The Client
A city government client who needed assistance with cleaning up their publicly available data catalog, as well as revamping the homepage of their open data portal.
The Problem
Loblolly provides services specifically designed to ensure clients get the most from their Socrata investments. The client’s environment had not been upgraded since initial deployment. Given the significant time since that deployment, upgrades to the functionality of the Socrata Platform, and the clients’ knowledge gap, they recognized that engaging an experienced partner to perform the activity was the most efficient way forward. The client also asked Loblolly to provide knowledge transfer through scheduled training sessions so that existing staff could perform future updates to the platform on their own.
The Solution
Loblolly clearly described the procedures to the client, defined roles, and responsibilities, and established a schedule for the activities based on our standard processes.
These activities included the following:
- Data catalog audit to identify stale content for deletion. Loblolly used API calls to the open data portal to delete unwanted assets and performed bulk revisions to recategorize data sets.
- Revision of the portal homepage with new images, linked tiles, and header/footer configuration. Loblolly used a mix of HTML and homepage datasets to complete this activity.
- Created external links to client’s ESRI server so that map could be searched via the catalog
- Generated Perspective Story pages that are linked from the homepage and include a narrative, images, and embedded visualizations to tell the story of relevant topics that interest the citizens of the city.
The Team
Loblolly quickly assigned a consultant with extensive Socrata experience and met with the client to plan the effort. Using Loblolly methodologies and processes, the Loblolly consultant was able to establish a clear definition of the project objectives and document the client’s technical needs.
The Results
The team successfully updated and transformed our client’s Socrata homepage and data catalog into a sleek, modern interface that citizens of the city can easily interact with. Loblolly’s detailed procedures and technical knowledge resulted in 100% client acceptance and satisfaction.
What's Next
Using our expertise in Socrata and its support system of developers and documentation, we were able to produce reusable procedures and provided the valuable knowledge transfer that was requested by the client so that they can continue to manage the platform themselves.