Yesterday, we launched the project I've been working on since April. We've redesigned and upgraded St. John's Universities web site
I sent out a note to my fellow team members today thanking them for a job well done I felt like sharing that note.
Team,
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone
that put in long hours and maximum effort to see st. john's redesign to
go live. It was a long and crater filled road. This is by far one of
the biggest and longest projects I have ever worked on and it has
provided me with a lot of new knowledge, skills and experience.
Some major accomplishments we were able to push through:
Went live with 4 sites. http://www.stjohns.edu, http://digest.stjohns.edu,
we upgraded their Intranet to the latest ASP.NET framework and ported
over and upgraded what is left of their old RedStormSports.com site
that we are hosting as an archive.
4GB of data
or 40,000 content pages had to be ported and or massaged into the new
database schema. News and Events had to be striped out of EDU,
Intranet and Digest and merged into one database.
10GB of images, PDF's and Video's had to be brought over and inserted into the 40,000 pages with their new designs.
Set-up
3 physical servers with 10 virtual machines running 4 web servers, 2
file servers, 2 database servers, domain controller and a Web Trends
server. These were coordinated with IT, set-up, tested, stressed and
verified to work before we put our code on and after.
The
set-up of 25 themes (for the various colleges, schools and departments)
that wanted to have their own unique presence in the site.
The
set-up of 683 templates which are variations of 64 unique templates
which display Home pages, landing pages, content, photo gallery, etc.
in the www.stjohns.edu site alone. I haven't even done a count for the new News Engine Portal (digest).
3 designers all working together and in parallel to provide a fresh look and feel for every department, school and college.
5
developers working together to port, build, upgrade and maintain the
code to make Brand Ensemble better for not only St. John's but for our
future clients. Already [redacted], [redacted] and [redacted] are seeing some
of these benefits.
There are many
accomplishments, too many to name or remember in one sitting. But the
most important accomplishment is that we came together as a team:
Larry, Anne-Marie, Katje:
Thanks for being there for support and taking the brunt of the clients
calls. I am thankful to have you in-between the client and the rest of
the team.
Cheryl, Mary, Susan: Thanks
for coming up with a fresh web 2.0 look and feel and something I am
proud to show others and tell them I helped build. I hope the
development team was able to bring your designs to light.
Ernie, Travis, Ravi, Anna:
Ernie, Travis you guys were always there when I needed extra hands.
You were willing to jump in and help out when needed even pulling a
couple of all nighters with me and coming in on weekends. I am lucky
to work with two talented programmers that I can go to when I am stuck
on a problem with the knowledge that one of you will know the answer
and if not will help me figure it out. You guys push me to be a better
programmer.
Ravi, you really impressed me with
your dedication and your SQL knowledge. Being able to assign you the
data porting script and having to minimally oversee you was a great
burden off my shoulders. You put in more off hour time then anyone on
the team to get the project accomplished. I am still impressed at what
you were able to accomplish.
Anna, you came
into the project at just the right time. Having you work with us as an
intern has been very refreshing. Your ability to pick this project up
quickly and run with it was hugely beneficial. I am amazed at how
dedicated you are at constantly nagging me for the next thing to work
on and your ability to take what you were assigned and complete it with
high quality and completeness. You are a huge asset to the team and I
hope we are able to keep you around well after your co-op has ended.
Chuck, Brad: Chuck
I think I've learned the most by working with you. You are very
detailed oriented and thorough. I've learned many new skills in
working on setting up the servers. I feel more experienced in working
with SQL Server 2005 especially. I also have a new appreciation for
Virtual Environments that we've begun to implement into our development
environment. You are also a very dedicated person being available at
all hours of the day and night.
Brad, you've
helped me more then you know. You have this uncanny ability to keep
everyone sane. You are very supportive and willing to jump in and get
your hands dirty and help the team any way you can. This is very much
appreciative and was in no way overlooked by your team members.
In
the end this project wasn't perfect. There are many areas that could
use reflection upon to improve the process going forward. We've
already started this reflection by starting the discussion of
standardizing the design specs that are created. Even though we've
gone live the job isn't done yet as we need to polish and maintain.
Again, thank you all for your hard work and effort from one team member to the team.