NSERC (GC) Site Modernization

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada awarded OpenPlus with a contract to outsource the migration from their old main NSERC site into a modern Content Management System with a new GC compliant content architecture.

This project consisted of introducing, deploying and providing knowledge transfer on a modernized Drupal environment consolidation able to run many containerized site deployments with support for dev, staging, production. Working with their internal team, we also consulted, trained, and deployed cloud containerizations and DevOps CI/CD pipeline automations to support these environments with comprehensive configuration management. This also included migration from other environments, as well as content migration with bulk scripted actions, conversions and cleansing.

The solution includes not just a modernized site, but also an Award Management system and a Funding publication workflow with tailored common content components alongside client application needs, including a full database API solution.

Visit nserc-crsng.gc.ca

Industry

Federal Government

Science

Type

Government Website

Online Services

Open Source solution

Services

Consulting

Drupal Development

Web Design & Theming

API Integrations

Content Migration

Project Management

Reporting and Testing

WCAG Accessibility

Technology

GC Drupal

GC Design System

Sovereign, Containerization

Website

nserc-crsng.canada.ca

Project Scope

The objective is to improve the NSERC/SSHRC Corporate Website and align with GC content governance. The goal is to improve content consistency and overall user experience, as well as to assist the content team to more effectively manage content.

Part of the mandate includes support for the decommissioning of the classic ASP (Active Server Pages) technology – currently in use as the technological framework for the NSERC/SSHRC Corporate Website – and replace it by a cloud-based instance of GC Drupal and the new GC Design System

NSERC/SSHRC's vision is to help make Canada a country of discoverers and innovators for the benefit of all Canadians. It invests in People, Discovery and Innovation through partnerships and programs that support post-secondary research in the natural sciences and engineering fields.

The Information and Innovation Services Department (IIS) has implemented a structured, agile software development lifecycle that integrates requirements development, change management, external stakeholder engagement and internal communications into an agile development and release framework.

Accessibility Compliance and Modernization

Old Award-Search Database | WCAG fail

New modern API-Data | WCAG Compliant

Enhanced Search Interfaces

Multiple search interfaces were rebuilt and modernized as part of the NSERC migration, including the Main search, News/Stories search, Award database search, and Funding data search. Each interface leverages modern facet filters to enable users to drill-down using different data dimensions, providing a familiar and intuitive search experience.

All search interfaces are built with the GC Design System components and are fully WCAG 2.1 AA accessible compliant. Some interfaces utilize card-based layouts to display results, while others use traditional list views, all optimized for both desktop and mobile experiences. The facets themselves are hierarchical and conditional, providing multiple intuitive ways for users to narrow down their search results and find precisely what they need.

Integrated Help Guide

A comprehensive online User Help Guide WIKI was built using the very same platform and GC Design System Components and as such following the Government of Canada Style guides and components, Including multilingual, accessible content for the documentation. This provides authenticated users who contribute and manage content with instant online help for role-specific documentation in a familiar user experience. It also allows for easy continuous improvement of the guide itself as it is fully integrated into the solution.

It’s what we call “super documentation”.

Logged-in Content Manager Help Guide

Role-based documentation using the GC components.

Migration Automation and WxT Report Conversion

Our GCcloud.ca Bulk-Scripted Migration automation tools was able to harvest the original WxT and CLF2 content, then cleanse it and transform it into the modern GC Design System Web components including props/slots automation. This reporting shows the ability to allow hybrid older content to remain as WxT, and tracking the transitioning over time.

Role-based documentation using the GC components.

Content dashboards and publication management have the ability to now run directly from the front-end using GC Design System components, giving publishers a consistent, familiar interface. Workflows are optimized around top tasks and keep specific content teams aligned to a common style, reducing friction and preserving data quality.

Logged-in Content Manager Help Guide

Agile Project Management

Project Tracking Overview

We use GitHub Projects to manage our work because it seamlessly connects code changes with project issues. It's intuitive, collaborative, and offers a flexible notification system that keeps all team members informed.

Sprint Structure

Our sprint cadence adapts to the project's timeline:

Regular phase: 3-week sprints
Final phase: 2-week sprints for two of the last three months
Final month: 1-week sprints

Each sprint follows a consistent set of meetings and activities:

Daily stand-up (15 minutes): Quick update with the client team to discuss progress and blockers.
Backlog refinement (every Monday): Review and clarify new or updated issues.
End-of-sprint meetings:
- Sprint Demo: Present completed work to stakeholders, review progress, and demo new features.
- Sprint Retrospective: Internal discussion with the client lead to reflect on successes and challenges.
- Sprint Review: The client performs UAT and closes feature or bug issues once approved.
- Sprint Planning: Define goals and assign tasks for the next sprint.

Kanban Board

The Kanban board is our day-to-day view. It shows who is working on what and the current status of each task. Discussions take place directly within GitHub issues, ensuring all decisions and updates are documented in context.

Project Overview

The Project Overview provides a high-level summary of the project's overall status. It allows project managers to monitor progress across all sprints and quickly identify bottlenecks or dependencies.

Timeline

The Timeline view helps ensure we remain on track with expected delivery dates. It visualizes work progress across time, showing completed and in-progress tasks.

Agile Project Delivery

OpenPlus's responsibilities include the following key segments:

Content Governance & Architecture: Research, plan, design, and architect content governance alignment with GC directives
Presentations & Recommendations: Presentations of proposed design, requirements, proof of concept findings, options and recommendations
Development & Configuration: Development, configuration, testing of the approved CMS solution
Content Migration: Bulk Content Migration from the old solution to the new (working with NSERC team)
Documentation: Creation of new or augmentation of existing documentation including:
- Application design documents
- Functional and technical specifications
- User requirements
- Business process maps
- Data flow diagrams
- Code documentation
- Test cases and results
- System integration plans and results
- Release notes
- System deployment and configuration documents
- User guides and training materials
Status Reporting: Provide ongoing status reports within an agile sprint based project model