News Blog

Top slot of council website 23/06/10

Aberdeen City Council's website has ranked first in the top 50 best local authority websites in the UK. The independent study carried out by Site Morse tested more than 400 authority sites for a range of functions including compliance, performance, accessibility and code quality. The checking process is rigorous, testing the sites on hundreds of technical criteria.

The council's e-Government Manager Ian Watt is delighted with the recognition. He said: "This is our highest ever placing in the league table, having been in the top 20 for 10 straight months to January 2010.” "I am further pleased to note that this is the first time a Scottish authority has made it to the top slot. This ranking is testament to the hard-working team that puts huge effort in to ensuring the consistently high quality of the site." 

Source: UK Local Government Qtr 2 2010 Survey 

http://www.sitemorse.com/survey/report-table.html?rt=665

The Aberdeen City Council website is underpinned by the Activedition CMS. Activedition and the team will be exhibiting at the Building the Perfect Government Website 2010 which is on at Olympia 2 in London on 14th July 2010.

C2 Software the developers of the Activedition CMS are pleased to announce the launch of the new Maclay Murray & Spens LLP website at www.mms.co.uk. The MMS website represents a forward thinking value add web resource for clients and prospects and leverages off of the advanced features within the Activedition CMS. In addition to a striking design the website includes processes for registration, subscription preferences, finding smart people within the practice (synchronised with Active Directory), knowledge library, smart guides, MMS events, integrated email marketing and a whole range of other useful features and tools. 

A dynamic leisure company has selected Activedition for content management across their suite of existing websites.  In commenting on their selection of Activedition the client intimated they were:

"Searching for a CMS system to met our requirements and budget. The evaluation has been time consuming but finally with Activedition we found a product plus a support & licensing model that worked for our business. Support was a major issue for us. We have in-house technical skills but wanted to make sure direct technical support was on hand to in order to get effective use from the product early on. 

We found many CMS products on offer in the UK - generally supplied via distributors. The licensing models offered, in our opinion were complicated and as direct technical support was excluded we felt it would take much longer for us to become efficient with the product and that would impact our ROI model.

As an existing business with a substantial web based offering, understanding the impact of the installation and migration to the Activedition platform was key to our business. We took the time to ensure that we were 100% comfortable with our selection which stood out from the competition.

The C2 Software product development team is pleased to announce that Activedition Version 4.2 is in final Beta test and will shortly be available for release. In addition to providing a range of new features and functionality, the publishing functionality within Version 4.2 has been re-engineered to further improve the performance and scalability attributes of the Activedition CMS.

The publishing improvements have been designed to ensure that pages are published in the blink of an eye. Full website republishing of sites containing thousands of pages takes seconds.    

Enhancements have also been made for batch and time sensitive publishing features. Collectively these enhancements ensure that Activedition provides organisations with complete control and with continued uptime. Organisations with large websites with many content contributors can look to derive efficiency gains and further develop their return from investment.

The C2 Software product development team have plans to launch additional products and features throughout 2010, so, watch this space.

C2 Software the developers of the Activedition CMS are pleased to reveal that Wealden District Council has selected Activedition to underpin the redevelopment of the Council’s public facing websites along with an intranet development.

Finlay Carmichael, Director at C2 Software stated “we are pleased to welcome Wealden District Council to our client portfolio and to add them to the growing list of local government organisations that are actively using our solutions. While it has been a miserable start to 2010 weather wise we are delighted to gain another local government client and we look forward to working with Wealden in the months ahead. We also look forward to announcing & launching a range of exciting solutions in the near future which we believe are unique”.

We are pleased to announce that C2 Software, developers of the Activedition CMS have secured ISO 27001 (Information Security Management) Certification. Our Research & Development director Mr Kirk Potter stated “We are committed to continuous improvement and implementation of best practices throughout the organisation. IS0 27001 is complementary to the ISO 9001 (Quality Management), ISO 14001 (Environmental Management) and Investors in People Accreditations which we already gained”. 

Scotland Excel was created as a Centre of Procurement Expertise for the local government sector to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public sector procurement in Scotland. Launched on 1 April 2008, Scotland Excel is a non-profit making organisation funded mainly by participating Local Authorities. Following a competitive tender for a CMS and related professional services Scotland Excel has selected Activedition as the platform to deliver their web strategy, and to underpin their corporate website, extranet and intranet.

Maclay Murray & Spens is a full service, independent, commercial legal firm offering legal solutions and advice to clients throughout the UK and beyond. The firm has offices in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and Brussels.  Finlay Carmichael, Managing Director of C2 Software announced “we are delighted to be awarded this project and we look forward to assisting them with the development of their new website and online marketing activity”.

