a single sign-on for county Microsoft accounts.
Custom User Roles
We created a handful of user accounts with different permissions to allow users enough access to edit and update content as needed, but enough restrictions to prevent problems. The custom interface also utilizes these different roles to show different messaging and options for logged in county staff.
Search Engine
One of the main goals of the new website was to lead with a universal search that could help answer any visitor questions and lead them to the right information. The new search allows us to view user statistics and adjust the algorithm to serve better results. In return, the search will continue to evolve over time.
Dynamic Content
The structure of the site was changed to be more dynamic, meaning content could be shared between departments and boards without having to duplicate. This applies to content types like news, events, resources, etc. This also allowed us to associate content with each other. For example, buildings could be associated with multiple departments or an official could be associated with a township.
Help Form on Contact Page
The form on the contact page operates more like an interactive helper to determine exactly what the visitor needs. There are 16 different fields within the form but the visitor only sees a few based on their responses. This helps streamline the process, makes it easier for the visitor to get the help they need faster, and reduces support overhead for the county.
Notification Center
There is a lot of content on the website, so to make it easier for visitors to stay updated, the notification center was created to allow specific content subscriptions. Visitors can now subscribe to news and events from a specific department or board, as well as follow progress for county projects.
bring it on, 2019!
2018 saw its share of chaos, but we wouldn't have it any other way! Overall this year was a phenomenal one for CYBERsprout. We can't believe how this company has grown in just four years and we'd like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of our clients who make it possible to do what we love every single day. We can't wait to see what the coming year has in store!