Febelfin Academy: a fresh start!
Six sites
The Febelfin Academy project actually consists of six websites: the Febelfin Academy website and five of its derivatives – Sofuba, Elan+, Startfin, Formanot and Elan+ Outplacement. This uniform platform offers information on all courses and exams, and lets users know where they can enrol. As all the courses are presented on various sites, they are managed centrally in a Learning Management System (LMS). Wijs set up the website’s central API that synchronises all training and enrolment data with the LMS.
“It was quite a challenge to make the Febelfin Academy and its associated websites run smoothly in one system. Wijs used Harmony – the CMS it developed in-house – to make the content structure customised and very intuitive.”
Caroline Van Geel
Communication & Marketing Manager - Febelfin Academy
A clean slate
A few years later, in 2017, Febelfin Academy contacted Tobania to have a fully customised LMS developed. It had various reasons to do this. We analysed the technical impact of the new LMS and concluded that switching from Fork to Harmony was the most logical and efficient way forward. This roughly meant that a completely new site had to be built.
The costs wouldn't be that much higher and it was an excellent opportunity for Febelfin Academy to switch to a modern-day CMS. The time had come to start with a clean slate. Febelfin Academy introduced us to Tobania and we collaborated closely on the new site.
“Thanks to the constructive attitude, professional cooperation and seamless communication between Febelfin Academy, Wijs and Tobania, together we achieved the smooth integration of the custom LMS and the various websites. We were able to offer a generic, scalable and efficient solution by considering the LMS as the master of the data and by using modern technologies such as Azure cloud hosting and Service Bus. The various parties beautifully integrated these into the total solution, which enabled Febelfin Academy to offer a professional learning environment to its customers.”
Geert Vanden Boer
Operational Manager - Tobania
Having started the partnership with a lean advertising job back in 2010, Duke & Grace now takes up the lead position as full-service communication agency at Van Marcke.
Covering SEA, SEO & UX, social, campaigning, web analytics and performance, Duke & Grace is constantly on the lookout for optimizing opportunities and new tools to further enhance Van Marcke’s online presence. In fact, we’re currently working on some projects that might visit your bathroom real soon. Stay tuned!
Over the length of our partnership with Duke & Grace, we have taken on many successful projects and challenges together. I find I often look forward to finding out what the next step in our process will be and how it’ll inspire me and my coworkers.
Continued optimisation
The construction of a new website is of course the perfect time to thoroughly question everything to make even more improvements. We therefore questioned the concept of a multisite, as that was how the previous version was built. The multisite aspect proved to be a bit of a problem in practice. The websites showed many similarities, but also many differences. As a result, functionalities had to be adapted to ensure that they worked for all sites. A change to one site had a direct impact on another, which then resulted in a risk of errors.
That is why in Harmony, we went for independent sites rather than a multisite. Febelfin Academy is the main site. Every functionality is developed there. This makes it possible to then configure the functionalities that are necessary for each site separately. This approach is forward-looking and prevents errors.
“When we contacted Wijs in 2015, Febelfin Academy needed a new visual identity. The biggest challenge was the Febelfin Academy website. We were not disappointed: we took some serious leaps forward in terms of user experience, design and development.”
Caroline Van Geel
Communication & Marketing Manager - Febelfin Academy
From API to LMS to API
To centralise the data for all training courses, we set up a central API that is independent from all the websites. Each website connects to this API in order to display the correct courses. At the moment, six websites exchange data with this API, but it would be easy to quickly connect a seventh.
The course data are not entered in the API itself. We set up a connection between the LMS and our API for this. The data is transferred from the LMS to the API and from the API to the LMS via an Azure Service Bus.
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. What I particularly appreciate about our partnership is the no-nonsense approach, the mutual respect, the necessary flexibility and the excellent advice we receive for all our projects! The deadlines were very tight, but the Wijs team went to great lengths to always give Febelfin Academy enough opportunities for testing and setting up the various sites.”
Caroline Van Geel
Communication & Marketing Manager - Febelfin Academy
Summary
Because of the implications of the technical adjustments, creating a new site was preferred over updating the existing one. We built the new site in Harmony and worked closely with Tobania for the LMS. The result is a strong, robust and high-performance site. We pulled off a technical tour de force that was forward-looking and met the high security requirements that are so important in the banking sector. Febelfin Academy’s refreshed design and intuitive and user-friendly CMS in Harmony is set to last years.