Local animal rescue group trying to figure out best web solutions

September 2, 2017 7:57 AM

Web development for cats, the perfect AskMe question: An animal adoption org in Durham is trying to move to an easier-to-maintain web system. They are considering one approach (Wordpress, with interest in a couple of significant plug-ins) and have talked to one web development firm so far. Looking for insight on their technical approach and also advice on overall approach or other firms.

posting for the current web admin (who does have technical knowledge):

We've just consulted with a web development firm about moving our website, and all of it's current functionality, into Wordpress. They suggested the total cost would run $40 - $70K, which is likely a figure our board will not pay. I *think* the high cost would result because they will code many things by hand to give us the best/fastest possible site, instead of using existing plugins that can provide most of the same functionality at somewhat slower speeds.

What I want to know is whether you think we can accomplish workflows like the animal posts using a (cheaper) combination of plugins like:

Toolset Types and Views + Gravity Forms
https://carriedils.com/custom-post-types-gravity-forms/

1. Team leaders would create new animal entries using a Gravity Form that would add an entry to the Toolset Custom Post Type = Dog or Cat (or Animal)

2. Foster parents would submit photos and descriptions using a Gravity Form that would update the entry, putting it in a Pending Review status until it was approved by a web team member. It looks like Gravity Forms even enables us to populate select dropdowns (e.g. Foster Parent) with the Posts from another Custom Post Type (e.g. Dog Foster Volunteers).

3. We would layout the Adoptable Cats and Dogs pages using Toolset Views, which enables nice search and filter tools.

4. Animal status would be updated to Adopted using a Gravity Form that foster parents use to report adoption info.

Some other considerations -- For other workflows like Donations and Volunteers, Gravity Forms talks to applications like Paypal and iContact. No coding required. Moving the existing database over will be a pain (i.e., require some coding) but I understand how it would work.

What I don't understand is what are the limitations of the Toolset -- Gravity Forms combination? Why aren't the professionals recommending we go this route? I brought Toolset up in our meeting and they didn't spend any time considering it.

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info added by me/amtho:

* One answer to the question above: There has already been a decent amount of discussion on the wisdom or not of building a system on top of Wordpress plug-ins, but all by people who are not familiar with these specific plug-ins.

* Their old web system completely impressed me when I first started working with the group. It was simple, clear, worked just enough, and had avoided the kind of clumsy but impressive-looking cruft that one sometimes finds with non-profit sites developed by portfolio-builders. However, I think it was only maintainable by one person, and that person needed to be able to hand it off to other people, so they are looking for a more generic system.

* There are also currently tables and workflows for signing up volunteers and managing them, updates of individual volunteer entries as their role within the organization changes, and some functionality for emailing specific subsets of volunteers that perform specific roles in the organization (this email part currently works "like crap" according to the web admin).

* There is also a pretty involved relational database system and workflow for adoption applications involving a multi-page form for potential adopters; then that info is reviewed by a pre-screening committee which does some basic applicant checks (e.g., do they obviously live in an apartment that doesn't allow pets? Are they college undergrads who are likely to relocate after graduation?); then the info is handed to one or more individual fosterers for final review and animal adoption processing; final adoption contracts are automatically generated with adopter information and animal information already filled in (it's a pretty sweet system currently).

* One thing I haven't done is see whether other animal rescue orgs have an existing web framework we could use, or whether banding together with other orgs would make this more feasible.

* considering making a Mefi Jobs post about this, but I think we'd need clearer framing first. Still, if you have a lead, or are interested, feel free to send info to me.



Mefi cat tax: there are cat photos here, but they all need homes — you have been warned:
http://animalrescue.net/adoptacat
also dogs:
http://animalrescue.net/adoptadog


Thanks in advance for any help or guidance! It's a pretty substantial organization that will listen seriously to feedback. They are willing to pay for help, but not an insane amount. $40-70K is an insane amount.

posted by amtho to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

My advice to you.
You need to make everything as simple as possible, so that in the future you will pay less for the revision of the site
posted by leo cat at 8:23 AM on September 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

If you're going to go with WP as a solution, stick with plugins that are widely used and well maintained. If you part ways with these developers in the future, their custom code may be tricky to update or keep secure.

