Case Study: San Mateo County Office of Education
The Customer
Providing students, adults, and educators instructional resources, professional development, and educational programs for children and adults of varying needs—not to mention providing fiscal services to help San Mateo County school districts manager over $500 million annually and maintain compliance—the San Mateo County Office of Education (SMCOE) found themselves building a growing website, while centralizing content update to just three IT staff members and a few dedicated staff members. The SMCOE needed a full-service, customized solution that would retain their website’s overall look and feel—but allow for more consistent content updates by the SMCOE departments.
The Challenge
While the SMCOE’s website did not encounter challenges with inconsistent branding and graphics, the lack of a content management system allowing departments to update their own content—without changing the look of their respective websites—created challenges for the limited staff members that could perform these updates. In addition, while the recent re-design of their website resulted in a new look, none of their legacy content was migrated to their new site. The public’s growing need for up-to-date information—and a website challenged by inconsistent and outdated content—led the SMCOE to seek a content management system and migration of their legacy content.
Carol Quigley, Manager-Network Services, for the SMCOE, shared that—being in proximity to Silicon Valley--their offices are located in close proximity to hundreds of website design companies, none had the expertise with education, “We needed a website development company that understands the education environment,” she stated. Furthermore, due to their need for legacy content migration, Quigley was seeking a full-service website development company, adding, “we wanted the whole package—beginning to end.” SectorPoint’s positive recommendations from the Solano County Office of Education—joined with the company’s prior experience working with other county offices of education and education institutions—led the SMCOE to partner with SectorPoint for their website solutions.
The Process
SectorPoint worked in collaboration with various SMCOE staff members and administrators throughout the process of developing and implementing the website solutions. In the first phase, SectorPoint worked with a small committee to develop the priorities related to the project. Next, in collaboration with a larger committee—which also included the Superintendent of the SMCOE—SectorPoint developed 5 different design options, including colors and graphics. Jon, additional information about SectorPoint’s process with this account will help flesh this out—and improve the intro.
Delivering Excellent Results
Within a month of finalizing the design, SectorPoint converted the SMCOE’s website to SharePoint, completing the design, content conversion and staff training required for the new platform. Quigley noted that SectorPoint deftly navigated challenges associated with a mixed platform (Macs and Windows), completing several hours of work to thoroughly resolve any problems.
In additional SMCOE decided to utilize SectorPoint’s hosting services. “We opted for a hosted solution, even though we have our own server, which has taken off the responsibility of maintaining and updating the server,” said Quigley. “I have been very satisfied with how the hosted solution has worked for us. I am glad that we don’t have to worry about this,” she continued.
Noting SectorPoint’s timely and polite customer service response, Quigley also commended SectorPoint for their professionalism and attention to their needs. “They are consistent with their prompt responses, which puts me—and my staff—at ease,” she explained.
Going the Extra Mile
“SectorPoint was completely transparent with their services and pricing from the get-go, thoroughly describing services in the design and content conversion agreement, as well as the maintenance agreement—this is not typical of all web development companies,” said Carol Quigley, Manager-Network Services, San Mateo County Office of Education.