Serving the information needs of CF families

Feature

posted 15 Mar 2005 in Volume 1 Issue 8

Serving the information needs of CF families

When the Directorate of Military Family Services (DMFS) wanted to enhance service delivery to Canadian Forces (CF) families stationed out-of-country, it knew it was embarking on a mission like no other.

Whether defending national borders, conducting domestic search and rescue operations, delivering humanitarian relief or contributing to international peacekeeping efforts, the 80,000 members of Canada’s regular and reserve armed forces are called upon to perform a full range of military operations. On any given day, about 8,000 Canadian Forces (CF) members – one third of our deployable force – are preparing for, engaged in or returning from an overseas mission. And, in Europe alone, almost 1,000 Canadian families are temporarily stationed abroad, while the CF members serve to fulfil our overseas commitments.

Not surprisingly, the impact on CF families can be huge. In order to support them, the Military Family Services Program (MFSP) was implemented in 1991. Managed by the Directorate of Military Family Services (DMFS) – part of the Personnel Support Programs Division of the Canadian Forces Personnel Support Agency – the MFSP is provided through a total of 43 centres across Canada, as well as some foreign locations. The goal of the programme is to enhance the operational effectiveness of the CF through the provision of services, activities and resources that promote individual, family and community health and well-being.

Today, the Military Family Resource Centres, as well as the programme itself, have become an integral part of the Canadian Forces lifestyle.

Waging war on isolation

Although there are five Canadian Military Family Resource Centres (CMFRCs) located in Europe, the CF families stationed in remote European locations presented a very special case for DMFS. Scattered throughout 10 different European countries, and in 33 separate cities or towns, their isolation made it extremely difficult to serve them well.

Recognising the impracticality of face-to-face service delivery for this group, we relied heavily on other means to provide our support services. Phone, fax, e-mail, and standard post became popular choices. But, despite our efforts, barriers to communication, loneliness and a lack of information and support still ranked high within the community.

Against this backdrop, in early 2000, DMFS began to explore ways in which we could enhance the level of family services to the remote CF families in Europe. Since reported use of personal computers was relatively high within the target audience, and the organisational leadership was willing to experiment with a new approach to family services, the decision to construct a computer-based service delivery mechanism was not far behind. We saw the idea of a virtual Military Family Resource Centre, or Centrepointe, as it would come to be called, as the natural evolution for the MFSP presence in Europe.

A portal with a purpose

We knew what we wanted. We required a solution that would enable CF families to contribute and share information and experiences on a personalised extranet in two languages, English and French. It had to be interactive. It had to be simple. It would become a one-stop shop for resources, information and user interaction to a user base consisting of approximately 200 users at the outset. And access had to be quick, responsive, dynamic and seamless – the same customer service goals that our physical agencies employ. It would be updated and maintained by non-technical DMFS staff. It would be built to a fixed budget.

Tactical planning

Due to the very nature of the CF remote personnel community, we knew that users were accessing the internet from a wide range of locations and on various types of connections (narrow to broadband). Input from our intended audience indicated that many were not yet particularly ‘web-savvy’ and some were still operating on older, out-of-date PCs. Others had their own personal websites and were running top-of-the-line systems.

So, to eliminate barriers to participation, our solution needed to be capable of accommodating the most basic of home-based computer systems to the most sophisticated. It had to presume a very basic computer literacy of the user, but with enough interest for the more experienced surfer. And, in light of the very slow, but very expensive connections in some of our locations, flashy, design-heavy pages with sluggish load times were clearly not for us.

Operational tasks

In broad terms, our site had to present itself to users in a clear and crisp manner – meaning that there had to be a certain amount of redundancy in the way information could be approached. Browser-standard form elements would offer a ‘known’ interface, so HTML-standards for submit buttons, input fields and pull downs would be considered. Users had to see where they could go (hence a search function and menus would both be included), but they also had see where they had been (a breadcrumb trail).

