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By veg_girly on
Founded in 1992, Improvement Path Systems is a healthcare analytics company focusing on analytical modeling and data mining through the use of cutting edge solutions designed specifically for the healthcare industry. Their goal is to empower their clients by using collected data to make more informed decisions regarding their organization and their patients. Improvement Path Systems strives to find solutions to issues such as scheduling problems, access to care difficulties, inefficient use of key clinical resources, and lost opportunities for enhancing the quality of care. IPS has one location located in Bingham Farms, MI, with a staff consisting of about 15 employees.
Why Drupal was chosen:
- Drupal’s user-friendly interface allows IPS employees to easily edit and update content (i.e. job postings, blog posts) without having in depth knowledge of web designing. This is a more efficient business practice and a cost saver for the company, because they do not have to pay a web developer to maintain their website and make changes and updates.
- It’s free! Minimizing costs is always important with a small company. Also, because it’s free, it allowed IPS to pick and choose what they wanted on the site. They were able to create a custom website without paying the high dollar price for one.
- Drupal offers simple to use Adaptive Themes that are most important with today’s mobile device usage, including tablets and cellphones. This allows the site to not only be viewable but fully functional from any device.
Describe the project (goals, requirements and outcome):
Goals
Branding
Improvement Path Systems’ original website was vague on the details in terms of what exactly it was that they do. One of their main goals was to clarify their vision and give visitors a stronger sense of what exactly it is that they do, as well as what services they are able to offer other companies.
Attracting New Talent
Improvement Path System was looking to build a team of highly talented analytical individuals. With their original website it was difficult to navigate to their career page or understand what positions were being offered. This was another major goal, to clearly state what positions were available while giving prospective employees an overall feel of the culture and attitude of the company. Applying for a new position with IPS needed to be a clear and precise process without candidates getting lost or frustrated.
Reviews of candidates needed to be just as user-friendly. Moving away from a complicated system of checks and balances, Improvement Path Systems needed a system that would automatically move an application from one approver to the next, all with a simple click of the mouse.
User Friendly Back-End
The need for a stable environment that doesn’t require thorough knowledge of coding was vital to the design of Improvement Path System’s website. With members of their team tasked with the duty of updating their available jobs, recent projects, and current team members, the back-end needed to be intuitive. By designing a custom Dashboard for each user (depending on their role), users are only presented with access that is pertinent to their position, which streamlines the process of updating site content.
Site Structure
The IPS site consists of six main menu options. These six main sections are:
- What We Do
- Why We're Here
- Work For Us
- Our Views
- About Us
- Contact
(There is also a homepage which can be accessed by clicking on the IPS logo)
Homepage
The IPS homepage is a one stop shop that consists of links to the What We Do page, Work For Us page, project explanations and company blog.
What We Do
The What We Do page has an overview of the company and it explains what IPS does. The page also has a panel on the right that displays short summaries and graphics of projects that IPS has completed, along with a link to a page that contains a more indepth explanation of the project.
Why We’re Here
The Why We’re Here Page explains what the company’s mission is and explains why problems in the healthcare industry that IPS observes need to be solved. This page also has a panel on the right that holds links to blog posts written by IPS employees.
The Homepage What We Do page and the Why We’re Here page fulfills IPS’s goal of increasing branding and giving customers and job applicants a better understanding of the company and its vision and mission.
Work For Us
The Work For Us page has:
- An overview of what it’s like to work at IPS, a description of their culture and a link to full team member bios.
- A teaser about their awesome benefits, along with a link that brings you to a page explaining their full benefits package.
- An overview of the recruitment process, so the applicants can see what to expect.
- A panel on the right that lists current open positions. Each listed open position displays the job summary and has a link to view the full job posting that includes the duties, requirements, etc.
- An “Apply” button.
The Work For Us page fulfills IPS’s goal of attracting new talent by offering potential candidates easy navigation through the careers page. Potential candidates can get a feel for what it’s like to work at IPS, learn about the team and benefits that are offered, research what IPS looks for in candidates and see all open positions conveniently on one page.
Our Views
The Our Views page contains the company blog which allows IPS to further their brand and easily make announcements, such as IPS’s new Facebook page.
Contact Us
The Contact Us page consists of contact information, a Google map of IPS’s location, links to IPS’s Facebook and LinkedIn pages and a contact form that can be easily filled out by potential business customers.
Technical specifications
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
Why these modules/theme/distribution were chosen:
Chaos Tools
Many useful and popular modules have a dependency on Ctools.
Views
IPS used this powerful tool to display team bio pages, open job postings, blog posts, completed projects and news articles. Views gave IPS the flexibility of displaying content in the way that they wanted.
Panels
The original IPS site had chunks of text in random locations. Panels were absolutely necessary. With the original site, it was so unclear what IPS did or what they stood for. With Panels, visitors are able to see the data in an organized structure without getting lost in mayhem.
CK Editor
Every interactive site needs a WYSIWYG editor. CK Editor is highly promoted because of the ease of use. The site content was developed by team members that weren’t necessarily familiar with HTML markup. They possessed super word processing skills so a WYSIWYG editor was a must. CK Editor provides the seamless transition that makes Drupal user friendly by presenting an editing environment so close to what team members use on a daily basis.
Captcha
As an added security, the CAPTCHA module was used to protect against spambots and nonhuman contributors. Because visitors can post comments, having this feature is a must to preserve the integrity of the blog feature.
Google Analytics
GA is a powerful tool for tracking. This allows IPS to track usage, both collectively and selectively. This module is great for tapping into all that Google offers.
Customized Theme built from “Bowtie”
The Bowtie theme, with our customizations, carried many great benefits. Having this theme would especially prove beneficial to IPS because of their need for blogging. This customized theme was made ready for blogging from IPS and commenting from visitors.
Project team:
Oakland University's Applied Technology in Business (ATiB) Program, located in Rochester, MI.
Sectors:
Healthcare
Technology
