Remaining relevant in the digital era requires ongoing efforts to modernize a municipality’s web presence, said Sundre’s economic development officer.
“If we want to remain relevant in the eyes of potential investors and new residents, our website is one of the first places they will get information about our community,” said Jon Allan, who last week spoke with the Round Up about the town’s new website.
“Having a nicely designed website that presents us professionally is an important part of attaining that objective.”
Yet a municipality’s website is also a crucial tool for residents of all demographics from those who are more tech-savvy to others who perhaps are not quite as well versed in the world of computers, he said.
“It’s important for our residents to be able to easily access any sort of information they’ll need,” he said.
“Having a modernized website is truly a service to the public, and also doubles as an investment attraction tool.”
All-Net Solutions, based in Winnipeg, is currently designing Sundre’s new website. While $25,000 had been budgeted for the project, Allan said that cost came in closer to $15,000 and will even include a mobile app that can be downloaded on smartphones as well as an updated version of the www.exploresundre.com website.
“We’re way under budget,” he said.
There will also be an additional annual hosting and maintenance fee of less than $7,000. While the former site did not include this cost, it had also lacked the security features and user-friendly aspects the new page will offer, he said.
“The former site was lacking when compared with modern standards.”
Once the new page is completed, Sundre’s administrative staff will be in charge of managing content, but any design and development issues will be handled by All-Net, he said.
Although the initial plan was to leave live the aging website — which was pushing 10 years old — until the new one is completed, an unexpected turn of events prompted a change of plans.
“Hackers exploited a weakness on the front end of the website and took down the whole site,” said Allan, adding the new site will include improved security features to avoid a repeat incident.
In the meantime, that is why anyone who visits the municipality’s official website — www.sundre.com — will see a temporary “Coming Soon” page, he said.
Although the new site remained in development as of last week, the bulk of the framework was expected to be done by the end of this week, after which a trial test period to assess its functionality before going live with content was anticipated. The goal is to have ready a useable version of the website this fall, he said.
“We’re optimistically targeting a go-live date for mid-October,” he said, adding, “but if we can get it done sooner, then all the better.”
Aside from making available information such as council agendas, meeting minutes, bylaws, forms and documents, among the modernized website’s new features will be an improved calendar that will be able to include community events, the mobile application that will launch roughly the same time as the site, an emergency alert system that will be built into both the app and the site, a convenient new resident feedback form, as well as an embedded search function to make funding municipal documents easier, he said.
“It’ll be easier to find information that is relevant to residents like waste schedules to event times as well as planning and development documents.”
Everything that was there before is still going to be there, but with the above additions as well as a new user interface that will make navigating the site easier as well as operate more seamlessly on mobile devices, he said.
Among the main reasons behind the push for a new webpage “is because every member of council has indicated a desire to improve communications with residents and to help improve transparency,” he said.
“The website is not only something that was needed because the old one was out of date. It will also help improve the local democratic process by making information more efficient, accurate and easy to access for our citizens.”
