|
|
| |
"Website
Builder" tool facilitates site building and
content creation at WHO |
| The
World Health Organization (WHO) was founded
in 1948 as a specialized agency of the United
Nations. The objective of the WHO is the attainment
by all people of the highest possible level
of health. WHO is decentralized into six regions:
Pan-America, Europe, Africa, North Africa
and the Middle East, South East Asia and Western
Pacific. For each region, it has a Regional
Committee and a Regional Office. The Regional
offices are responsible for formulating policies
of a regional character and for monitoring
regional activities |
|
|
 |
| |
|
WHO South East Asia Regional Office (SEARO)
had the responsibility for creation and
maintenance of websites for all countries
in the region. These websites have the primary
objective of promoting awareness of and
access to WHO/ SEAR information worldwide.
WHO SEAR has 10 member states: Bangladesh,
Bhutan, Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives,
Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Management of content of these sites, continuous
updates and centralization of information
have been the biggest challenge. Content
authors in all these countries wanted the
freedom to create and maintain their own
content. All content on a WHO site is linked
to a structured mechanism of categorizing
information. To take care of these and several
other complex requirements, it was proposed
that all country offices in the region have
the capacity to develop and maintain their
separate websites, linked to the WHO Regional
and WHO Global Websites. These growing web
development requirements at a country level
demanded a common web site builder tool
for WHO offices to facilitate easy development
of their websites with corporate look, coherent
use of web development standards, navigation
and search facilities. The other requirements
from the solution were as follows:
|
| |
|
 |
Deliver
a tool that enables WHO employees across the
SEARC region to create web sites without having
any technical knowledge |
| |
|
|
Enable
authors to create and publish content without
needing any knowledge of HTML or any specific
technology |
| |
|
|
Enabling
non-technical users to manage site content |
| |
|
|
System
for the creation of multi-lingual content |
| |
|
|
Ability
to create dynamic pages |
| |
|
| WHO SEAR
Office took the initiative to get a Web Site
Builder Tool developed with 3 primary objectives: |
| |
|
|
Empower offices of the member states to directly
control, and possibly publish, content relevant
to the states on their own web-site |
|
Provide
a user friendly interface enabling non-IT
professionals prepare and publish content,
leveraging the local creativity, and automate
performance of the routine maintenance tasks |
|
Enforce a set of broad standards and guidelines
for the web site designs |
|
|
| All-e's team
comprising of Functional and Technical
Consultants leveraged the All-e framework
'e-Web' and developed a solution based
on the Microsoft Platform. It used VB,
ASP, COM+, SQL Server, XML, HTML, as
development tools. It used a combination
of Client Server and Internet Application
Components . The product integrates
with MS FrontPage, MS Office and several
other 3rd party tools. The major challenge
in developing this solution was the
extremely sketchy requirements provided
by WHO. Since the entire tool was at
a very preliminary conceptual stage,
the users had practically no idea on
the detailed level functionality expected
from the system before they were actually
shown the working prototypes. The prototyping
approach, which was based on our product
'e-Web', turned out to be extremely
effective. Basing the initial work on
our framework, we were finally able
to provide to WHO a very comprehensive
customized solution. |
| |
|
Independence to country offices |
|
|
|
Reduced dependence of content writers
on technical staff |
|
|
|
Higher productivity and control due
to several templates, utilities and
levels of standardization possible |
|
|
|
Better
content management
|
|
|
|
|
|
All-e's team
comprising of Functional and Technical Consultants
implemented a solution developed on the Microsoft
platform. The software uses Visual Basic, COM+,
ASP and MS SQL database.
The tool functionality can be divided in to two
broad categories:
o Design and
o Administration
Extensive usage of MS Office tools minimizes
the learning curve of users. Functions within
the design module provide users the ability to
create and modify Word Templates, Themes, Backgrounds
and Web pages. The system enables users work with
images. The system provides users the facility
for image manipulations and formatting. System
is able to use standard graphic formats like JPG,
GIF, TIF etc. The system provides an interface
to identified scanner software and automatically
builds Sitemaps and What's New features.
The Administration part of the tool provides
link management, web-site version management,
automatic backups, user security, upload, download
and scheduling of publish activities. The tool
also has Search, Help and Preview functionality.
