Defence Housing Australia — new GovCMS SaaS CivicTheme website

Overview

Defence Housing Australia’s challenge

The Defence Housing Australia website was on Sitefinity CMS, a proprietary content management system that was approaching end-of-life (EOL). DHA wanted to rebuild its website on the GovCMS SaaS platform, within a tight time frame of only 9-12 weeks to ensure that the replatforming was done prior to the EOL date.

Defence Housing Australia’s transformation

Salsa Digital started with an assessment to ensure GovCMS SaaS and CivicTheme would meet DHA’s needs. As part of the assessment (and in preparation for the content migration) Salsa mapped the existing content structures to CivicTheme. The mapping became a key input to the Figma designs, platform configuration and content uplift. The migration covered hundreds of content pages, files and images. Finally, we delivered tailored training for the team and two weeks of hypercare support.

The outcomes

• An easy to maintain website on the GovCMS SaaS platform, leveraging all the benefits of a whole-of-government SaaS platform

• A greatly improved content editing experience

• Reduced costs from leveraging GovCMS and CivicTheme

“Working with Salsa Digital gave us confidence to deliver a high-quality outcome within a very tight timeframe. Their pragmatic approach to GovCMS and CivicTheme, combined with strong guidance on content structure and uplift, helped us not only rebuild our website but significantly improve how we manage and maintain it. The training and post-launch support ensured our team felt capable and confident from day one.”

Kathryn Reddie
Content Platform Manager, Communications and Media
Defence Housing Australia

Detailed case study

Below is detailed information on the challenge, transformation and final outcomes/benefits.

DHA’s challenge — an old proprietary CMS approaching end-of-life

Defence Housing Australia (DHA) needed to move its website off a proprietary content management system that was nearing end-of-life. The organisation wanted to transition to the Australian Government’s GovCMS SaaS platform to reduce platform risk, lower maintenance overheads and align with modern government digital standards — all within a tight delivery timeframe of only 9-12 weeks.

Before moving ahead, DHA needed confidence that GovCMS SaaS and CivicTheme could meet its accessibility, functionality and user experience requirements. The existing website also contained a large volume of legacy content, files and images that needed to be reviewed, cleaned up and migrated into a more modern and maintainable structure.

DHA also wanted to minimise unnecessary custom development. The goal was to make the most of standard GovCMS and CivicTheme features wherever possible, helping keep costs under control and reducing long-term maintenance complexity.

Another key priority was improving the experience for internal teams managing the website. DHA needed a platform that was easier to update, with clearer content structures, better editing tools, and practical training and documentation to help staff confidently manage the site after launch.

DHA’s transformation — website rebuild on GovCMS and content migration

Salsa Digital partnered with DHA to deliver a full website rebuild on GovCMS SaaS using CivicTheme and Drupal 11-compatible foundations.

The project began with a detailed discovery to confirm that GovCMS SaaS and CivicTheme could support DHA’s needs. This phase included a detailed mapping of DHA’s content and visual components to content types and CivicTheme components. While the pre-sales process had assumed an automated migration, the detailed analysis of the content revealed that the lack of structure would mean that the cost-benefit of an automated migration would no longer be realised. The team pivoted to a manual migration approach.

Salsa then created Figma designs for key pages using CivicTheme components, while tailoring the user experience to better match DHA’s brand and content needs. By taking a moderate customisation approach, the team was able to modernise the website experience without adding unnecessary technical complexity.

What we built

• Content types: Standard Page (updates only), Microsite pages, News articles, Events (updates only), Investment property, and Executive/board member profiles (as paragraphs).
  
• Navigation and branding: Custom header with prominent "Online Services" button, responsive mobile navigation with different logo treatments, mega-menu with clickable first-level items, and branded footer.
  
• Listings and search: Corporate and investor news listings, event listings with upcoming events blocks, filtered investment property listings with legal disclaimers, and Solr-powered global search.
  
• Microsites: Landlord and supplier resource microsites with sidebar navigation.
  
• Forms: Online enquiry forms (webforms).
  
• Content features: Automated and manual content lists, callout components, breadcrumbs, meta tags, XML sitemap, and editorial workflows.

Salsa also worked closely with DHA on a content audit and migration strategy, migrating 300+ content pages, files and images into the new platform while improving content quality, editorial consistency and accessibility.

To help DHA teams transition smoothly to the new platform, Salsa delivered tailored training workshops, created a customised user manual, and provided two weeks of post-launch hypercare support.

The outcomes — an improved platform and website

The project delivered a modern, accessible and easy-to-manage website platform for Defence Housing Australia, built on GovCMS SaaS and designed for long-term sustainability.

Key outcomes included:

• Successful migration from a legacy proprietary CMS to GovCMS SaaS

• A future-ready Drupal 11 platform built on CivicTheme

• Reduced platform and maintenance risk through the use of GovCMS SaaS capabilities

• Lower long-term costs through reuse of GovCMS and CivicTheme features

• A significantly improved content editing and administration experience for DHA staff

• A more modern and accessible user experience across devices

• Migration of all existing content, files and images into the new platform

• A content uplift during migration, improving editorial quality and accessibility

• WCAG-compliant foundations by leveraging CivicTheme’s WCAG focus

• Improved staff confidence through tailored training, documentation and post-launch support

About DHA

Defence Housing Australia (DHA) provides housing and related services to members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and their families.