Municipality of Hastings Highlands Issues Website RFP
The purpose of this ‘Request for Proposal’ (RFP) is to solicit proposals and product demonstrations from qualified vendors for the redesign of the Municipality website, that will include:
• the design
• procurement
• training
• maintenance
• ongoing hosting and support of a municipal government website
The proposed site must meet the Hastings Highlands functionality, scalability, reliability, and manageability requirements as outlined in this RFP document.
The Municipality of Hastings Highlands is seeking to update its website in order to:
• Enhance the user experience (includes mobile friendly)
• Simplify content management that would allow staff to update the website
• Provide better information and customer service to our community – includes a portal for easy access to Council docs (agendas, minutes, etc)
• Improve accessibility
• Promote website visibility by optimizing the content for search engines
• Provide a scalable website that can accommodate new features and functions
Effective websites increase online citizen self-service while reducing staff workload. This will be accomplished by tailoring a solution to meet our unique needs.
The municipality would like to decentralize content management by empowering our staff to easily create and manage website content with minimum oversight from the leadership team.
Hastings Highlands seeks the assistance of an experienced vendor that can accomplish all of the functionality identified in this RFP. It is expected that this vendor will:
• Support the ease of migration of content and features already incorporated in the current site
• Use high standards for design quality and visual appeal.
The municipality also seeks a vendor that has the capability of integrating additional features and functionality that may be identified in the future with minimum effort and without requiring a complete site overhaul. The experienced vendor should have a team of experts who understand the complexities of local government, to help Hastings Highlands to achieve its vision — all while providing 24/7/365 support.
Background:
Hastings Highlands has a population of approximately 4000 residents and is located in the northern part of the County of Hastings. Its history was in lumber and mining. In more recent times it has become a summer and winter playground for many part time residents and visitors. Our future is tied to attracting younger families and retirees. We offer a healthy lifestyle with the benefits of living in beautiful surroundings away from the hectic pace of the big city. We also want to attract new businesses that can operate from a more remote location, equidistant from major centres of Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston and Belleville.
Scope of Work:
The Municipality of Hastings Highlands is seeking to enter into a professional services agreement with a qualified vendor to design and implement a new website based on the above strategy. It is expected that the Municipality will continue to use it’s current URL upon the launch of a new website. It will be beneficial to ensure that changes do not interfere with access to a site during development. Also, significant content from the current site could be migrated to the new site. The municipality’s emphasis is on incorporating extensive content management tools and database driven architecture while providing a user-friendly and intuitive site structure and an interface that is both attractive and is WCAG 2.0 compliant (accessible to persons with disabilities). The municipality would like the vendor to host the website in a top-rated secure data center.
The Municipality of Hastings Highlands is seeking to update its website in order to:
• Enhance the user experience (includes mobile friendly)
• Simplify content management that would allow staff to update the website
• Provide better information and customer service to our community – includes a portal for easy access to Council docs (agendas, minutes, etc)
• Improve accessibility
• Promote website visibility by optimizing the content for search engines
• Provide a scalable website that can accommodate new features and functions
Effective websites increase online citizen self-service while reducing staff workload. This will be accomplished by tailoring a solution to meet our unique needs.
The municipality would like to decentralize content management by empowering our staff to easily create and manage website content with minimum oversight from the leadership team.
Due Date:
March 1st, 2019.
Address:
russgrant@hastingshighlands.ca
Agencies with relevant experience includes M Booth PR and Hunter PR.