Extensive use of wizards helps users in the designing
and development of web pages. The tool has the
capability to support multi-lingual content sites
|
| |
| Following are
the other features of the developed tool: |
| |
|
Member
countries maintain their independent websites;
have links to other WHO sites |
| |
|
|
Sites have
the provision to create and maintain several
types of documents. The documents are categorized
in a matrix approach. Two basic dimensions
of this matrix approach are - Document type
and Health topics. The document types can
be - Meeting reports, Information circulars,
STC reports, Guidelines, WHO strategy documents,
Country profile documents etc. The Health
topics can be - Malaria, TB, AIDS, Polio etc.
There are a total of 400 such cells. System
maintains templates for such documents |
| |
|
|
System
has several graphical objects. The graphical
objects have a third parameter - Country.
All countries use their own country specific
pictures |
| |
|
|
Extensive
use of MS Office tools like Word and PowerPoint |
| |
|
|
A set of
objects have been created in the system to
support the Design module - Word Templates,
Banners, Backgrounds, collages etc. |
| |
|
|
Add/ Modify/
Delete Word Templates - using simple features
in MS Word or easy graphical interface. Recycle
Bin for templates has been provided. |
| |
|
|
The Word
templates have been added and stored in a
library, which can be looked up while creating
a new document. |
| |
|
|
Add/ Modify/
Delete Themes: Approx. 40 themes per country.
Graphical interface is available to create
new themes. |
| |
|
|
Backgrounds:
The system has a facility to maintain a set
of backgrounds (color, images). It is possible
to apply the backgrounds on any template or
theme (for example, like in PowerPoint). |
| |
|
|
Add/ Modify/
Delete Pages: Users use the pre-created word
templates to create web pages. |
| |
|
|
Substitute
Variables: System has the facility to define
Global and Local variables. The Global variables
apply to the entire site. The Local variables
apply to a selected sub-site/ selected web
pages. |
| |
|
|
Variable
Parser: Users creating web pages may choose
to include any of the variables within the
text. The system has a parser to trace these
variables in the text and substitute their
value. |
| |
|
|
All generated
web pages are in XML |
| |
|
|
Formatted
Text: User are able to format the content/
text on the web page. Selection of Fonts,
Color, Bold, Italics, tables, nested tables,
table colors, including customized colors
should be possible. Web pages should have
all the standard attributes like Header, Footer,
Graphics, Navigation (any direction), Text
Styles and Colors etc. |
| |
|
|
Images
and Logos: It is possible to place images/
logos on web pages. Images created with external
tools shall be stored in identified paths
within the system |
| |
|
|
Image formatting:
System has image formatting features like
PowerPoint to Rotate, Size, Contrast, Brightness,
Cropping, Alignment etc. |
| |
|
|
Splitting
of picture: It is possible to store any image
in totality or smaller splits. |
| |
|
|
Scanner
integration: The system provides an interface
(just invoke) to a given set of scanning software. |
| |
|
|
Database:
The tool is database driven, with flexibility
for customization through system administration
modules. The flexibility is provided with
high utilization of reference tables and object
orientation. |
| |
|
|
Importing
pages/ Link management: Link an imported web
page, using easy to use graphical UI. Updates
all links automatically. |
| |
|
|
Link Management:
Tracks management of broken links, orphaned
pages. |
| |
|
|
Site Versioning:
Multi-level auto versioning of the site is
provided. Different levels for - structure
change, new content, update etc. Versions
are created end of day, incorporating all
changes till end of day. |
| |
|
|
Security:
User maintenance by username and password
is provided. Uses the security mechanism to
differentiate between Inter/ Intra and Extranet
pages. Password changeable by user and maintained
and communicated between client and server
in an encrypted form. |
| |
|
|
Intra-office
updation and exchange: Templates, graphics,
word docs, PDF files etc. are updated between
the Regional Office and Country Offices automatically. |
| |
|
|
Search:
Provides flexible full text search, including
Boolean search and Advanced level search.
|
| |
|
|
Wizards:
Extensive usage of wizards for performing
various tasks. |
| |
|
|
|
Application
Snap Shot |
|
|
|
|
|
