PaperThin partner Ciber UK recently developed and launched a new site for the East Lindsey District Council. Located in Lincolnshire, England, the council serves more than 130,500 residents and more than 7 million tourists annually who rely on its Web site for access to important information like food safety, paying council tax, disposing of trash, etc.

By deploying CommonSpot, East Lindsey District Council has achieved its goal of the modernizing government initiative while improving customer service and realizing immediate ROI. A number of CommonSpot features like content reuse, metadata and personalization were integral to the launch of the new site.

CommonSpot’s standards-based, open architecture and extensive APIs have enabled CIBER UK to tightly integrate the council’s customer relationship management, building planning and document management systems into CommonSpot. By leveraging this existing technology, Customer Service Agents (CSAs) not only have the benefit of access to entire site content when dealing with information queries, but they can also access specific intranet only Web pages that assist them in handling various service requests. Furthermore,  specific query pages within the site link to CRM functions which further assist CSAs in dealing with customer inquiries.

In addition to integration with the CRM system, both the council’s building planning and document management systems have also been linked into the Web site, further widening access to information online and allowing the council to comply with statutory requirements such as the Freedom of Information Act. The use of CommonSpot has also enabled the Council to start moving a wide variety of information and data from locations such as individual staff PC’s onto the web site where it can now be easily shared and updated. 

Ciber UK also extended CommonSpot using ColdFusion to provide syndicated content in the industry standard XML/RSS format. By offering content in this manner, local news, events, and job and service information can now be published for consumption by other Web sites.  This functionality allows the council to easily reach beyond its local East Lindsey population to a wider audience.

For more information about East Lindsey District Council, visit www.e-lindsey.gov.uk.