Case Study: University of California, San Diego Health Sciences
The Customer
Each day, countless students, faculty members, existing and new patients visit the website for UC San Diego’s Health Sciences division—which includes the School of Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Medical Center, and Cancer Center. That’s why--with cutting-edge research and clinical trials, and close to 100 specialties, services and centers--the University was seeking a cutting-edge website solution that would meet the institution’s growing needs to convey updated and consistent web-based information to their student, patient, and donor audiences.
The Challenge
Described as a “website branding nightmare” by Web Manager Casey Murphy, the Health Sciences departments’ websites had a lack of consistency in their look, structure and architecture. Utilizing their internal design services, the division created several design templates with common branding elements that could be adapted to different departments, and turned to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 as their Web content management solution to power their portfolio of Internet and intranet Websites.
“Although we used SharePoint internally,” said Murphy, “we had not attempted to apply branding and design elements to the SharePoint’s ‘out of box’ functionality.” Noting the diverse technological expertise of the division’s IT staff, Murphy described that the Division still encountered challenges with customizing the SharePoint product to adapt to the Health Science Division’s marketing brand and design.
“I would venture to guess that anyone who uses a custom SharePoint website runs into the same challenges—you think you’re equipped to handle this in-house, but there are still obstacles,” said Murphy.
Turning first to user groups and other resource websites, Murphy and her staff spent several weeks attempting to piece together answers that would result in solutions that would meet their needs. However, with pressing deadlines, and running into dead-ends with their attempts, Murphy found SectorPoint when searching for a business that would provide solutions to meet UC San Diego’s needs.
“SectorPoint has worked extensively with SharePoint and has worked with a number of schools and colleges, which gave me the confidence in the work that they do,” Murphy explained. “I wanted to find a business that is accountable and trustworthy—many solutions are off-shore, but because UC San Diego is a public institution, we require a longer review process with off-shore contractors…and we needed an immediate solution,” she continued. “SectorPoint’s relevant client experience in California, along with their outstanding reputation, made this an easy case for me to make to the University for exclusively contracting with SectorPoint to develop our SharePoint branding services.”
The Process
SectorPoint worked in collaboration with the UCSD School of Medicine website management staff to develop custom SharePoint Features, custom Web parts, SharePoint controls, and SharePoint applications--all to be built on the SharePoint Object Model and in accordance with UCSD marketing and technical Web specifications. SectorPoint translated the Division's already-designed Photoshop proofs into SharePoint master pages and page layouts, utilizing custom SharePoint content types, extensive CSS styling, and other methods that maintained the integrity of design with the Sharepoint interface.
SectorPoint worked with various staff members-- including designers, programmers, project managers, and IT staff--throughout the project, relying upon their expertise at each deployment phase. “I am impressed how well SectorPoint navigated and managed the variety of perspectives and approaches of the staff members while working on this project,” said Murphy.
Delivering Excellent Results
Initially, SectorPoint developed SharePoint branding and custom Web parts for each department and program site based on specifications provided by UCSD Health Sciences Marketing. SectorPoint completed SharePoint branding for the main School of Medicine Website, the main Health Sciences Division site, the “Rheumatology, Allergy, & Immunology” site and the “An Individualized Mental Health Intervention for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (AIM HI)” site.
However, due to the high volume of Internet and intranet sites that needed to be converted to SharePoint, SectorPoint quickly identified the need to move to a different model of SharePoint branding: instead of creating custom sites for each Internet and intranet site, SectorPoint created modular SharePoint Features that UCSD could use across all of their sites, incorporating the following goals:
- CSS compliant controls and features that can have branding easily adjusted as needed without requiring additional coding;
- A global framework for all components and features;
- Documenting the modules to the extent necessary for implementation within UCSD sites.
Murphy noted that—due to the modular SharePoint features developed by SectorPoint-- a recent new site request, which once took several weeks to finish, resulted in completion of site development within two days.
“I am hugely impressed with Jon and Mike with how they service their accounts. I have never met anyone so personally invested in the work they do,” said Murphy. “They walked us through the entire process, and if we had problems, I could just email them and they would patiently talk us through the solution,” she continued.
Going the Extra Mile
“SectorPoint stands by their work-- they want their clients to be happy. They provide individualized customer service that results in the complete resolution of any questions or concerns,” said Casey Murphy, UC San Diego Health Science Web Manager.
“SectorPoint not only transferred knowledge, but they also ensured that the Health Services division could address the current customer needs and meet pending deadlines. They worked around the clock to address our needs. They were just as invested in pulling off our deadlines as we were,” she continued.