DFES
Transforming volunteer engagement through a robust, award winning platform
Keeping 26,000 volunteers engaged
The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) plays a crucial role in coordinating emergency responses to natural disasters and critical incidents across Western Australia. After encountering several challenges during the initial phases of their digital Volunteer Hub project, DFES sought an expert Sitefinity delivery partner to manage the highly complex development phase.
The Sitefinity team recommended equ, recognising our status as Premier Partners with a proven track record of successfully delivering numerous large-scale Sitefinity projects. The DFES workforce relies heavily on its Volunteer Community, who use the web-based Volunteer Hub to access jobs, learning materials, and updates. However, the legacy system's age, limited feature set, and poor usability necessitated a complete redevelopment from the ground up.
To address these challenges, DFES engaged equ to ensure the successful technical development and implementation of the platform. Our responsibilities included designing and building custom integrations, enhancing usability, and delivering a robust system that could meet the evolving needs of DFES and its volunteer community.
An agile framework
The project's extensive features, complex integrations, and coordination with external partners posed significant challenges. To manage these, we collaborated with DFES teams, breaking down tasks into manageable sprints. This agile scrum framework kept the project on track and within budget.
The Volunteer Hub helps volunteers manage profiles, track achievements, and connect with DFES. They can view awards, incidents, and service history while customising their dashboard for a smoother, more rewarding experience.
Tracking contribution
The ability to view and manage their volunteer profile is a crucial feature of the Volunteer Hub. This functionality allows volunteers to keep track of their awards, service milestones, and response history, providing them with a clear record of their contributions. This not only helps volunteers feel recognised and valued for their efforts but also fosters a sense of pride and motivation to continue their service.
Powering conversations with chat
DFES needed a 24/7 solution to assist volunteers with administrative queries, many of which were repetitive. Support staff were available only during business hours, while volunteers often needed help outside these times. A chatbot was the ideal solution, offering flexibility and handling a wide range of topics in one conversation. It allowed DFES to review user inputs, update responses, and integrate with internal systems for targeted replies.
Extensive consultation
Developing the chatbot was no small feat, requiring a thorough understanding of user needs through research and extensive consultation with subject matter experts to design effective conversations and responses. A test version was built and trialled with real users, with ongoing monitoring and improvements based on success rates. We used Progress NativeChat for this project, which integrated smoothly with DFES's CMS, Sitefinity.
Developing and training a user-centred chatbot: an iterative approach
To develop an effective chatbot, we began by understanding the client’s business needs, reviewing user types, identifying high-level needs, and addressing resource gaps. User research validated these needs, and subject matter experts helped create conversational flows, responses, and FAQ resources. We then built a test chatbot, previewed it with real users, and monitored success rates, refining it iteratively until it was ready for release. Once live, we continued monitoring interactions and making adjustments to ensure optimal performance.
Training the chatbot was an iterative process. User input analytics identified response gaps and errors, which informed updates to conversational flows and FAQs. These updates were tested rigorously using batch test scripts before implementation, ensuring the chatbot remained accurate and responsive to evolving user needs.
Personalised experience
One of the key features of the Volunteer Hub is its customisation capability, allowing users to tailor their dashboard to suit their individual preferences. Volunteers can select the information most relevant to them, choosing which tools, resources, and updates appear on their dashboard for quick and regular access.
Customising Sitefinity with a ground-up Sharepoint Connector
One of the major challenges was the monumental task of syncing thousands of documents, including complex taxonomies, from DFES’s internal SharePoint systems to Sitefinity, ensuring volunteers could easily find and access important information.
Our solution was a custom-built SharePoint Connector. Developed by our specialist team, this was a significant technical achievement and the first of its kind developed for Sitefinity worldwide.
To enable DFES Administration staff to manage DFES-specific content and processes, our development team implemented bespoke Sitefinity modules and widgets, including toolboxes, forms, news, and quick links. The application was built on Sitefinity using ECMAScript, CSS, Razor, Sitefinity Module Builder, and custom C#.
Accessibility was a top priority for the team. We collaborated with accessibility specialists to ensure the Hub met WCAG 2.1 AA compliance. Through rigorous testing and optimisation, the Hub not only met but exceeded accessibility standards, exceeding those of most government organisations in WA.
Industry award and recognition
The Hub received recognition not only from clients and users but also from the industry. In acknowledgement of its significant technical achievement and innovation, it was honoured as the Progress® Sitefinity® Website of the Year in the Public Sector category.
We're thrilled to recognise equ, who has demonstrated a superior implementation of Sitefinity to help our mutual customers adapt to today’s uncertain world and become digital leaders.
Measuring success
Measurability is key to success. We collaborated with DFES to develop a set of digital metrics to assess the Hub's performance. These metrics were presented through a data visualisation dashboard - a regularly updated, visually engaging tool that provided the necessary insights to measure success and empower the team to drive future optimisations.
Launched and loved
After launching to an enthusiastic volunteer base, the platform was an instant success, receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback - not just from the volunteers, but from the entire DFES team.
Performance of the system has exceeded all expectations we had, and that’s a result of the way equ provided their service. There’s nothing better than having a volunteer say they’re delighted with the system.
