Skip to main content

When preparing a new Public Platform site to replace an existing council website, there are several steps we take.

Evaluation

The first thing we do is evaluate your current site for any functionality gaps. Typically Public Platform's default features cover the vast majority of necessary functionality, but occasionally there are extra requirements. If an automated migration of content to the new site is required we also take this time to map existing content types to Public Platform ones.

Switch on of new environments

We then create a staging server and install the Public Platform CMS, as well as setup the site's structure. The basic installation provides full functionality and a framework for clients to start adding new pages to.

Our servers are based in the UK and are ISO27001 certified.

Content population

There are several options when it comes to populating content:

  • Clients can manually recreate content on the new site,
  • Clients can contract us to manually migrate a few sections of the site to act as a template for them to follow, or
  • Clients can contract us to automatically migrate their site's entire content inventory using Rapid Start.

Theming options

Public Platform's front-end was designed to be flexible and customisable to ensure all clients could create a distinct look for their site. The default styling is based on the original work by the Government Design System (GDS) team and is fully accessibility compliant.

We have architected Public Platform to integrate with a style guide and pattern library tool called Storybook, a state-of-the-art front-end development framework that can be used by your development team to build custom HTML components and customize all aspects of the site styling.

As shown in the Case Study pages, Public Platform sites can support a wide variety of looks.

Phased Beta go live

Once the site is constructed and populated, it is launched using a phased beta. A phased beta is where we selectively publish sections of the site, accompanied by implementation of a redirect system that seamlessly passes traffic between the old and new sites, essentially swapping out sections of the old site with those of the new site.

This acts as a great opportunity to gather feedback from stakeholders and users via Public Platform’s feedback forms and third party analytics systems, whilst minimising the risk. Feedback can then be implemented before going fully live.