Download the Auckland University of Technology case study

The client

Auckland University of Technology (AUT) is New Zealand's newest university, with nearly 24,000 students across 3 campuses in Auckland, Manukau and North Shore cities. AUT identifies itself as "the university for the changing world".

Emerging environments and industries are reflected in its qualifications and research programmes, the main areas of focus being:    

• Applied Humanities
• Business and Law
• Design and Creative Technologies
• Health and Environmental Sciences
• Maori Development

With over 200 qualifications to choose from, AUT study areas provide pathways from pre-degree diplomas and certificates through to bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees.

See: http://www.aut.ac.nz/about-aut

The challenge

In early 2009 the AUT web team were frustrated by the limitations of their current WCMS. AUT needed a web presence that reflected its leadership in technology and its identity as the university for the changing world. AUT also needed a modern intranet solution that would enhance staff collaboration and productivity.

With the business demanding more online services and the current web publishing system unable to deliver AUT needed a WCMS that was powerful, fully featured and flexible but cost effective. The solution needed to provide AUT with the capability to be largely self sufficient after the initial implementation so that they were able to manage the majority of development work in-house and not be forced into contracting the vendor to perform any minor development work required.

AUT's list of system requirements was well researched and formidable, including:

• Edit audit trail
• Content approval
• Granular privileges
• Login history
• Session management
• SSL compatible, SSL logins, SSL pages
• LDAP authentication
• Multi-level hierarchy navigation with no limit
• Friendly URLs
• Template access
• WYSIWYG editor with spell checker
• Asset management

With great design skills in-house in its small but talented web team, AUT looked around for a WCMS and implementation partner that would support their web strategy, impose no design restrictions, and work in partnership with them.

Given the high number of content editors within AUT, it was identified that an open source WCMS solution with no licence fees or per user costs was required. But the WCMS product also had to have proven implementations in Universities around the world, a clear product road map for future-proof investment and the implementation partner needed to be able to provide genuine 24/7 support, commercial warranties and a full Service Level Agreement (SLA).

• Content scheduling
• Sub-sites / Roots
• Form generation
• XHTML compliant
• Content reuse
• Advanced user group management
• Page and section level access rights
• Link management
• Search engine
• Auto generate site map
• Content syndication
• Cross browser compatibility    

The solution

After a comprehensive review and demonstration of several WCMS products and vendors a MySource Matrix solution provided by Squiz was selected as the logical WCMS solution for AUT. AUT saw MySource Matrix as a “best of both worlds” solution combining the obvious cutting edge nature of the technology and the cost effectiveness of open source, with the security of a commercially supported warranty and SLA from Squiz.

The planning phase of the project was undertaken together, detailing platform, functional specs and project management plan as well as content migration.

Once Squiz installed the new MySource Matrix WCMS platform (that would run both the main AUT external website as well as the AUT intranet) this project was a genuine collaboration between Squiz and AUT. The AUT web team designed and coded the new public site and Squiz integrated the AUT designs as templates in Matrix and created a parse file for the site, they then configured Matrix to provide the site functionality and integration of course data.

Squiz and AUT undertook the content migration process together and most content was manually migrated from the existing AUT     site into the new site complete with new information architecture and visual design. Once the new site was designed and pages could be created in the site, Squiz created a ‘Simple Edit Interface' for AUT that allows for easy editing of web content by non-technical content authors.

Squiz trained the AUT web team in Matrix system management and the AUT web team then worked with Squiz to develop customised training for content authors and delivered it themselves to a core team of content editors. Once the public site was operational, attention turned to AUT's intranet, “The Wire”. AUT's web team provided the design flat files for Squiz to cut up, code and build the site within Matrix, connecting to AUT's LDAP user directory for authentication.

The result

The Squiz / MySource Matrix solution delivered AUT a single web content authoring and management platform for the university's public website as well as its intranet. The new website and intranet now meet business requirements and provide AUT with a future proof solution for their web services both external and internal.

The improved performance, architecture and discoverability of content through Matrix integrated search has enhanced the user experience and the Simple Edit Interface means non-technical content authors can now quickly and easily add and update content. Because of the specialist training provided by Squiz and the inherent flexibility of MySource Matrix AUT have been able to build three major additional sites entirely in-house, including the AUT library site:

• http://www.aut.ac.nz/library/
• http://www.ipp.aut.ac.nz/areas-of-expertise
• http://www.bic.aut.ac.nz/

AUT host their own servers and have observed that since the implementation of MySource Matrix their public website and intranet are more than ever business critical tools. To provide greater reliability and uptime AUT have recently upgraded to a replicated environment with enhanced redundancy / fail-over.

Benefits

The key business benefits for AUT of using Squiz to implement their MySource Matrix solution have been around cost, time and efficiency savings. They now have a world-class, commercially supported, future proof web solution with none of their budget wasted on licence fees or per user costs.

The Simple Edit Interface means ease of use for content authors and has removed technical publishing barriers so that content can now be maintained by content experts rather than technical experts.

The system management training provided by Squiz means that AUT are now largely self sufficient and can build and develop additional sites in-house, where as before implementing MySource Matrix they would have to contract their old WCMS vendor for any development work required.

Quotable quote

MySource Matrix offers a high level of flexibility and control compared to the system we previously used. Matrix is intuitive and easy to use so our content authors can now create content with ease and we can be sure their content is consistent with prescribed branding templates. We are able to make significant system changes and improvements ourselves and this saves time and money. Squiz also has a clear and published roadmap for Matrix so we are confident we have a solution for the long-term.

Homepage

Library

Intranet