P&O Ferrymasters
The widely recognised P&O Ferries brand is a name known for being one of the world's largest companies, providing transport of goods, passenger ferries and quality cruises.
P&O Ferrymasters are one of the larger factors of the P&O group specialising in international port terminal operations and logistics.
Getme were approached in March 2007 to review their existing website and provide a more flexible solution going forward. In addition, we were asked to provide an intranet solution that would maintain their heavy throughput of documentation, accessible by the whole group.
Making things flexible
The existing P&O Ferrymasters public website was written completely in Flash and had no CM facilities. The intranet was built using Microsoft Frontpage which restricted updates to a single user.
Since allowing multiple people within the company to play a part in updating both the public website and intranet was crucial, we suggested they use a common CMS as a basis for both sites. Our Air web framework supports a multiple user environment, with privileges, and document check in/out facilities. Since we don't charge user licenses, this made Air the most ideal and cost effective solution.
Goodbye Flash, hello world!
Though Flash can be content managed via the Air system, there are several drawbacks to using it, and the biggest is accessibility. Though many web-users use Flash-enabled web browsers, a significant percentage still don't, and Flash is not accessible to screen readers for visitors who are visually impaired.
A note on search engines and Flash: Because content and structure in Flash is embedded in a proprietary file, search engines cannot easily access and categorise such web sites.
To make the content as accessible as possible, the new website uses only (X)HTML, adheres to the W3C guidelines. The Air system provides tools to help ensure content is structured well and conforms to good web practices automatically.
Managing lots of documents
The intranet needed to be able to store potentially thousands of documents. The desktop-style folder approach used by Air to store pages and files makes categorising content easy and intuitive.
One of the many advantages of the Air system over other CMS products is its ability to investigate file formats such as PDF, and Word documents, for searchable content.
This means that every document uploaded to the intranet can be found by searching for keywords within its content, much like performing a search on Google.
No matter how many documents are stored, it's still easy to find what is relevant.
Keeping in touch
Once the intranet was up and running, lots of other potential uses became apparent, including building a central contacts database.
The Air system was integrated with P&O ferrymasters' contacts database, allowing users of the intranet system to quickly find any company contact in a central location.
Conclusion
The public website is now accessible and easy to manage. Already there has been a significant increase in the number of visitors, and the site content remains current, with constant updates.
The intranet continues to undergo more development as more potential uses are identified. It has quickly become a valuable asset to the company.
