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Case Studies

  • How Sitefinity Transformed an Existing Static HTML Website to an Easily Managed Dynamic Website

    • Implementation of Sitefinity CMS has drastically improved maintainability of the website for deploying content changes quickly either by a single content manager or distributed across several content managers. Utilization of a dynamic calendar has drastically reduced the effort and time required to make calendar updates. Previously, end users had to spend numerous hours making changes to several static web pages for calendar updates. With the implementation of the dynamic calendar, a single user can publish calendar entries for several months within a matter of minutes.

      Author: Samir Vaidya Company: Effective Software Engineering Solutions

    • Client: Holiday Inn Express Grand Rapids
    • Industury: Tourism & Hospitality
    • Project website: http://www.hiegr.com
    • Implemented by: Effective Software Engineering Solutions
    • Download PDF (224 KB)
    • Industry
      Tourism & Hospitality
    • Background
      Holiday Inn Express Grand Rapids provides lodging for local area residents as well as visitors to the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. The hotel is particularly attractive to families because of the indoor water park.
    • Challenge
      One of the major challenges to adopting Sitefinity CMS was transitioning end users from a traditional HTML publishing methodology using tools such as Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver over to a CMS-publishing methodology. Fortunately, the ease of use for Sitefinity CMS made that transition seamless. End users were trained within a few hours on usage of Sitefinity CMS and were able to successfully publish content shortly thereafter.
    • Why Sitefinity
      Ease of use, rapid deployment and affordable pricing made Sitefinity CMS an ideal solution for managing and maintaining website content.
    • Technology Highlights
      ASP.Net 3.5 SP1
      SQL Server 2008
      Telerik RadControls
    • Results
      Sitefinity provided an excellent ASP.Net CMS-based solution which heavily leveraged the underlying technologies provided by the .Net Framework allowing existing .Net developers to easily implement custom solutions based on well-known ASP.Net technologies such as ASP.Net Master Pages, Web Forms and User Controls.
  • Download PDF (224 KB)
  • The Challenge

    The customer currently had an existing website in place completely based on static HTML pages.  The website was previously managed by a single website designer, and therefore all changes to the website required the designer's intervention for updating and publishing content.  With the frequency of content changes, updates were not always deployed in a timely fashion.  The customer needed to adopt a system whereby non-technical end users could easily modify and deploy content without intervention of the website designer.  

    The Solution

    As part of this analysis and exploration process, several content management systems were reviewed.  Amongst these CMS systems were several free ASP.Net based CMS systems, as well as several commercial systems.  Amongst all of the available systems, Sitefinity CMS seemed the most appealing for its ease of use, integration with the Telerik RadControls suite and its extremely affordable pricing.  After presentation to the client, the customer agreed that Sitefinity CMS was definitely the most viable candidate for adoption.

    Once the development began on the project, the transition from the earlier static HTML website was very fast. Through the use of the Generic Content controls, static content could be easily pasted and published. For content that needed to be shared and utilized across the website, the Shared Generic Content controls were extremely handy in reducing duplication of content. Template generation proceeded effortlessly through the use of ASP.Net Master Pages. Utilization of ASP.Net AJAX technologies also provided seamless integration and adoption of the AJAX Control Toolkit. Finally, availability of the Telerik RadControls provided an excellent solution for developing custom capabilities such as a dynamic calendar.    

    The Results

    The initial transition from the static website to a Sitefinity content-managed website was surprisingly quick. Within approximately 2 weeks, the templates and the content had been completely migrated to the Sitefinity-based website. An initial version of the website was published shortly thereafter, thus allowing end-users to begin publishing new and updated content very readily. Once the initial website version was published, development continued on providing additional dynamic content capabilities such as a Slideshow based on the AJAX Control Toolkit Slideshow control as well as a dynamic calendar control utilizing the Telerik RadCalendar control.

    Within approximately 1 month, the entire process of development was complete and fully deployed to production. Content that previously needed to be updated by a single web designer could now be published by several end users whenever the need arose. The cost of publishing changes to the website was drastically reduced and updated content was able to be published quicker, thereby reducing the amount of incoming calls regarding current slide and waterpark hours. Additional improvements to the website were easily adopted through the migration of static content to utilization of the Lists, News and Event modules.