The service delivery component of Centrepointe needed to be designed as if it were completely stand-alone; no component of the site could presume physical access.

With additional input from military families about the type of information and support they needed when in remote locations, we determined that we would also offer specific information pertaining to every aspect of a European posting – providing support and advice throughout each stage of their move. This would involve content divided into local information, ordered by locality, country-specific information ordered by country and general information concerning the singular facets of Canadians living in Europe.

Assembling the troops

We formed a project management team (PMT) that was comprised of two European-based employees, and two from DMFS headquarters in Ottawa. Early on, we worked with an interactive agency in the Netherlands for strategic consultancy and development. Yet again faced with physical distance and multiple time zones, critical decisions were made primarily via electronic communication. The irony of encountering technical glitches with instant messaging, mail servers and e-mail

applications as we moved forward with a virtual-services project was not lost on us. As much as possible, we augmented our virtual communiqués with face-to-face gatherings, piggybacking on other meetings and events. Considerations for collaborative workspace tools and project-management software would come much, much later. After a workshop phase to ascertain initial project scope and the formulation of approaches regarding the creative, functional, technical and content-related design of the site, the project’s execution-related scope had to be determined in order to start producing the site. Items that needed to be finalised were the site’s look and feel, the technical and functional specifications, and an implementation and rollout approach.

The transition from the strategy and design phase to the actual production phase proved difficult for us. Held up by design, legal and technical mandates, we stagnated for months. On reflection, the adage ‘good help is hard to find’ comes to mind, but in our case a greater truth would be, ‘the right help is hard to find’.

A project transfer to a design firm in London in November 2001 and a reorganisation of our own PMT saw us through.

Regroup: Restoring the project plan

Ensuing discussions with the new design team resulted in a resolved Functionality Matrix (describing both front and back-end site functionality) and a re-vamped look and feel. We were now armed with a practical roadmap for the development of our new online environment.

At this point, the project’s potential was realised and it was realistic to assume the target audience would eventually include all CF families in Europe. A delivery strategy, aimed at performing a soft launch of the website and a phased rollout, was determined to allow us to gradually phase-in content throughout the rollout process.

The first phase of the launch would target the initial audience of the remote personnel community (June 2002), the second phase would involve expansion to the CF families in the United Kingdom (Fall/Winter 2002) and the third would incorporate the CF families living within the European CMFRC catchment areas (June 2003). In the end, all CF families moving to, living in and returning home from Europe could benefit from Centrepointe.

The site, as it would be launched initially, would have attractive content, a good and workable content-management system and a design that could be scaled for future developments. Potential functionality could be added later, as resources became available.

System requirements

A critical factor for Centrepointe’s success was the extent to which its content would be fresh enough to warrant frequent repeat visits. So it was essential that the system could cater for publishing to the site by an active community of volunteer contributors, as well as dedicated site staff.

Site content was based predominantly on an article-based configuration, meaning that the core of the site would be generic in structure. This would allow for the use of templates that could be picked up from within our selected content-management tool, filled with data and added to the site by non-technical contributors.

We imagined that post-launch site content would vary from articles and reports to editorial pieces, and would include interactive learning programs, videos, discussions, checklists, directories and lists of questions and answers. In the end, our tool would be used by a number of people with widely differing needs. The envisioned content workflow included a varied group of content creators, plus one editor.

Since content needed to be translated and proofread, good editorial workflow design was a critical success factor. The content-management solution had to facilitate workflow including any vetting, editing, proofreading and translation by DMFS staff.

In deliberating between a bespoke content-management system and an off-the-shelf solution, our two primary considerations were cost and the adaptability of a bespoke CMS versus an off-the-shelf solution.

Target acquisition

To gain the bilingual, template-powered, and easy-to-manage solution we sought, we enlisted VYRE UK. VYRE was an affordable technology that allowed for the bespoke workflow processes that we required and could easily be adjusted to meet new requirements without writing a single line of code.

