The Agency for Digitisation
An all inclusive web solution for public sector
The beginning
For years it's been discussed how to lower expenses and increase quality for public sector websites. And then 5 years ago Rasmus Rudolf, Berú co-founder, created GoBasic.
GoBasic is a modular extension package build on top of Umbraco, which contains all the functionalities and content modules traditionally used on public information websites. GoBasic is now in use on more than a 100 websites.
So what we, Berú, did is created a hosted all-inclusive web solution for the Danish state. GoBasic is a solution on which various public organizations can build new websites easily and extremely cost effective. This solution is also what the site of The Agency for Digitisation is based on.
What the client needed
The Agency of Digitisation wanted a controlled hosted version of GoBasic with a set stylesheet which can be adjusted via 34 variables.
In this way every public organisation who wants a standard information website can get online in a few days with a public sector looking website, adjusted to each organizations visual identity (font, colors etc).
How we did it
GoBasic version for The Agency of Digitisation is hosted by Agency for Governmental IT Services on a staged environment to accomplish stability and scalability. We’ve also developed an automated hosting-setup that makes it possible to spin up new website-instances in a few seconds.
Building GoBasic was very easy, given the open nature of Umbraco. Umbraco’s very open API and source code made it easy to make adjustments in order to build in a custom grid editor, with custom modules the web editor can drag and drop on a canvas.
Designwise we've designed a base-stylesheet that can be changed by 34 variables. By having a standard base-stylesheet all web-solutions can be easily maintained and updated together. New features and modules can be added later with ease supported by the base stylesheet.
"We love Umbraco's open nature - it made it so much easier for us to build GoBasic. Overall, it is just so easy to make adjustments in order to build in a custom grid editor, with custom modules the web editor can drag and drop on a canvas,"
What we achieved
We've managed to successfully build a web platform that suits the needs of public sector information websites and lives up to Web Accessibility Standards, cookie protection rules and so on.
New clients can onboard the solution for a small fraction of the price they used to pay (in theory that’s 0 kroner).
The solution also takes into account how to effectively support and maintain it across many customers and solutions.
Besides this case, The Ministry of Finance has launched the following sites with great success and ease: The Agency for Governmental IT Services (Statens-it.dk), Agency for Modernisation (modst.dk), Danish Fisheries Agency (fiskeristyrelsen.dk) and Naevneneshus (naevneneshus.dk) Even more public sector sites are already on the way!