Federal agency — new GovCMS website using cloned site and CivicTheme

Protecting Australia’s interests

Case study summary: Salsa worked with a federal agency to set up a new CivicTheme/GovCMS website. Another new website we’d recently created for the same client was cloned, rebranded and then new content and images uploaded. Using a combination of a clone and CivicTheme allowed for an extremely cost-effective and fast site build, while also delivering a visually appealing and user-tested website.

On this page:

At a glance

<$50K
2022
2 to 4 months
Completed
CivicTheme, GovCMS, Drupal
Federal government
Discovery & strategy, Build & migration, Content & training, Hosting & maintenance, Support & optimisation, Technical advisory
Whole of government, Open design, Open source, Web development, Content management systems, Drupal Planet
Multidisciplinary teams, Agile delivery, Design, Open standards & common platforms, Open source, Accessibility

Overview

The agency’s challenge

A large federal agency wanted a new website dedicated to a specific subset of its stakeholders. The agency was already using GovCMS for other sites, so wanted a new GovCMS Drupal 9 website. Note: The agency can’t be named for security reasons.

The transformation

Salsa cloned another new website we’d built for the agency using GovCMS and CivicThemeExternal Link . The client then uploaded new content and images to the site. The combination of cloning the site and using CivicTheme saved our client considerable time and costs. The site was built in 2 months and for under $20k.

The outcomes

  • A visually appealing website built with user-tested components
  • A fast website build
  • An extremely cost-effective website build

“Using CivicTheme and Salsa has been a great outcome for us. Fast, inexpensive, well-designed websites x 2. I was very lucky to have an amazing team to work with and create and deliver the new websites. They are absolute legends (technical + responsive + patient) and a pleasure to work with.”

Agency project manager

Detailed case study

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

The challenge — a new dedicated website

A large federal agency had information about a subset of its stakeholders within its main public-facing website. The agency wanted to create a new, dedicated website at a new URL. With its suite of websites sitting on the GovCMS platform, our client wanted the new site to be built on GovCMS Drupal 9.

The transformation — a GovCMS D9 website

Having recently built another new GovCMS Drupal 9 website for this client using CivicThemeExternal Link , Salsa recommended cloning that site as the fastest and easiest path for a new website. The client was keen to make the most of the site’s framework and CivicTheme and decided to move forward with the clone.

Once the new site was created Salsa and the client:

  • Applied new/different brand colours
  • Uploaded new, dedicated content
  • Uploaded new, dedicated images

The combination of cloning the site and using CivicTheme saved our client considerable time and costs. The site was built in 2 months and for under $20k.

Accessibility

Our accessibility expert validated our client’s colour palette choices to ensure they met accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1).

The outcomes — a low-cost, visually appealing site

  • A visually appealing website built with user-tested and accessible components
  • A fast website build
  • An extremely cost-effective website build (under $20k)
  • The benefits of the whole-of-government platform GovCMS, including open source code (no licensing fees), access to the GovCMS community, and a highly resilient and secure platform