Central management, locally built

SURF is the ICT cooperative for education and research. An extremely broad area, with an enormous number of departments and services. It was important to SURF that all these services did not fall under one denominator, but were all accessible separately. A platform for each service that they can set up themselves, but centrally managed and secured by us. A unique solution for a special project.

In essence, we developed a central platform in which SURF could create, manage and adjust all pages for their services. Some functionalities that the custom theme contains:

• FAQ Module
• Vacancy module
• Event module

“Do it yourself” with our wizard

What made this project so unique was the fact that the people at SURF had to be able to set up complex sites on their platform themselves. And because not everyone is a developer or web designer, we designed a kind of “do it yourself” theme that gave SURF direct access to all the essential building blocks for a new subtheme. Such as new services, learning environments or even a vacancy portal. All this with the help of the “wizard” that we developed for them.

How does that work in practice?

In principle it revolves around 3 things that we have woven into the wizard;

• Functionalities
• Design
• Content

When SURF wants to add a new service to their platform, they set up a new WordPress environment for this. A “bare” installation, so to speak. This is immediately followed by the setup Wizard, who guides SURF in implementing functionalities. For example, you can opt for tailor-made search modules, FAQs or other modules that appear elsewhere on other parts of the SURF platform.

After functionalities, design choices follow, for example logos, colors and possibly fonts. Naturally, all in the same style, giving the entire SURF platform the same uniform appearance. After determining functionalities and design, all that remains is to add the content using the Gutenberg blocks. Texts are placed and images can be uploaded with great ease.

Within an instant, a completely new environment can be set up and ready to go live. No hassle with multiple agencies and contacts for design or development, but get started yourself with a tailor-made wizard.

This is SURF

SURF is a cooperative of Dutch educational and research institutions in which the members join forces. 

In addition, the company has expanded into the healthcare sector with products such as blood pressure monitors and medical equipment. With a global presence, OMRON continues to strive to provide smart solutions that improve efficiency and contribute to a healthier society.

Check out their new website

The power of WordPress and Gutenberg

This project was ideally suited for development in WordPress. The combination of a clear dashboard and simple content management is perfect for a large platform like SURF.

WordPress is known for its user-friendly interface. Even people without deep technical knowledge can easily add, edit, and manage content. The WordPress dashboard provides an organized place for users to manage various aspects of their website, such as posts, pages, themes, and plugins.

Gutenberg allows users to create content using various blocks. This makes it easy to add, edit and move different types of content without in-depth technical knowledge. Gutenberg's block-based approach makes it easy for end users to add and edit text, images, videos, and other elements through a visual interface, without having to write any code.

In summary, WordPress and Gutenberg offer a combination of flexibility, user-friendliness and customizability that simplify the development and management of websites with the above-mentioned functionalities. These tools are suitable for both beginners and advanced developers, making them a popular choice within the web development community.

Dozens of sites further

The people at SURF have now set up dozens of sites themselves using our wizard. And through centralized management from Van Ons, almost nothing can go wrong. We provide security updates and technical management remotely, which means that as little unnecessary communication as possible is required. This is what we call remote development.

In the future, we hope to roll out such a solution for several customers, including the UMC in Amsterdam.