UMBRACO DESIGN REVIEW SERVICE

Umbraco is a highly flexible Content Management System, which can adapt to the needs and requirements of a diverse range of different websites and organisations. This flexibility can be a huge asset, as a well crafted CMS enables Content Editors to focus on crafting meaning content which achieves business goals.  

However, this flexibility can be difficult to control when designers and developers are new to Umbraco, and haven’t yet learnt established best practices. The impact of poor architecture and design decisions can be felt throughout the life of a website which can be anywhere between 3-5 years.  

Common pain points felt because of poor design decisions include:

• Difficult and time consuming content editing, slowing down Marketers ability to deliver business benefit;
• Inability to upgrade Umbraco; and
• Functional changes to the site become slow, and expensive;

Aimed at organisations that are in the early stages of a new Umbraco project, our Umbraco Design Review Service provides an independent set of eyes to provide support, advice and guidance on how best to design and build a safe, reliable, easy to use Umbraco CMS based site.

What we do

Through a series of three facilitated 2-hour workshops, we will work with your team to review and understand your plans for the new Umbraco System.  

Introduction Session (30min)

This first session will be used to introduce the key members of the team, and to establish the purpose of each workshop, and the inputs that are required to ensure the success of the review.

Workshop 1 - Background and requirements (2hrs)

• Background, scope, and goals for your project;
• Functional requirements of the site;
• Non-functional requirements for the project including security, performance and resilience requirements;

Workshop 2 - Detailed design (2hrs)

• Information Architecture and proposed Document Types and Data Types;
• Review third-party packages you intend to use or recommend those we feel will be beneficial;
• Review custom-code you intend to produce;

Workshop 3 - Implementation strategy (2hrs)

• General server infrastructure design;
• Specific environment configuration including content shipping strategies;
• Source control strategy;
• Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment strategy;
• Testing strategy;
• Content migration strategy;

Wrap-up session (30-min)

This final session will happen around a week after our final report has been provided and can be used to gather feedback arising from the document, and to answer any questions that you may have.

To get the most out of the workshops, we will provide a set of clear inputs that you will be required to prior to the workshops, which gives us time to review your inputs.  Then through guided Q&A in each workshop we’ll ensure that we fully understand the constraints the project is working under.

Each workshop will be undertaken on Zoom, and recorded so that you can focus on the substance of the workshop without the need to take detailed notes.  The videos can then be reviewed throughout the project to ensure that best practice is implemented throughout the life of the project.

The output from the Umbraco Design Review will be a Solution Design report, which contains your inputs, notes from the workshops and our recommendations.  

Each workshop will be facilitated by our Solution Architect, who has over 20 years of experience in architecting and designing complex software solutions, and over 10 years of experience designing and building Umbraco websites.  Our report will be reviewed by a second member of our team, who will be an Umbraco Certified developer, to ensure that the site meets Umbraco Best Practice.

Why use our Umbraco Design Review?

Too many Umbraco websites fail to live up to their business goals, because they don’t get the foundations right at the beginning of the project. Our Umbraco Design Review will ensure that the fundamental requirements, goals and constraints are properly understood, and that your design is fit for purpose.

We will ensure that the design for your new Umbraco site is technically sound, and fit for purpose for the expected life of the site.

Costs and timescales

Our Umbraco Design Review is a fixed price service, and delivers 7 hours of valuable face to face time with Certified Umbraco developers and architects, along with the necessary preparation and write up time.

The review costs £1,400 ex VAT, and is payable 50% in advance and 50% upon completion of the final workshop. Payment can be made by bank transfer or by credit card, to spread the costs.

The workshops normally run over 2-3 weeks, although the time frame can be much reduced for projects with many of the inputs ready at the start of the engagement.

Tell us about your project

To begin your Umbraco Architecture Review then email sales@carbonsix.digital or call +44 1276 817465.