Portuguese Ministry of National Defense and Military Recruitment Portal
Government and Public Services
Nominee
Case description
The Ministry of National Defense is the governing department of the Portuguese central administration whose mission is to formulate, conduct, execute and evaluate national defense policy.In 1997 a new Military Service Law was passed, which excluded its obligation and stipulated that the provision of Military Service would become voluntary. Over the years, this move, coupled with some military discontent over the stagnation of wages as well as advancing military careers, has led to a very high deficit in the Armed Forces.
The Government, together with the Armed Forces, launched an action plan for professionalization, of which it was an integral part, to develop an effective communication platform in support of recruitment to recruit more and better, retain more time, and to qualify young people for military service in the face of a vocation crisis.
The Directorate-General for Portuguese National Defense has proposed to JAVALI the design and development of a portal based on the dissemination of the benefits of Military Recruitment (in the areas of the Army, Air Force and Navy), more specifically: aggregate information related to the configuration of military recruitment (the intervening structures; the processes; the requirements); aggregate the information (in various media) that characterizes the various specialties, classes, or existing functional areas (activities; training pathways; geographical placement areas; access requirements; training entities); provide updated information on open competitions; enable citizens to research professional areas, based on variables that define their personal characterization profile (adequacy between personal characteristics and job requirements) and allow citizens to clarify more elaborate doubts that require more information detailed.
Case goals and results
As a final result, the urgent tool for effective communication in support of military recruitment, as part of the action plan for professionalization, was achieved, through which the Government and the Armed Forces' mission is to respond to the challenge of recruiting more and better, retain more time, qualify young people for military service, and increase the presence of women in military service, which is well-demanded in international missions.The Military Recruitment Portal has a modern,intuitive and user centered design, perfectly matched to its main target: young M/F aged 18-30 looking for information on careers/professions and training; and also with its secondary target: vocational and vocational guidance professionals.
Thus it is based on a dynamic structure that allows the updating of available professions and vacancies, and where all the information is personalized, according to the user, that is, according to the age and literacy of each one there is a diverse offer of professional options that can be filtered taking into account the different areas of interest, the type of profession and even by geographical location where that offer takes place.
The contents provided, also contain a number of useful information in the areas that comprise Military Recruitment, such as “Being Military”, “Military Professions and Recruitment” (search of military professions/specialties by criteria to be defined as age/qualifications, location; by areas of interest), where stakeholders have at their disposal various content, such as access to their personal area, news, testimonials, images and videos about the “Military Service Model”, “Institutional Films” (representative films of the different specialties/professions of the three branches of the Armed Forces), “Incentive Systems” (benefits and conditions) the “role of women in the Armed Forces” (in the Navy, Army and Air Force) as well as updated information on “Open Competitions”, “Career and Remuneration”, “Conditions of Admission and Application Phases”, “Recruitment Centers and Training Units statement ”.
All of this information is clearly available to citizens, aiming to dispel the preconceived notion that military life is very hard and based on physical effort and thus reach young people by fully disclosing the possibilities of joining a more solid, structured and more attractive career in the Armed Forces.
Challenges
This project was developed in Drupal through which we can guarantee the main features and services requested by the client, namely:*The creation of a tailor-made portal, ensuring a unique, integrated and harmonized image of the Armed Forces;
*The responsive web design that facilitates reading and browsing regardless of the type of equipment the end user uses to access the portal (PC, tablets and smartphones),the speed of connection and the special needs of some citizens.
* Elaboration of a few content types with specific presentation ensuring the end user focus on important information
* Copy-write of the Main Pages (uniformity of the language type and adaptation of the communication style to the Audience); Georeferenced Map (with the location of available careers); Real Time Counters (Counters on both Homepage and Professions, being automatically updated by introducing/removing/updating Backoffice, for example: 235 Available Vacancies); Automatic dates (application dates closing and opening on specific times).
* It allowed the creation of multiple types of content and taxonomies to ensure the proper presentation of the various elements, as well as the uniformity of presentation.
* Search Engines (SEO): Use of keywords to get relevance in the major search engines.
* Website Trafficking (Providing Google Analytics for the website)
* Backoffice: Backoffice's structure and layout that allows input, update and removal of data on all pages.
* Grant full autonomy to the team that coordinates the Recruitment portal by being intuitive in content creation and editing.
* Usability being an intuitive and user-friendly portal.
* Characterized by robustness and modular flexibility, scalable to future features, ensuring the use/evolution of existing modules.
* No licensing costs.
* Being open source allows it to be easily audited to ensure all security requirements.
* Code standards having been used the latest W3C code formats which allow for constant technical updating.
* Interoperability and open standards, in compliance with article 2/2018, of 5 January, of the Council of Ministers Resolution revising the National Regulation on Digital Interoperability (RNID).
* Content accessibility, where you have achieved the AAA level (maximum level) of the World Content Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
* Allow and explore the added value of using social media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter).
* Security with data privacy (GDPR) and its performance.
Community contributions
This project served to demonstrate to various public entities that Drupal is a viable and safe alternative for government portals. With the development of this project in drupal, all public entities have started to see drupal with different eyes and the whole Drupal community can be proud of the results obtained with this project.From the development point of view, some modules have been improved and will soon be available to the community, translations have been made and issues have been placed.
Why should this case win the splash awards?
With this project the effective communication tool that the client wanted was achieved, an innovative portal with a modern, simplex and intuitive design, centered on the user experience, perfectly framed with its main target, based on a dynamic navigation and structure that allow the customer to enjoy, the quick and effective search of all information regarding military careers. The development team also ensured that key measures such as content accessibility, interoperability and open standards, usability and code standards (W3C code) that allow for constant technical updating were guaranteed.At the same time and to the satisfaction of both parties, a tailor-made portal was developed from the Directorate-General for National Defense Resources, ensuring a unique, integrated and harmonized image of the Armed Forces, constituting a multiplatform/responsive design based on Ux. Design, User interface design + front end, integrated with search engines (SEO), providing Google Analytics for the website and integration with social networks. This portal is also characterized by robustness and modular flexibility, scalable to future features, ensuring the enjoyment/evolution of existing modules, having an intuitive backoffice (structure and layout) in the introduction, updating and removal of content, which allowed the team to coordinate the Recruitment portal gain full autonomy.
Because it is open source, it can be easily audited to ensure all security requirements and without licensing costs.
This is a real Drupal project with national coverage and international exposure which can be considered a Drupal ambassador and should be rewarded with a splash award.