With a fast-approaching first-phase target launch date, the VYRE team worked closely with ours to ensure we had the ability to use the tool to rapidly create content and populate the site. Together we created a database driven, access controlled extranet portal with two sections; a public site for general visitors and a content-management Workspace where information can easily be uploaded through web-based forms, fitted with rich-text editing tools.

The public site

The public site provides access to a wealth of information for users of varying ages and interests while also allowing them to send electronic greetings to friends and family, create and manage their own travel logs, contribute personal stories or voice their opinions.

To keep users interested and informed, announcements and pertinent news items are located on the homepage.

Only registered users can access the Centrepointe portal. An access control mechanism provides for personalisation and content security on both the public site and the Workspace. Users can apply for an account through an online form that, once submitted, triggers an approval process.

E-mail notifications that are managed through the site’s Workspace are the foundation of the sequence.

The Workspace

With a variety of templates to facilitate processes, the Workspace is where the majority of the content for the public site is added, stored and maintained.

Site navigation is personalised in such a way that only users with specific editorial roles can access the Workspace. There are four levels of authorisation, and the Workspace is divided according to the access privileges for the different roles:

Regular users have access to the public portal only.
Editors and reporters have access to the public site and to the article system of the Workspace. In a few simple steps, they can create, edit or send content for approval. Their work can be approved and published instantly to various sections of the site, with links to related content in other sections.
Senior editors are the central operators in the content-management process. As managers of the editorial workflow, they have access to the public site and to the whole of the Workspace. Their additional rights include options to delete and restore content, add and edit sub-categories to the main sections, review feedback, local information and story ideas submitted by regular site users, as well as to manage user accounts and access controls. Content can easily be moved between various sections of the site by senior editors.

As new content comes in from reporters and editors, a senior editor processes the work and monitors job status as it is tracked through the system. An article’s status can be:

· “In editing”, which indicates that an editor or reporter is still developing it;

· “Ready for approval”, which means that it has been sent to a senior editor for verification of content, style and errors, but it is not yet published;

· “Published” where it is available for viewing on the public site;

· “Expired”, which indicates that it is unpublished, but not deleted;

· “Deleted”, which means that the article has been sent to the recycle bin.

The Workspace provides us with a user-friendly environment to effectively maintain, manage and extend the site’s functionality.

The Centrepointe portal was built quickly in two languages in two months. Bespoke workflow process and e-mail notification systems were set up in the VYRE system without any programming. The portal, which now consists of about 22 database tables and 160 groups generating content from the system’s databases, now holds more than 1,300 published articles in French and English.

Today, there are more than 1,200 users on Centrepointe and increasing numbers are contributing to the portal. Some of the other benefits of the project are as follows:

Delivers mandated services: since core areas of the program are fully incorporated, Centrepointe can serve as a tool to provide pan-European delivery of the MFSP, while also providing variety and choices to the communities it serves.
Offers user interactivity and emulates service delivery: with a vast array of supportive virtual services, Centrepointe is completely interactive and emulates service delivery to the fullest extent possible.
Increases accessibility and augments existing CMFRC service delivery: site access is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Serves as a reliable source for information, support and referral: updated daily, Centrepointe is a hub for information, resources and program/service delivery of the MFSP all in one place for users ranging from toddlers to adults.

With a funding grant from National Defence On-Line, plans for 2004 include developing a strategy for increasing the effectiveness of the Centrepointe global virtual team, enhancing bilingual content and performing usability and preference rating testing.

In time, we will seek to extend the portal to other CF families living in remote locations – whether remote in Canada, the United States, or other parts of the world. But our approach will continue to be slow and measured so that we can continue to build on the progress to date. Regardless of what the future holds for Centrepointe, however, it will remain absolutely committed to the Canadian Forces families it was designed to serve.

Karen Dooks is managing editor, Centrepointe.