{"alias":"blogEntry","byline":"","standfirst":"It\u2019s been a busy year for us in the Digital team. More of the projects in the Skills for Life plan are starting to get up and running, and we\u2019ve been planning in Digital supporting them with a clear, volunteer-focused direction.\n\nAs we head into the Christmas break, we thought we would produce a short roundup of what we\u2019ve achieved this year and what\u2019s on the cards for next year.","content":{"layouts":[{"type":"singleColumn","areas":[{"items":[{"gridType":"RichTextBlock","content":"\u003Ch3\u003EInfrastructure\u003C/h3\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWe have spent the last couple of months extending our networking and computing infrastructure into the cloud through the formation of the Digital Application Network (or DAN for short).\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe DAN sits across the top tier cloud providers (Azure, AWS and GCP) and is interconnected through an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). This service bus provides us with the means to connect systems in a secure and scalable way. This backbone will allow us to integrate the software essential to creating a modern services architecture to support the Digital programme.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Ch3\u003EWebsite wireframes\u003C/h3\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EA key project focus is Digital Programme planning, and the replacement of \u003Ca href=\u0022https://scouts.org.uk\u0022\u003Escouts.org.uk\u003C/a\u003E. To kick this off, we\u2019ve developed wireframe prototypes (functional drawings showing how our website would work with less focus on how it will actually look) in order to assess how it should work.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWe have been\u00A0testing\u00A0with a Community of Interest group who signed up via our website. These volunteers have challenged our work to make the website as useful to visitors as possible.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Ch3\u003EWebsite design\u003C/h3\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBuilding on the work we did to launch the Skills for Life strategy and new Home Page, we have created a modern site design that clearly segments information into age group-specific sections. Through our research earlier this year, we know both parents and volunteers tend to start by navigating to the section that is\u00A0appropriate to them.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhile fonts and colours are dictated by our\u00A0\u003Ca href=\u0022https://members.scouts.org.uk/supportresources/3854/digital-style-guide?cat=419,460,726,728\u0026amp;moduleID=10\u0022\u003Enew brand style guide\u003C/a\u003E, determining how they translate into a living, breathing website requires a lot of work, with a focus on the accessibility of the site across devices and by people with specific needs. We\u2019re really pleased with what we\u2019ve designed.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Ch2\u003EWhat are we working on now?\u003C/h2\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWe\u2019ve translated a few of our initial sketches into a working \u0027beta\u0027 site that we will share with our Community of Interest soon. The site has been built from the ground up, using the Umbraco CMS and a Vue.js front-end. We are testing the CMS using live Cub section\u00A0data\u00A0and badge information and are testing a new API, allowing us to share this single source of information across future websites and tools we (and potentially others) develop.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWe are starting to analyse content from the existing \u003Ca href=\u0022https://members.scouts.org.uk\u0022\u003Emembers.scouts.org.uk\u003C/a\u003E website, rethinking and reworking it as we bring it across to the new site. Once the new site architecture has been refined, this will be our main focus. Finally, when we have reached a critical mass, we will replace \u003Ca href=\u0022https://scouts.org.uk\u0022\u003Escouts.org.uk\u003C/a\u003E with the new website, and continue to chip away at the members site until we have completely replaced its functions.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Ch2\u003EHow we can work together\u003C/h2\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAlthough the website will initially be in a closed beta, we shall be opening it up to a wider group\u00A0through this blog\u00A0once we have completed our initial testing phase. This allows us to focus on any major issues identified by our Community of Interest and fix them before a bigger audience gets access.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWe\u2019ll be working on lots of exciting changes to our new website so using the vast experience of our brilliant volunteers is essential to getting it right \u2013 if you\u2019re interested in being a part of our website testing and becoming part of our Community of Interest, please do\u00A0\u003Ca rel=\u0022noopener\u0022 href=\u0022mailto:digital@scouts.org.uk\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 title=\u0022Email the digital team\u0022\u003Eget in touch\u003C/a\u003E.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWe hope you have a great festive period and look forward to sharing more with you in the new year!\u003C/p\u003E","gtmId":"","gtmClass":""}]}],"config":null}]},"searchDescription":null,"pageType":null,"location":null,"versionDate":"21 December 2018","reviewDate":null,"furtherReading":[],"relatedLinks":[],"id":48463,"nodeName":"End of year roundup","title":"End of year roundup","type":"blogEntry","image":{"url":"/media/2997/logo.png?width=800\u0026height=800\u0026v=1dab8e1b22061f0","caption":"Scouts purple logo on white background","type":"png","size":27994,"width":210,"height":144,"altText":"An image of the scouts logo in purple on white background"},"assets":null,"headerOptions":{"headerTitle":"End of year roundup","headerSubTitle":null,"headerCta":null,"headerCtaText":null,"headerCtaLink":null,"headerBackgroundColour":null,"showSEOImage":false,"headerBackgroundImage":null,"quickLinks":null},"subHeader":"Scouts Digital Transformation Team end of 2018 round up","browserTitle":null,"silktide":"eyJjbXMiOiJVbWJyYWNvIiwiZWRpdG9yVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9wcm9kLWNtcy5zY291dHMub3JnLnVrLy91bWJyYWNvIy9jb250ZW50L2NvbnRlbnQvZWRpdC80ODQ2MyJ9","canonicalUrl":"https://www.scouts.org.uk/news/2018/december/end-of-year-roundup/"}