STAFF INTRANET
A central hub for the City of Wetaskiwin
ClientCity of WetaskiwinServicesProject planning, UI/UX design, web development, content management, hosting & security, coaching, versioningYear2021
The Client
One of Alberta’s oldest cities, Wetaskiwin manages a diverse municipal workforce. Their team is spread across various physical locations—from City Hall to Public Works—requiring a digital solution that bridges geographical gaps and unifies a multifaceted employee base.
The Challenge
Prior to this initiative, the City faced significant hurdles in internal cohesion. Information lived in silos, critical documents were buried in complex folder structures, and there was no centralized “water cooler” to foster corporate culture. Specific pain points included:
- Access Friction: Staff struggled with multiple logins and password fatigue.
- Information Decay: Onboarding was manual and inconsistent.
- Cultural Disconnect: A lack of informal spaces for employee recognition and peer-to-peer interaction.
- Discoverability: No single, easy-to-remember location for staff to find corporate news, events, or career growth opportunities.
Strategic Discovery & Cultural Audit
The project began with a series of discovery meetings with senior leadership. This critical collaborative period aligned portal functionality with the City’s specific operational goals. By auditing existing communication habits and cultural gaps, we ensured the final product wasn’t just a technical tool, but a reflection of the City’s values.
Key features included:
- Single Sign-On (SSO): Seamless integration with existing city credentials.
- Departmental Hubs: Tailored spaces for specific teams to share localized information.
- Digital Smart Forms: Transitioning paper-heavy processes into streamlined, digital workflows.
- Organization-Wide News & Events: A centralized pulse for all city updates and social calendars.
- Corporate Culture Boosters: A peer-to-peer Employee Recognition module and an internal Classifieds section.
- Career Dashboard: A dedicated space for internal job postings and professional development.
Implementation
We sought to simplify how staff interact with resources—and with each other—by creating a user-centric platform
The development process focused on user-centric governance. We didn’t just build a website; we built a workflow.
- Architecture: We mapped the City’s complex data needs into a clean, searchable interface based on findings from our initial audit.
- Single Source of Truth: Post-launch, Tangent Civic provided a comprehensive Single Source of Truth (SSoT) document. This guide serves as the blueprint for staff engagement, outlining how to use the portal to ensure consistent onboarding and long-term knowledge management.
- Privacy by Design: Because the portal contains sensitive internal data, the site is protected by a secure wall, accessible only to authenticated personnel.
Quantitative Benefit
While the City’s staff portal is a private ecosystem, internal metrics provide a clear picture of success:
- Onboarding Efficiency: Estimated 30% reduction in HR orientation time via the centralized resource repository.
- Workflow Speed: Significant reduction in processing time for internal requests via digital smart forms.
- Engagement: High sustained weekly traffic to staff classifieds and recognition areas, signalling a cultural shift.
- Information Accuracy: 90% reduction in “duplicate document” confusion by establishing the portal as the definitive source.
The outcome was a purpose-built staff portal that leverages the security, flexibility, and intuitive authoring experience of Craft CMS. The solution resides at a dedicated vanity URL—citystaff.ca, providing a distinct, easy-to-recall home for the City’s workforce.
Single Sign On
Implementing Single Sign-On (SSO) is one of the portal’s most impactful features.
SSO transforms the portal from a chore into a useful, always-on tool. It removes the mental hurdle of logging in, which directly impacts how often staff engage with corporate culture boosters.
Departmental Autonomy
Each City department had tiered admin access to manage their own content and resources within the staff portal.
Other staff members could browse and search cross-departmental news and resources while maintaining a high-level perspective of how these departments coexisted within the organization.
Single Source of Truth
Unlike traditional, monolithic website offerings for municipalities, our platform is designed to evolve in tandem with the needs of each client—while ensuring the backend remains as lean and efficient as possible.
Muni 2.0 allows us to meet the unique needs of different municipalities without being constrained by a rigid, out-of-the-box structure.
“Tangent Civic brings the perfect blend of creativity and professionalism to their work. Everything that Tangent has designed for us, from marketing strategy to print design to the new website, has been executed to the highest standards.”
Nick Gelych
Deputy Reeve, Lac Ste. Anne County
Is it time to turn your fragmented internal systems into a professional, user-friendly service delivery tool?
At Tangent Civic, we don’t just consult; we leverage decades of niche expertise to help community leaders turn their ambitious visions into reality. We hit the ground running with any engagement, delivering tangible results quickly, effectively and on budget.
If you’re ready to move beyond planning and see real progress, let’s talk.
