When the original creator of OpenReporter in early 2021 decided he would like to un-archive the code and restore the platform, Digital Confection was brought in to figure out how to do just that.
The Task: Find a sustainable way to restore a dormant SaaS application and make it relevant seven years later.
The strategy:
At first, it seemed like quite a daunting task, though in conducting customer interviews, we quickly identified the key components that made the application work. We proposed that the best path forward was to rebuild the app in Drupal 9 and serve it as a single-click Drupal Install profile.
What we did:
The first task was to replicate the original functionality in Drupal 9. We were fortunate to spin up an old version of the code and analyze what worked and what did not—using that, we were able to quickly develop a new simplified and straightforward user experience. We decided to leverage Bootstrap as the base theme to speed up development, simplifying our total theme development to 1-2 days. The result was an entire platform re-architecture done in as little as one week!
New Marketing website:
Additionally, we designed and launched a new marketing website using our very own CMS, TypeTote. This allowed the founder to easily post updates and reduce the total maintenance required.
The Result:
Within two weeks, OpenReporter went from a dormant domain to a full-fleshed-out, open-source application that now can help communities empower and mobilize to promote change. We were so moved by the project that we offered to be the project stewards moving forward.
- Web Development & Design
- Graphic & Logo
- Drupal Theming
- Custom Drupal Module Development