Built on the Activedition platform, the FDA website (www.fda.org.uk) was highly commended at this year’s TUC Communications Awards, held on 1 July at Congress House in central London. According to the judges, the FDA website was only “narrowly pipped” to the winning place by PCS.  The awards were open to all 57 communications departments of TUC-affiliated trade unions. 

Built on the Activedition platform, C2 Software is delighted to announce that the National Counties Building Society (www.ncbs.co.uk) website is now live.  

National Counties Building Society is the UK's largest single office building society and from its Church Street, Epsom headquarters, the Society provides a first class professional service to over 70,000 customers throughout the UK. A branch in Ashley Square, part of Epsom's busy Mall Shopping Centre, provides added convenience for customers living and working locally, though many new customers choose to open and operate their savings accounts by post or online.

The website features a member sign in / registration area as well as an area for intermediarys to log on for product information.

Powered by the Activedition Content Management system, the Scottish Funding Council website www.sfc.ac.uk has gone live to a good response from users.  

The Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council (SFC) is the national, strategic body that is responsible for funding teaching and learning provision, research and other activities in Scotland's 43 colleges and 20 higher education institutions.

The website features a registration area where users can register their details for customised content and email bulletins.  

Aberdeen City Council's website, built on the Activedition platfom, is the only local authority site in Scotland, and one of two in the UK, to be awarded the Accessibility+ mark from the Shaw Trust.

Any website carrying this mark has been tested by people with a wide range of disabilities and found to be totally accessible. The Shaw Trust web accreditation process is rigorous, with over 60 hours of testing by disabled web users.

Further success for the council's website is that it has been ranked top Scottish local authority website for performance and functionality by Sitemorse - the leading web auditing, bench-marking and certification service.

The website appears at number 22 in their league table of 460 UK local authority websites, scoring a total of nine out of 10 across a range of tests. The only other Scottish local authority in the top 50 comes in at number 46.

The council's website has been commended in this year's SOCITM (Society of Information Technology Management) Better Connected 2009 survey of local authority websites. The website has been singled out as a 'Top Scottish Unitary Authority' because it meets five out of the nine criteria for the highest 'excellent' category. No Scottish site is rated excellent - in fact there are only eight sites out of over 460 in the UK which meet that standard.

The council was also commended in the SOCITM report for using best practice because it has the Shaw Trust accreditation.

Aberdeen City Council's e-Government manager, Ian Watt said: "To be given such high praise confirms our reputation as being a leading council site in Scotland. We are committed to developing the range of information and services available online and to ensure that they are accessible to all site users."

The council's e-Government team has also been working on making the website more user-friendly for those viewing it on mobile devices. The site has been upgraded and republished so it is easier for users on the move.

To view the site on a mobile phone or other mobile device simply go to the homepage http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk and the site will detect that the user is using a handheld device and adjust the pages to better fit your display.

Source:  http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/CouncilNews/ci_cns/pr_websuccess_120309.asp

Reflecting C2 Softwares commitment to excellence of quality and standards, we are pleased to announce that on May 28th 2009, ISO 9001:2008 certification has been awarded.

ISO 9001 is the internationally recognised standard for an organisation's internal Quality Management. The term 'quality' refers to all those features of a product or service which are required by the customer. An organisation's 'Quality Management' refers to an organisation's actions to ensure that its products or services satisfy its customers' quality requirements and complies with any regulations applicable to those products or services.ISO 9001 is by far the world’s most established quality framework, currently being used by around 897,000 organisations in 170 countries worldwide, and sets the standard not only for quality management systems, but management systems in general.

"C2 Software has always endevoured to deliver a high quality service, but this accreditation shows our commitment to formal certification and the initiation of a framework for repeatable quality and process improvement." said Finlay Carmichael, Managing Director of C2 Software.

C2 Software was formed in 1997, recognising the potential for growth in internet based technologies. C2 Software is an Investors In People accredited company and is a Microsoft Certified Partner.

The Network West Midlands website www.networkwestmidlands.com built using the Activedition content management solution has been launched.

Network West Midlands is a partnership between Centro and bus, rail and tram operating companies within the West Midlands County to promote increased public transport use.

Network West Midlands is the name that connects all public transport in the West Midlands metropolitan area. This includes Birmingham, Dudley, Sandwell, Coventry, Walsall, Solihull and Wolverhampton. Network West Midlands is responsible for making accessible the complete network of bus, rail and Metro services.

Powered using the latest version of Activedition, the website features travel information, downloadable timetables, a ticket finder service and integration with a third party supplier to purchase tickets online.

Timely delivery was important to the project as the launch of the website was supported with television and poster advertising and door drops throughout the West Midlands.