Case Studies

Navy Federal Credit Union

Special Projects

Navy Federal's Web team needed help with some of their larger, more technical projects. In some cases, it was a matter of laying out specifications and managing the projects. For others, we rolled up our sleeves to do production work. These projects include:

• Locations Database Redesign & Google Maps
• RightNow Integration
• Digital Media Intranet

Locations Database Redesign & Google Maps

Navy Federal is growing and expanding with new branches everywhere. It is highly important that members be able to find them. The was a poorly formatted list of branches already served up to the website from a database. But, they wanted to give their members more and it was about time that the locations pages look like they were really a part of the same Web site.

We worked with the Web team to integrate Google maps into the NFCU Web site and give their members a means to map and find their way to branches. Next, we worked with stakeholders to map out a restructuring of the locations database for better control of the data and lay ground work for automated voice systems later. Then, we worked with an in-house development team to accomplish the changes to the database and the code that surfaces the information in order to have all formatting controled by css files accessible by the Web group.

RightNow Integration

The Correspondence group at Navy Federal found RightNow, an "Ask me a Question" functionality and knowledge-base solution, extremely valuable in-house to answer members questions. They wanted to expose this content to the organization's public website. If members can find answers to their questions without having to email or call in, this could save the credit union money as well as provide more efficient service to their members.

This project wasted months thrashing around about all kinds of integration issues. After solving potential security issues and concerns, the next largest problem was the customization work required to expose only the features the NFCU Web team wanted, and to allow stylesheets to update the "Look & Feel". As is often the case, when it comes to HTML and css work, even the most senior developers don't have a clue. This was indeed the case and their estimates leaped into months.

Finally, to get the project underway, we rolled up our sleeves and convinced the project owners and managers to allow us to do the customization work. It took a good couple of week's work— fast when the developers' estimates were so long!

Digital Media Intranet

The Digital Media group was growing yet much of the knowledge, standards and processes were passed on by word of mouth. Things were forgotten and many things were done inconsistantly.

To solve this problem and make it easier to train and help new team members, we created a team Intranet site that becames the group's memory and knowledge-base. As the team made decisions about coding standards or large projects were underway, everything was documented so there was no guesswork later and an easy-to-find reference guide.