The Colorado State University Environmental Learning Center came to Red Kite looking for help with a few things:
- A website that was standalone, not lost amid the larger site run by Warner College;
- A way to accept online payment for registration and membership without going off-site;
- A site where they could have their own unique look and feel (again, different than the department);
- A way to have a large number of forms more easily managed;
- A place where staff could view staff-only info;
- And most importantly, a site they could edit and add to themselves.
We obliged. The new ELC website has all of these features and more, including two calendars (one public and one for internal use), a blog, and a few photo galleries from various programs.
We used WordPress, our content management system (CMS) of choice, to handle the backend. The ELC has a number of editors that have access to different parts of the site (this access is managed in WordPress, too).
We recreated a number of forms, some of which were available on the old site only as PDF downloads. We used the venerable Gravity Forms plugin to make great-looking forms with extra features like conditional sections that display only when certain criteria are met.
One very important feature was ecommerce. The ELC worked with CSU to get an Authorize.Net account for their organization. We incorporated Authorize.Net’s provided payment form into the site, and connected it to our Membership and Program Registration forms to give a pain-free online purchase experience to those who chose to use it.
The ELC was very happy with our work and is making the most of their new site, blogging and adding in new programs as they are needed. We were happy to help!