Website Redesign Services

The vendor is required to provide the board invites interested professional, qualified, and experienced companies to submit a proposal to create and launch a new public-facing corporate website and approximately 95 school websites.
- The board utilizes WordPress and is hosted on-premises.
- The board wishes to move to a software as a service (SaaS) cloud-hosted mobile first content management system (CMS) style solution that integrates with cloud flare web application firewall.
- Security measures must be taken to protect the environment and data in transit and at rest.
- Web solution must interface with all existing board platforms relevant to student and family communication and workflow
- Current platforms include, but are not limited to:
• School messenger
• Power school
• parent portal
• Board social media platforms
• The hub
• Microsoft teams
- The CMS is required to have the following functionality:
• Mobile-first functionality and design
i. Ease of viewing on a mobile device.
ii. Ease of updating sites from a mobile device.
• The graphical user interface must be based on a wireframe “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) design
• End-users must be able to update/modify content with minimal experience or training (i.e., not a webmaster)
• Platform agnostic, and supported by all modern web browsers
• Flexibility in color schemes and layout for corporate branding
• Sites to be templated based on hierarchy
i. Ability to restrict schools/ departments to specific color schemes, or areas for local design
ii. E.g., all school sites must look the same, but each school can change their logo or some specified widgets/areas within their own school site.
• Google analytics/ search engine optimization
• Search function on all pages to search for any content on all sites
• All pages must be able to use a translation tool (e.g., google translate)
• Sites and pages must be able to support multi-media content (photo, video)
i. The system should have the ability to down-res photos and videos to optimize performance and viewing
ii. Multi-media galleries should be supported for event and publicity purposes
• Main sites (board, schools) must be able to support banner-style announcements and areas for latest news items
i. The board must be able to push announcements and news items down to school sites or groupings of school sites (e.g., school groupings for snow days/weather events)
ii. School sites must be able to publish their own announcements and news locally
iii. News items and announcements should be able to be timed and an expiration set (e.g., item to be published on a certain date/time and taken off at a certain date/time) or completed manually in a publish and delete fashion.
• All sites must be able to support online form / ‘contact us’ submission
i. Form information must be forwarded to specific e-mail addresses provided by the board
ii. The ability to support attachments is required.
iii. Negotiated request for proposal information and submission format 2024-3- 132
• The solution must support calendars for all board and school sites.
i. Proponents must clearly indicate how the calendar works
ii. The board must have the ability to push calendar items down to school calendars
iii. Website viewers must be able to subscribe to a board or school calendar (or multiple)
iv. Multiple calendars must be supported based on type of programming (e.g., an academic calendar, sports, other extra-curricular activities etc.).
• All sites must be able to support maps to indicate their location to the public
i. Click on the map, and it opens in a separate page/tab in google maps
• All board and school sites must support the publishing of newsletters
i. When uploading the newsletter, it is desirable that the solution checks it for act compliance and conducts a virus check.
ii. Members of the public must be able to subscribe to newsletters to receive notification, or a copy when they are published.
• All sites must support linkage to social media and other related sites such as:
i. Facebook, Instagram, and any other to be determined social channel
ii. Bussing Hamilton Wentworth student transportation services
- Security
• System administration and content management must be facilitated via active directory, single sign on (SSO) and multi factor authentication (MFA).
• Negotiated request for proposal information and submission format 2024-3-132
• The following security roles are the minimum that must be supported:
i. Main admin (e.g., board office public relations office staff) – all sites
ii. Security admin – all sites o department admin – specific pages within the board website o school admin – only school sites
iii. The system must reflect flexible reporting to meet the requirements from bill194 and assign security roles for the administration of subsites based on active directory organizational unit and group membership.
• Cookie policy - cookies are required to determine site use and navigation within the site but limited to the minimum necessary use to respect the privacy of our community members.
- Implementation
• System set-up
• Migration of content from the existing platform
• Include any black-out periods where pages/sites cannot be updated due to content migration.
• Testing
• Training
• create redirects, page not found on migration
• Go live schedule site by site
- The successful proponent must include, at a minimum:
• Guaranteed platform availability (e.g., 99.9%)
• Platform support hours: e.g., 6:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. – Monday – Friday EST
• Emergency support procedures (24/7/365) if the site gets hacked and defaced.
• In periods of anticipated high traffic volume, successful proponent shall create, implement and oversee a “splash page” to mitigate service distribution to website functionality.
• Successful proponent shall provide manuals for users, to be based on roles.
• Platform support as needed including design changes, direct assistance to schools
• Mechanisms for CMS updates and patches, notification, testing
- Web investigation and insights
• The successful proponent will produce and evaluate web-based metrics – in collaboration with board teams (e.g., communications, it, etc.)
• The web investigation will include board site and a select range of school sites.
• As a result of this investigation, the successful proponent shall provide a report with insights that will inform the net-new website(s), like:
i. What are the words searchers are using to find the information they are looking for from board
iii. What types of devices are they using when our site is access (e.g., mobile, tablet, laptop) - Design and build
• The successful proponent will design and build development sites (board site and a mock school site) that includes top tasks for the purpose of user testing
• This could include board landing page, navigating to key tasks like registration, careers, find your school, etc.
• It is important to note that the development site’s content will be informed by the web investigation and does not require the successful proponent to complete the entire board site in development form for the purpose of testing
- User testing
• In collaboration with communications and other board teams, the successful proponent will design, implement, and execute user testing for the purpose of gathering insights that will inform final design
• This will include engagement of internal and external stakeholders to participate in this process
• This activity will ensure that board key users (families, parents, prospective employees, caregivers, community, and staff etc.) can easily access information and navigate the site will success
• The user testing will be task-based rather than opinion-based evaluating fail rates, fail tasks, success rates, etc.
• This will include roughly 5-7 groups of diverse users (e.g., staff, effective communication committee, SEAC, PIC, senior leadership, students)
• The successful proponent shall provide a fulsome report of the findings and themes making recommendations based on the information that will inform website design, layout, content placement strategy
- Iterations and apply insights
• Based on the findings from user testing, the development site will be modified to reflect relevant findings from the user testing
- Development site roadshow
• The successful proponent and board communications will do select previews to critical internal groups
• This will likely include executive council and other relevant small groups
- Platform training & power user onboarding
• The successful proponent will lead and facilitate training for it trainers, webmaster, communications, principals and vice principals, along with office administrators
- Launch implementation & support
• The successful proponent will support board through the launch period with 24/7 support and trouble shooting
• The successful proponent will have a fulsome failure prevention strategy along with recommendations and actions for board in the event of technical challenges or malfunctions.
- Contract Period/Term: 2 years
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: April 11, 2025