Customer Background

The City of Martinsburg and TechMethods first formed a business relationship during an information crisis for the city.  Their entire network was down, which meant no work was getting done.  As a previous consultant to the City's Police Department, TechMethods was recommended to solve the problem.  TechMethods was able to respond onsite within an hour and had a working solution shortly thereafter.  With a relationship in place, TechMethods was invited to bid on the City's RFP for a new website.  TechMethods was in competition with large IT companies, but provided a superior solution both in budget and deliverables.

Challenge

The City of Martinsburg Municipal Government was looking to build a website to better serve its citizens and provide them with useful information at any time of the day. 

As a local government website, PDFs were par for the course.  The website needed to seamlessly deliver content, regardless of how it was provided. With new information coming in from all departments and all employees, the city needed a way to let everyone contribute while maintaining central control of what was published.  In addition, the collaborative approach of creating content required that the city keep track of all changes to documents.

Solution

TechMethods proposed to develop a comprehensive content management system (CMS).  After evaluating many different options including several open source alternatives, it was determined that only WebBuilder, TechMethods' flagship product, met all their needs out of the box cost-effectively.  

To allow PDFs to appear as part of the website, WebBuilder allows content to be created from any source - whether it's a link, a Microsoft Word document, a video or audio file, or even another website.  That content then seamlessly appears on the website as if it were typed directly into WebBuilder.

The WebBuilder Workflow Process was employed to address the complex organizational structure and chain of command required by the City. The process allows anyone with a login to contribute, but it must be approved by all of the user's superiors before it appears on the website. The process gives the City complete control of what gets published while still allowing everyone to contribute.

Since anyone can make changes to a document, WebBuilder Version Control was also implemented to keep track of changes, ensuring that no prior contributions are lost.

WebBuilder has given the City of Martinsburg the flexibility and control needed to manage a government website.  No longer must an individual be responsible for the entire website. With TechMethods' WebBuilder, all employees can contribute to the website with their managers' trust that nothing accidentally gets published without approval.