# Scott Brownrigg Compass
URL: https://www.associativetrails.com/work/scottbrownriggcompass/
Client: Scott Brownrigg
Type: Intranet
Summary: Effective portal enhancement — An updated bespoke company information portal. Fully responsive, very well-connected.

An update to one of our existing bespoke company intranets. The fully responsive interface can be used on screens of all sizes - from phones to the biggest desktop monitor.

As well as providing a rich information portal, the intranet aggregates data from other corporate systems - staff information, project records and training events.

## The challenge

Our original bespoke intranet for Scott Brownrigg (https://www.associativetrails.com/work/scottbrownriggintranet/) had done fine work for 6 years, but the time was right for an update.

In consultation with the client, we decided to retain much of the functionality of the original system. However, an improved search interface would help users quickly discover relevant content in the increasingly large corpus of information held. We also wanted to broaden the range of other corporate applications aggregated by the system, including project records and training events.

Interface-wise, a complete rewrite of the front-end to improve the design and make it responsive would ensure it was usable across a broad range of devices.

## The solution

The new system retained much of the functionality of the previous one. Features such as rich text editing, granular administration privileges, content review and scheduling, internal news feeds and staff skill assessment were all featured in the new system.

We used the Bootstrap framework and a modular front-end coding approach to build a rich interface that is responsive across all screen sizes. Having the solid foundation of a formal framework helped us achieve some complicated user interactions for cropping images, defining imagemap hotspots, sorting and reordering lists of linked items, etc.

The new system includes a number of new or enhanced features:

- User customisable news carousels
- An application-wide user subscription model allowing users to quickly see updates to content they are particularly interested in
- Integration with OpenAsset image library
- Image cropping and definition of imagemaps within easy-to-use web forms
- Support for multiple offices, with graphical presentation of office skills profiles
- Event attendance management and integration with HR systems (Cascade)
- Comprehensive staff skills profiles, with project summary and history pulled in from an external project records system (Union Square)
- Sophisticated content discovery with a skimming interface for search results allowing users to review the content of search matches without leaving the result page

## The outcome

The new intranet is available to all client employees using their web browsers. They are automatically recognised from their windows domain login. The new system has gone down well with staff, and we look forward to future development.

Technologies used

Adobe Coldfusion, Microsoft SQL Server, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Javascript. Integration with Microsoft Active Directory, Axomic OpenAsset, Union Square and Cascade.

## Screens
- Home page with news carousel and subject feeds: The homepage puts a news carousel above panels for projects and people, and feeds of industry news, press coverage and practice news.
- Filterable feed of latest news: The news list can be filtered by feed, such as press coverage, practice news or people news, with simple and advanced search.
- News item with tags, linked staff, comments and subscriptions: News items can be tagged and linked to staff, with comments and a subscription option for future updates.
- Office skills profile: Each studio page charts its staff's experience by sector at three levels, with tabs for groups, software skills, memberships and languages.
- Events calendar: A monthly calendar colour-codes events by type, from management meetings and social events to CPD and mandatory training.
- Event attendance management: Staff attendance at an event is tracked and displayed alongside a record of changes made to the listing.
- Staff photographs: The staff directory filters people by experience, groups, software skills, languages, studio and more, showing each with a photograph, role and office.
- Content skimming: A tag's pages can be skimmed in place: choosing one previews it beside the list, without leaving the tag page.
- Project data including team members: Project records show their staff and their client and billing organisations, imported from Spider, which is where they must be edited.