The Challenge
Niolite specializes in delivering pure web based solutions, nowadays more often referred to as SaaS (Software as a Service). The SaaS market is a rapidly growing as more companies step into this market. The biggest players are Google™ and Microsoft™, each with their own separate set of services. This is where Niolite doesn’t profile itself as yet another competitor but as a SaaS integrator. Niolite has developed the Niolite On framework - a web application platform which enables Niolite to integrate not only its own services but also services from third party providers like Google™ and Microsoft™, which allows them to offer their clients a wide range of services from different providers. Because the old website was built with static pages, frequently adding new content was a difficult and labor-intensive job. As the list of available services on the Niolite On Platform grows, so does the support and news pages. Niolite needed to simplify the creation of content, while maintaining a consistent look and friendliness for both user and search-engines.
The Solution
The Sitefinity ASP.NET CMS offered Niolite exactly every tool they needed to build a website to their specifications in a short time. This project was Niolite’s first introduction to the Sitefinity system, but as Sitefinity is built on core ASP.NET technology and all Niolite developers were already familiar with the language, using Sitefinity was no problem.
The developer team at Niollite was able to quickly develop, in conjunction with the Niolite design team, a dynamic website framework which enabled both the sales and support teams to easily add and modify content without compromising the overall quality of the website. The new site utilizes most of the built-in modules like Blogs, News, Generic Content, Newsletter, etc., and has also been enhanced with custom functionality such as a contact form which itself uses the Sitefinity out of the box Captcha control.
The workflow engine came handy as not all of the employees were to be allowed the same editing rights. By creating and assigning different roles, the website administrators could easily set permissions according to the predefined rights for the various groups. This prevented unauthorized modification of content.
SEO-friendliness was another aspect of Sitefinity which made it our preferred CMS platform. Because the Sitefinity system works with templates and user-friendly HTML-editors which produce clean code, content editors were able to produce SEO optimized pages without needing to have any technical knowledge.
The Result
The Niolite website was built in approximately 2 months on Sitefinity, ASP.Net 3.5, SQL Server 2008 and with Visual Studio 2008. Sitefinity enabled Niolite to build a content manageable website in a much shorter time then they did ever before, without any concessions of any sort.
The sales department is now able to add and modify products and services without having to contact the development team who can now focus on their own product development. This also comes handy when needing to emphasize specific keywords for search-engines. Content editors with no technical background are able to change the keywords and the rest of the meta fields for each of the pages with a few clicks and thus contribute to a better-optimized site according to the specific needs of the company.
The support department has had about 50% less support phone calls since the launch of the new website as customers can now find up to date help materials addressing the most common problems right on the website. The support team is now able to easily post new support articles to the website thus further reducing the phone calls load.
Overall, every department has benefitted from using the Sitefinity system. Every team can now focus on their own tasks. This results in better profits and after sales.