Case Study

The Saanich Police Association represents members of the Saanich Police Department, providing leadership, support and advocacy. The Association’s goal is to advance the interests of its members and maintain positive relationships with the employer, community and general public. While the police department has an online presence, the Association lacked one and wanted visibility in the community for the work that it does on behalf of its members. Simultaneously, in the face of declining attendance at Association meetings, the Association was seeking a solution that would allow the executive to quickly and easily communicate with members, share documents and allow members to vote in elections or on other issues remotely.

The Challenge

The Saanich Police Association wanted a professional web presence on a limited budget, as the focus of the Association’s resources was put towards customizing a mobile app that had originally been developed by another party. The app’s associated API and database was deployed on a service that was shutting down and thus needed to be migrated to a newer technical solution updated to the latest code for both Apple and Android. The app also needed improved security, as well as some tweaks to better meet the Association’s needs for easy communication and sharing documents. Most significantly, the Association wanted to add voting functionality to the app so that all the members’ voices could be heard at elections and for other votes regardless of whether they were able to physically attend a meeting.

The Solution

Caorda started by designing the Saanich Police Association logo, as well as logos for the Athletic Association and Benevolent Society. As requested by the Association, we implemented bold and easily recognizable qualities, with traditional symbolism representative of a police organization, while bearing in mind the wide range of uses the Association intended for the logo (ie. website, social media, business cards, lapel pins, commemorative coins, letterhead, etc.). Aiming for traits such as strength, trust and solidarity, the Association’s panel members voted on their favourites from multiple mock-ups, and the end result was a success.

For the website, we created a simple design to represent the Association and we built the website using a premium WordPress theme. The development process was quick and streamlined, and we made sure to implement tactics throughout the pages that would ensure speed and easy editing by the Association members. The result is a simple, professional site that communicates the role the Association plays for its members and in the community.

On the mobile app front, Caorda’s development team consulted with the Association to clarify its needs, then got to work migrating the API and database to our own hosting solution with a new web API and database solution. Once stable, we continued with updating the database and apps to add new enhancements, such as the critical voting functionality. Ensuring the app worked seamlessly on different platforms, could be used for elections and other types of votes, and that members would only be able to vote once were critical requirements that our development team addressed. Since the re-launch of the apps, we have added additional enhancements, moved notifications to a new platform and moved to a private distribution model for members using Apple devices.

The Association is successfully using the apps with its membership and loves its new online presence. Most of the Caorda team touched some part of this project, and it was an absolute pleasure working with the Association executive on behalf of its members. We look forward to continuing to work with the organization on further app enhancements and website updates!

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