Web Content Management System
The County has been using the same enterprise web content management system since
2002, with an upgrade in 2005. Since the web changed dramatically in the past nine years, the County is taking this opportunity to explore all options before entering into a request for proposals (RFP) process.
Visitors to the County website include residents, businesses, attorneys, local nonprofit partners,
schools and community colleges, government agencies, elected officials and employees. The County’s content management system (CMS) contains approximately over fifty, primarily department-based, sites. The County has a centralized approach to its website look-and-feel. Sites hosted within the content management system are tied together with a common header, footer and sidebar navigation. Some department and program
websites are hosted outside the County-supported CMS. Some are programmed in Microsoft .NET using SQL
Server & Oracle databases, but some are simple Access databases with a simple HTML user interface. Those
sites have a slightly different look-and-feel. This RFI focuses solely on the sites hosted within the County CMS.
County departments find the current web CMS’ content tools cumbersome and difficult to work with.
They would prefer to use a CMS whose content tools are easier to work with and are not geared toward
technical staff. The County has discussed using collaborative tools like wikis and blogs. Some of these tools
have been piloted on a small scale, but they have not been widely adopted within the County.
The goals for the County’s enterprise web content management system are to:
Serve as the central web platform for the County departments
Permit non-technical County staff to easily create, access and modify content
Provide a stable system that will have the capability to integrate business functions within the County
of Chester, PA
Reduce operating expenses and web development costs
