SOCIY | Sass for YMCAs Case Study

Discover and Design:

Many YMCAs face a recurring issue of time vs investment. Their core brand values of respect, responsibility, honest and caring instill a standard of accessibility to everyone that permeates all aspects of their organization. However, keeping up with evolving web standards to ensure inclusion often means building out a new website every 3-5 years. This takes an incredible amount of time and money, both of which often distract Y leaders from their core mission. To help solve this issue, Code Koalas developed Sociy - a Software As A Service (SASS) solution that allows YMCA’s to have a dynamic web presence at a fraction of the cost.

Before we began developing the core functionality of Sociy, we first looked at what Y’s needed most from a website. Across the board, most Y’s need the same basic functionality and features, which include basic administration tasks, content editing, showcasing and registering for programs, custom campaign landing pages, and more. We took these core features and created a roadmap to build a SASS platform. Our team then took the YMCA’s brand standards and created a customizable, site-wide design from scratch that was both modern and functional. Through story points and creative UX, we ensured that customer and administration workflows were easy to view and intuitive to navigate

Buildout

When Code Koalas began to build Sociy, we first focused on creating a robust backend. Content entities and common views were created, and administration workflow was built. From the start, we had the understanding that not all Y’s need the same level of functionality, so we built Sociy to be scalable depending on the size and needs of different YMCA’s. Coupled with the power of Docker, we created a drush framework that allowed us to quickly automate the spinup of new Sociy sites with minimal time and effort. Once the backend foundation was created, we began to integrate the designs into the front end experience.

One of the biggest challenges we faced was the reality that many Y’s used different API’s such as Daxko and CCC for program registration. To solve this, we created custom plug and play modules for each common API, allowing the Y’s to easily plug in their credentials and start utilizing the system that they have used for years.

Throughout the process, our project managers tested each module and feature that was added to Sociy, and provided feedback to our developers in real time. Once the core site was complete, we populated the site with content that was applicable to the YMCA brand, ensuring an out of the box solution that would save YMCA’s hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in site maintenance costs.

Launch

Sociy is now a robust SASS platform used by over 30 YMCA’s across the country. Utilizing a tier system, individual Y’s can select the components and level of API integration that best fits their needs, and have a new website up in days instead of months. Custom API integrations can be seamlessly added, and Y’s can upgrade their tier features at any time. Additionally, any custom functionality we develop for specific Y’s is pushed out to everyone else, ensuring a constantly evolving platform that caters to the specific needs of YMCA’s.