A robust and futureproof website, CMS and cloud platform to support Drinkaware’s five-year digital transformation strategy.

The Client

Drinkaware is committed to the mission of reducing alcohol-related harm by providing invaluable support to individuals in making informed decisions about their drinking habits.

The Challenge

Rebuild and modernise Drinkaware's digital presence to provide a solid foundation from which they can deliver personalised experiences to their users.

The Solution

A robust, innovative and future-proof suite of digital tools and web services to support Drinkaware's five-year digital transformation strategy.

Industries

Charities and non-profit

Education and learning

Services

Experience design

Creative services

Consultancy

Cloud and hosting

Data analytics

Engineering and technology

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Discovery

We undertook an extensive Discovery phase working with Drinkaware’s non-technical product owners and key stakeholders. We worked in detail through audience analyses, stakeholder and user requirements, and peer and competitor research in a collaborative, outcome-driven approach which successfully delivered a project blueprint and well-informed strategy to deliver their project.

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Umbraco CMS

The website itself was built using the Umbraco CMS, which manages both the webpage data, plus a range of data points consumed by individual web tools built using Vue.js. The solution is a partial headless implementation due to  a significant amount of  data being consumed from the Umbraco CMS via APIs to varying front-end, client-side applications.

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Technology

We deployed cutting edge web technologies in delivering a secure, high-performance suite of solutions to Drinkaware.

Micro-service tools

We designed and built multiple web applications (tools) composed of ‘micro-frontends’, each sending and receiving data to various microservice-driven APIs. This API layer also integrated with DotMailer CRM and a bespoke integration with Google Tag Manager allowing Drinkaware to track individual user events.

Azure APIm

We used Azure API Management (APIm) and Azure services to manage and compose RESTful APIs to multiple services under a single ‘house style’. This allowed Drinkaware to create a consistent and modern API gateway for their backend services.

Azure cognitive search

Leveraging Azure’s cloud services, Azure Cognitive Search was used for global site search, faceted search, auto suggest and autocorrect to provide users with an intuitive way to discover and navigate content anywhere in the site while maintaining high levels of speed and performance.

Tracking and reporting

Drinkaware wanted to better understand the motivations of their users, how they navigate and interact with the site, what data they submitted and how their drinking behaviour changed over time. To support this requirement, we implemented a complex user event tracking system linked up to PowerBI via Azure Data Warehouse to provide the advanced data required.

Azure and FrontDoor

Azure cloud services allowed for Blob storage of static assets and files with CDN for distributed caching; event sourcing architecture; APIm and end to end encryption between services, while FrontDoor provides load balancing and caching of site content to further improve application performance as well as protect Drinkaware from DDoS attacks.

Azure Application Insights

We implemented advanced logging using Azure Application Insights, allowing us to monitor in real time events generated by the system. Additionally, a series of performance alerts were set up within the system to alert our team should the level of errors breach a predefined limit, enabling fast response times and identification of issues which may occur.

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Mobile app

Currently in development, we are currently working to integrate Drinkaware’s new mobile tracking app to the overall digital solution by extending the existing website APIs to facilitate the additional functionality, content and data needs of the app. Previously positioned as a standalone product, the new app will soon be fully integrated to the overall digital ecosystem, allowing for a truly cross-platform user experience.

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Results

Our work with Drinkaware has led not just to the delivery of a new website and multiple web applications, but to the foundations of an integrated digital ecosystem which sets them up to build and grow.

Beyond supporting their users, we removed much of the technical debt of Drinkaware’s solution and reduce ongoing costs across all digital touchpoints, allowing them to invest more in innovative, best in class tools, and we continue to work with them as they transform into an industry-leading body.

The suite of tools, technical and data architecture will also set them on a journey to becoming a data-driven organisation delivering relevant, effective, and personalised experiences to their audiences.

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