Site of the Month: Alberta Electric System Operator

July’s ‘Site of the Month’ has been been awarded to AESO (Alberta Electric System Operator). Their site was built by SilverStripe Professional Partner, Evans Hunt, a strategic digital communications agency based in Calgary, Canada.

About Evans Hunt

With over 1,258 successful websites launched, Evans Hunt specialises in creating meaningful connections between people and brands through digital design. The agency is driven by a collective love of technology and pride themselves on having the experience of an established brand and the hunger of a start-up.

Project background

AESO, the Alberta Electric System Operator, is a not for profit organisation tasked with managing the province of Alberta’s power grid. AESO works tirelessly to ensure consistent, reliable power distribution, while balancing the needs of energy consumers, power producers and the government.

With over 20,000 documents and updates housed in a 10-year old website, AESO needed a refreshed digital presence. Their new site had to be a tool to clearly communicate their mandate to the public, while providing a more accessible and user-friendly experience for internal teams and industry stakeholders.

Evans Hunt’s solution

Effectively sharing and organising AESO’s huge (and ever growing) library of essential documents and resources was the primary objective of the re-design. Using SilverStripe, Evans Hunt created an object-oriented data model for all the document types on the site. This resulted in an authoring experience that hides the complexity behind managing documents and an easier-to-maintain codebase for developers.

Evans Hunt also recognised AESO needed a robust internal content governance and workflow to help them manage their enormous archive. SilverStripe reports were created to ensure that important content stayed visible and well managed.

Modules used

• silverstripe/advancedworkflow to set up configurable content publishing workflows
• bummzack/page-blocks to allow for easy-to-create modular layouts
• christopherbolt/silverstripe-publishwithme to keep nested objects and parent page's publish state in sync
• silverstripe/fulltextsearch to enable support for Fulltext Search engines like Sphinx and Solr to SilverStripe
• sheadawson/silverstripe-linkable for handy form fields and objects to manage external and internal links on DataObjects
• tractorcow/silverstripe-twitter for adding a simple Twiter feed to SilverStripe
• undefinedoffset/silverstripe-nocaptcha to add a spam protector and form field using the new Google reCAPTCHA 2 aka No Captcha
• burnbright/silverstripe-hasonefield to edit a has_one relationship using the gridfield editor
• micschk/silverstripe-404logger to log 404 errors to the database
• tractorcow/silverstripe-opengraph to implement the Facebook Opengraph protocol for SilverStripe
• silverstripe/googlesitemaps to add support for Google Sitemaps XML
• unclecheese/display-logic to allow assignment of conditions for display and hide specific form fields
• normann/gridfieldpaginatorwithshowall a GridField paginator with a show all checkbox

The Results 

Initial response from our stakeholders has been very positive. The new site overall is so much easier to navigate. The regulatory section in particular has streamlined how people find current stakeholder engagement activities, applicable rules, and upcoming relevant sessions so they can do their jobs and interact with the AESO in a more effective way. The new AESO.ca really reflects the professional reputation that we need to portray and allows us to communicate to our myriad audiences more easily.

Launched in late-September of 2016, AESO’s new site saw year-on-year overall sessions increased by 21%, with the number of users increasing by 32%. The new site allowed users to quickly and painlessly find information they were looking for, resulting in a bounce rate decreased by nearly 10%.

Organic traffic to the site increased by 29%, showing us that users were more engaged and aware of AESO’s digital presence. Site content is better indexed by search engines, allowing users to easily navigate directly from search.

Additionally, key regulatory documentation is now organised and versioned in an easy-to-manage system, all while keeping the site audience informed through an up-to-date calendar of stakeholder engagements, news and updates, education sessions, and links to their social media platforms.

Want to build or feature an excellent site?

If you are interested in working with Evans Hunt, please contact the team via the Evans Hunt website.

Want to get your own work showcased? Head to our showcase section and submit your site!