It's been a few years since I built something from scratch with WP, but it sounds like your workflow should be eminently achievable using the methods you lay out and doesn't merit an insane amount of money or custom solutionizing. In fact, Wordpress is such a mature product, there are probably several routes to get it to do what you want, just using preeexisting tools and integrations.

Do you have anyone on staff who is saavy enough / has enough time to do a quick P.O.C. test install using the tools you suggest? That would be my approach.

In my experience, design can soak up a lot of hours. Is design work included in this budget? Regarding this, I agree with what leo cat mentions: a simple design will hold up better over the years.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any platform specific to animal rescue foundations, but I'd be curious if any of them were using something like CivicCRM, particularly if they undertake any fundraising.

Finally, speaking as a web developer, I would never present a ballpark estimate with such a large range. That suggests built in scope creep to me. And a bit shortsighted if they intend to have a LTR with you for help with maintenance issues or future enhancements.

If more technical questions come up along the way, feel free to MeMail me and I'll give you my honest opinion.

I'm now going look at pix of adoptable cats and dogs and dream of a day when I'll live in a pet-friendly building.
posted by missmobtown at 8:47 AM on September 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

If I had any spare time at all, I would seriously be interested in taking this on - cats and web dev are what I do. Alas, I already have too many things on the go.

First off - please get another quote or three. 40-70k does sound high (and vague) for what is basically a Wordpress site with some custom flows for a non-profit. (There's always a chance I may be underestimating the complexity, however) Even if the quote isn't high, the approach they are recommending is just one approach - there are more likely several others that other webdev types could come up with.

You want simplicity here, because this site will be used for years, and will need to be maintained. Wordpress is fine - it currently powers some 25%+ of the web, and has a thriving ecosystem. I dont know enough about the plugins you're suggesting to validate or disprove your suggestions, but i suspect the web dev firm your talking to is disinterested because it would mean less work for them! They'd much rather get paid to build something from scratch. If there are existing plugins that do what you want and they're actively maintained, then in general you should look into them. You're not re-creating the wheel here - everything you're looking for has been done before, so its wise to leverage existing work that already has the kinks worked out!

If you're worried about site speed and performance, there are ways to improve that with caching, etc that dont involve full scale rewrites from scratch. Get something working first, then worry about optimizing it for speed later. Premature optimization is a common trap you dont want to fall into.

Feel free to PM me if you have more questions. I'm not up to speed on WP specifics these days, but if I can use my 10+ years of web dev experience to help the kitties with some honest opinions, I will!
posted by cgg at 8:55 AM on September 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

Check your PMs, I have a friend in Raleigh who used to run a web shop and would be able to give you a ballpark idea of whether this makes any sense at all. To my mind this is crazy high (and, agreed, the range is too wide) for something built on a free platform unless the design is super sweet and custom. Does all the shelter's workflow need to make it to the web platform, in your opinion? Could a nice web front end to the existing database work?
posted by jessamyn at 9:29 AM on September 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for the responses so far; I'll definitely forward info to the web admin and org, and I think they'll be interested. Not a lot of time to reply right now (unloading flooring), but: am particularly interested in whether people have knowledge of the specific plug-ins mentioned: Gravity Forms and Toolset Types and Views.

All responses are still very welcome, though.
posted by amtho at 12:53 PM on September 2, 2017

I, too, would definitely suggest getting more quotes.

I would also suggest looking at Drupal, which, like WordPress, is widely used and heavily tested. Unlike WordPress, the vast majority of Drupal plugins are free, which, in my experience, means a little less overlap and duplicated functionality, and a LOT more community work enhancing and supporting the existing, available-to-everyone plugins.

In my experience, WordPress is really great for a lot of things, but one place where Drupal really does better is when you need lots of flexible content types - like Animals, Volunteers, and Foster Parents - which Drupal's built-in Content Types feature handles really well. So I think you could do a lot of what you're talking about above using Content Types and Webforms in Drupal.

One piece that might be difficult and expensive no matter which route you go may be the data import - sometimes the 80/20 rule comes into play and 80% of that process is easy and cheap but there's one piece that just becomes a huge time sink.

