A “do-it-yourself” WordPress platform for SURF

A multi-site WordPress theme

SURF is the ICT cooperative for education and research. An enormously broad area, with enormous many departments and services. It was important for SURF that all these services would not fall under one heading, but would all be accessible separately with your own website. For each service a platform 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 all websites yourself for their services could create, manage and customize. Some of the functionalities that the custom theme contains:

• FAQ Module
• Vacancy module
• Event modules

“Do-it-yourself” WordPress installation 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 where SURF had direct access to all essential building blocks for a new sub-theme. 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 this WordPress setup 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. An “empty” installation, so to speak. This is immediately followed by the setup Wizard, that SURF guides in implementing functionalities. For example, a choice can be made for custom search modules, FAQs or other modules that appear elsewhere on other parts of the SURF platform.

After functionalities, design choices follow, for example logos, colours and possibly fonts. Of course, all in the same style, so that the entire SURF platform has the same uniform appearance. After determining functionalities and design, only the content needs to be added using the flexible content blocks. Texts are placed and images can be uploaded with great ease.

In no time at all, a completely new environment is set up and can go live. No hassle with multiple agencies and contacts for design or development, but get started yourself with a custom 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

This project was ideally suited for development in WordpressThe combination of a clear dashboard and easy content management lends itself perfectly to a large platform like SURF.

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

The WordPress editor allows users to create content using various flexible blocks. This makes it easy to manage different types of content add, edit, and move elements around without requiring deep technical knowledge. WordPress' 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 codes.

In summary, WordPress offers a combination of flexibility, usability and customizability that makes developing and managing websites with the above-mentioned functionalities simplifyThese tools are suitable for both beginners and advanced developers, making them a popular choice within the web development community.

Dozens of WordPress sites later

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 will also roll out a similar solution for University Medical Centers (UMC) in Amsterdam.