SRF Los Gatos Center

Industry

Spiritual and Community Services

Services

Portal Development, Event Management System, Content Management System

Technology

Drupal

Client Objective

SRF Los Gatos Center engaged EbizON to conceptualize, interface, architect, design, develop, and deploy a new portal using Drupal. The goal was to create a system that allowed staff to easily manage events, services, announcements, and daily quotes, while improving user experience and operational efficiency.

Introduction

The Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) Los Gatos Center, a branch of the SRF founded by Paramahansa Yogananda in 1920, serves the communities of Silicon Valley, including Santa Clara County and neighboring areas. SRF’s mission is to disseminate the universal teachings of Kriya Yoga, a sacred spiritual science from India. The Los Gatos Center required a robust portal to efficiently manage their events, services, announcements, and daily quotes.

Challenge

The SRF Los Gatos Center faced several challenges with their existing website:

Inefficient Content Management: The process of producing, approving, and publishing content was lengthy, often taking 2-3 weeks.
Limited Staff Involvement: Only a few staff members could manage the website, leading to bottlenecks.
High Inquiry Volume: The center received numerous phone calls from devotees seeking information about events and services, indicating a lack of effective communication via the website.
Outdated Event Management: The existing event calendar was not user-friendly, causing inconvenience to users and staff alike.

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What We Did?

EbizON undertook the following steps to address the challenges:

Conceptualization and Design: We collaborated with SRF to understand their requirements and conceptualize a user-friendly portal. Our design team crafted an intuitive interface that aligned with SRF’s aesthetics and functionality needs.
Architecting and Development: Utilizing Drupal, we architected a robust backend system that facilitated easy content management. We developed modules for event management, announcements, and daily quotes.
Deployment and Training: Post-development, we deployed the portal and conducted training sessions for SRF staff to ensure they were comfortable using the new system. We also created documentation to support ongoing maintenance.

Outcome

The new portal significantly enhanced the operational efficiency and user experience for SRF Los Gatos Center:

Reduced Content Management Time: The time required to produce, approve, and publish content was reduced from 2-3 weeks to just a few hours.
Enhanced Staff Involvement: The easy-to-use interface allowed various committee chairpersons to manage their specific areas, reducing bottlenecks.
Decreased Inquiries: The new, user-friendly event calendar and improved information accessibility led to a marked reduction in phone inquiries from devotees.
Positive Feedback: SRF received numerous compliments from members about the professional look and ease of navigation of the new website.

Client Feedback

This is to inform you how pleased we are with the new website for our Center of Self-Realization Fellowship that you and your team at EbizON helped design and implement for us. From the day our new website was launched, we have received numerous compliments from our members about the ease of navigation and the overall professional look and feel of the new website.

In addition, we have noticed a marked reduction in the number of phone calls we used to receive from devotees who were unable to find various pieces of information on our old website, such as the timings of various services or special events. We feel that your team was able to fully understand our goals and objectives, which are reflected in the immediate appeal of the new site to our targeted audience.

We are also very satisfied with the ease of maintenance of our new site. The easy-to-use interface you have provided has enabled us to delegate to various committee chairpersons the task of maintaining their specific areas on the website, such as the quarterly calendar of events, the upcoming special events and fliers, etc. In the past, all pages had to be maintained by the same person, which sometimes and understandably led to a bottleneck situation.

Lastly, we are very impressed with the professionalism demonstrated by you and your team at EbizON throughout our working relationship. We are also very appreciative of your responsiveness to our issues and questions even after the completion of the project and the full payment. The example that comes to mind is the addition of the Captcha feature to our donation pledge page in order to reduce the number of spam entries.

Annette Chavez-Fountain, Coordinator
Hom Bahmanyar, Council Member