For a project with this level of complexity, I would recommend doing a proper discovery process with a firm - if you can find a firm you like - to spell out exactly all the items you'll need and estimate how much each piece will cost. So, for example, it would list all the existing data tables you need to import, and all the screens visitors and internal team members will see. Something like this is often a paid project, but at the end, you'll have a document that can generate realistic bids, broken down by major components: $10,000 for design, $2,000 for the bare-bones site, $750 for the New Animal form, etc. You could take that document and request a few WordPress bids and a few Drupal bids - specifying that the bids should include a breakdown by major component - and see how those specific numbers compare.

$40,000-70,000 sounds insane to me, too, but it's hard to say for sure unless you have a REALLY THOROUGH project specification.

If you'd like any more info about Drupal and its built-in options, please feel free to memail me. I'd be happy to show you some sites I've worked on and talk about the discovery process.
posted by kristi at 1:07 PM on September 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Agree 100% with kristi. Drupal -- and its flexibility with custom content types -- makes it a natural for this project. Check out the list of Drupal distributions and see if anything comes close to what you're looking for.
posted by porn in the woods at 1:25 PM on September 2, 2017

From your description, it sounds like the system you have now is somewhere between good and excellent. It does a ton of different stuff and it sounds like it does most of it well. Have you investigated the possibility of finding a development company or developer to maintain and modify the existing system? No matter how bad it is, it can be maintained and improved little by little. You can fix up pieces of it (like the e-mail handling) and keep the stuff you have and like. It's easy to underestimate how much the existing code is adapted to your workflow and organization, and how much time and money you'll spend tweaking and debugging something new just to get back to the level of functionality you have now.

Most organizations wouldn't say that their internal systems are "pretty sweet", "simple [and] clear", or that they are "completely impressed" by them. Most IT projects end up over budget, late, delivered with defects, or all three. I don't mean to be a curmudgeon, but I wouldn't take it for granted that even a $70k custom-built system would be overall better than what you're using now.

If you're hell-bent on replacing it, start small. Pick the piece of your current system you hate most, or that's the least flexible, or that's the hardest to maintain, and get a quote for just replacing that. Don't let them tell you that it can't be integrated with your current system. Get that built and deployed, get the whole organization using it in place of the old stuff, and see how it works for you before you start on the next project.
posted by pocams at 1:56 PM on September 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

Have you reached out to Orange County animal shelter to talk about their approach? They have a system that does much of what you describe and their assistant director is amazing and very approachable.
posted by melodykramer at 4:54 PM on September 2, 2017

If you aren't specific and you ask a web shop to give you the best solution they can, they are going to show you a Cadillac. Using plugins makes things a little faster, but I don't think it actually removes as much work as you think it does. All those plugins need to fit together and this, at least as I have been told by friends who do a bunch of custom Wordpress work, is not always easy. All those plugins need to produce results that are visually consistent and have both a well-designed public-facing front end and a well-designed interface for the staff using it. Doing this in such a way that it looks and feels great and super-professional is not cheap. The fact that someone else can set you up a site on Wordpress for $500 that will display some stuff and let people submit some forms--the experience of using those two sites is not going to be the same, and most notably, that $500 site is not going to look and feel anywhere near as good as your current interface. The one that will be tens of thousands of dollars will be better than where you are now. If you want something in the middle of those two spaces, you need to communicate the actual budget as a part of this process.

I suspect a lot of the very nice, slick sites you might see some animal rescues with, especially in large urban areas, are not things they managed to somehow get made on $500--they're things that were created with hours donated by local developers and designers who could have billed at high rates but didn't. If they're an organization of that size in an area that's got to have a decent-sized tech community, it seems like someone might have some connections that could help make that happen.
posted by Sequence at 8:46 PM on September 2, 2017

While $40,000-70,000 is insane, there is no need to move to Drupal. We've built a very similar site to what you outline about 5 years ago; it's a bit dated now, but is built on WP, is fully responsive, uses Gravity Forms for form and submission management, etc. Ideally the site would be integrated with Stripe as well as PayPal, but they'll slow to take board-level decisions.

Were I charging for a similar site today with a refreshed, new design the charge would be less than $10K.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:16 PM on September 3, 2017

I just came across a comment on askreddit about why companies sometimes put in a bid that's unrealistically high. Basically, they might not want to do it for some reason or another but it'd make them look bad if they didn't give any quote at all.
posted by yoHighness at 5:12 AM on September 6, 2017