Website Project Report 20/10/05

20 October 2005

To: Council, InternetNZ

From: Jordan Carter, Research & Policy Officer

Website Project: Budget & Timeline

A) Executive Summary

• The website project was divided into three phases.
• Phase zero (the interim website) cost $5,000, completed May 2004.
• The current phase ( phase one the new CMS driven website) is scheduled to be completed in mid November.
• Total cost for phase one is $98,000, which is detailed in the financial summary attached as Appendix 1.
• This cost represents 73% of the amount budgeted for 2004-2006.
• This phase is approximately six months behind the original schedule. A detailed milestones list is attached as Appendix 2.
• This year's budget shows an overspend because of timing (underspend in 2004/05 resulting in overspend in 2005/06)
• This report recommends reviewing the web strategy to date, and scoping out in more detail phase two (see section E below) options for inclusion in the 2006/07 budget.

B) Introduction

The functional development of the website using Zope and Plone is largely complete having reached acceptance testing. A 30 days warrantee period began following the system acceptance on 13 October 2005.

The outstanding issues for the release of the site are council acceptance before public release, project budget status and funding for remaining work in 2005/06.

C) Council Acceptance before Public Release

As agreed by Executive Committee at its September meeting, once the primary content has been edited the site will be released internally to two rounds of quality assurance. Firstly, a subset of councillors (Michael Wallmannsberger, Chris Streatfield, Rodney Prescott and David Harris) has been nominated for initial User Acceptance Testing. Once any agreed changes are made, a release to the full council will follow. Only when the site is approved for general release will it be eligible to go live to the public.

The timeline for key steps before public release is as follows, with a minor change since that presented at the previous meeting:

D) Project Budget Status

In the interests of financial clarity on the budget for the project, the table attached at Appendix 1 shows a full breakdown of the website revamp spending from the InternetNZ budget in the past two years.

The table highlights the fact that a significant proportion of the expenses to date have been in maintaining the existing interim site, and on matters other than the simple development of the new site.

Items are divided into four categories of expenditure:

• Interim Site items in these sub-lines relate to the development of the interim site, currently published at http://internetnz.net.nz/
• Microsite Development for the Pacific Internet Partnership website
• CMS Site Development these sub-lines are the costs of the project of building the new, CMS-driven website
• Website Content for writing new content, and scrubbing the content migrated from the interim website.

Website development costs are identified as a sub-line within the communications budget line. As it is only the communications line which is adopted by the members the sub-lines can be amended. It is proposed to reallocate the sub-lines as follows, to allow for the completion of phase one work:

E) Next Steps: Remaining Work in 2005/06

With the completion of phase one imminent, it is timely to revisit the original priorities set out in the web strategy and to make decisions about where to proceed next in developing our web presence. Doing so will allow Council to make 2006/07 budget decisions on the basis of good information, and will ensure that the web strategy is relevant to InternetNZ' s current needs.

This scoping exercise is estimated to cost $10,000 and consists of two areas of work:

a) $5,000 review of web strategy & online priorities

The web strategy in place now was developed two years ago. Given the changes in InternetNZ' s work since that time, it would be prudent to review where we are at with our online strategy, and decide where (and how far) to progress in future.

b) $5,000 pilot online groupware

To investigate and trial groupware, including an online calendar/diary function for the new site and for the use of the secretariat/Council/Committees.

This paper recommends that $10,000 be re-allocated in 2005/06, from within the communications budget line (Communications Materials sub-line see table on previous page), to allow this scoping work to go ahead.

F) Project Milestones to Date

Please see the attached Appendix 2 for a timeline for the website redevelopment project to date.

G) Recommendations

It is recommended:

1. That this report be received.
2. That, to allow the completion of phase one of the website project and to provide for a review of InternetNZ' s web strategy, the reallocation of funds within the communications sub-lines in the budget as outlined in sections d) and e) of this report be agreed.

Jordan Carter
Research & Policy Officer

Note: this report is based on an earlier report provided by Shane Middlemiss to the Executive Committee.

Appendix 2: Internet NZ Web Project Milestones and Highlights