As one of the leading higher education providers in Australia , and part of the revered ‘sandstone’ club’ – the University of Queensland (UQ) needs to maintain its modern technologies. To support its CMS platform optimisation project, UQ sought a Drupal Supporting Partner that had recognised expertise. The service had to be able to support a complex CMS that was used by various faculties around the university, but also needed to adhere to UQ’s strict protocols.

The Challenge

UQ needed a specialist firm to manage their complex Drupal CMS.

The Solution

Catalyst worked in collaboration with UQ to onboard the project on-site. The team then worked remotely, for a three month period, to improve workflows and optimise the university’s Drupal CMS.

The Result

The Catalyst team undertook a broad range of optimisation tasks that included, bug fixing, QA process improvements and layout updates. The project met the scheduled deadline and adhered to UQ policies.

A steady partnership

Both on-site and off-site

UQ required Catalyst and UQDrupal to collaborate and manage a number of essential pillars to the CMS:

  • Improve the automated Behat testing as part of the development processes.
  • Make major quality assurance (QA) process improvements.
  • Run bug diagnostics and carry out ongoing bug fixes for better system stability and usability.
  • Adhere to agile SCRUM processes.

Catalyst has a long history of working in tandem with internal development and operations teams, and our partnership with UQDrupal was no different. What made this particular cooperation so unique was our ability to conduct our everyday tasks remotely.

After a two-day onboarding session on-site at UQ, Catalyst completed the three month project from our own offices. Ongoing communications were maintained, as people were available wherever they were operating – not reliant on having face-to-face interactions.

Streamlining the system

Catalyst is a Premium Drupal Supporting Partner, with in-depth knowledge of Drupal CMS. We were able to resolve the majority of the day-to-day challenges that arose, due to our experience of having encountered and dealt with them before.

The ultimate goal was to improve UQ’s Drupal platform to deliver a great user experience (UX) and a reliable, high performance system to support the diverse needs of the university’s various faculties.

We were in regular consultation with the UQDrupal team, so we had already planned out our resolution strategies and decided on our plan of attack before the work even began.

SCRUM procedure adherence

One of the key factors over the course of this project was our need to adhere with UQ’s SCRUM procedures. We’ve had years of experience working in similar agile environments on software projects, so communicating with UQDrupal about the conditions of our working relationship, and then following their SCRUM processes was managed as a matter of course.

We had daily stand-up meetings each morning, to confirm the plan for the day. We measured our velocities and managed expectations, while also conducting estimates on tickets and then analysing the accuracy of them. Our synergy with UQDrupal meant we were able to refine those estimates throughout the duration of the project, to reflect the up-to-date position.

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