City of Stonnington

Background
The City of Stonnington is a large metropolitan municipality that includes some of Melbourne's most prestigious suburbs including Toorak, Malvern and South Yarra.

The City of Stonnington asked Datalink to bring the website in-line with the visual identity from their 2004 Annual Report and add new features and electronic service delivery that would bring the site to the forefront of Australian council websites.

Solution
The new website features nearly 3,500 pages of content.
It is one of the first council websites in Victoria to feature an Online Planning application register, which provides an advanced interface for users to search, downloading of planning applications in real-time and e-commerce for information retrieval service fees.

Using the latest in Datalink Freestyler technology, Datalink worked with Stonnington to enable new features, including:

Refreshing design with interactive menus and interchanging images
User personalisation, with the ability for residents to register and create a profile to enhance their experience of the council
Real-time weather and water levels from the Bureau of Meteorology and Melbourne Water
Community Noticeboard, an interactive discussion forum for residents
New business and community directories combine with a powerful search feature can be used to scour these additional resources for information
An advanced events system, which allows third parties to regsiter their events
A volunteer database, allowing volunteer organisations to register for inclusion
Library sub-site which allows constituents to access the Encyclopedia Brittanica online
eDemocracy through various user polls, community noticeboard and online forms and surveys
Virtual maps allow constituents to find local facilities

Datalink Products

Freestyler CMS (Local Government Edition)
Freestyler Form Factory
Freestyler Noticeboard

Datalink Services

Professional Website Design
Information Architecture Consulting
Implementation of a Content Management System
Programming (PHP4, MySQL, DHTML, XML, XHTML, CSS, Web Services/SOAP)

Technologies

Windows 2000 Server
Internet Information Service 5
Lotus Notes
SSL Encryption