It’s been a hectic couple of months for the Delicious Media team as we get deeper into our multisite, multilingual project and take on new clients and new challenges for existing clients. Here’s what we’ve been up to in the Delicious Media studio…
Our work continues on our client’s multilingual LearnDash platform…
We’re currently working on adding gamification to the site to improve the learner’s experience and engagement with the teaching materials. Learners are awarded points for each module and course they complete on a single site, these points are then applied across the other sites in the network, earning them badges that they can collect to show their expertise. These badges can be shared on their social media profiles or added to their email signatures to showcase their specialisms.
We’ve also been working on a reporting feature to analyse the progress each learner has made on each course. Then collating that data into an attractive progress dashboard for them to visually see how much they’ve achieved and what they have yet to complete. This has been an interesting challenge as the learners can be midway through multiple courses across multiple sites in the network, so the data needs to be sent from each site into one central report for each learner profile.
We have also created a one-click registration process for existing users, so they can register on multiple sites without having to fill in all their details each time. Their profile data is recognised across all the sites in the network, saving them time and creating a better user experience. This is probably one the biggest challenges we have taken on here at Delicious as it has the added complexity of managing translations across the network of sites.
Custom Gutenberg block for Lottie files
Lottie animations (a JSON-based animation file that can be displayed across devices and scale without losing quality) don’t, by default, work well with standard Gutenberg blocks. We created a custom block for a client so they could integrate this content on their existing site without the need for a plugin.
New course licensing system for existing LearnDash sites
An existing client was looking for a way to change how they sell access to courses on LearnDash. Their current setup would allocate credits to their clients by company and each new learner from that company would use one credit. In the new system, credits can be applied on a course-by-course basis and a course can be assigned a different credit value. This gives the client more flexibility for how they sell courses and manage learners.
We also added a custom enrolment form that can be dynamically tailored to each new company the clients signs up. This means that the form can collect different information about each learner, without the need for a new form to be created manually each time.
Each company is then given a unique link to access their tailored enrolment form for their employees, giving a better experience for them.
This has significantly simplified the onboarding process as the custom form fields can be added and removed by the client so they are able to manage this in-house without paying for additional development time.
A fault-finding mission!
A client contacted us to help find and fix an issue with their learners being unable to progress through a course on LearnDash. Our mission was to identify why this was happening and fix the issue for the client. What made this more challenging for us was that we didn’t build this website, so we had to rely a little on the client walking us through their processes to see if we could identify what had caused the issue. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long to pinpoint where a simple change to a question was causing LearnDash to prevent learners from moving on to the next stage in the course. Once identified, we were able to rewrite the conditions for LearnDash and provide helpful guidance for the client to update courses in the future.
HubSpot Add-on
HubSpot offers an integration with WordPress and LearnDash websites to capture customer data and automatically feed this back into HubSpot’s CRM and email marketing software via their API. HubSpot is becoming more popular among our clients, and we’ve had a couple of requests to integrate the system with their websites so they can automate their marketing and sales processes.
Creating a map based database solution
An existing client in the built environment sector came to us with a database of development opportunities that they wanted to display on a searchable map for property developers to use to source new opportunities. We integrated an interactive map into their website and added a login area where property developers can save their projects.
WordPress Leeds Meetups are back!
We took a break in August, but we were back in full swing in September, hosting the WordPress Leeds online meetup of fellow WordPress developers and users from around the Leeds area. The group meets each month to discuss current projects, challenges and developments with the WordPress platform.
Women in Tech
Steph has been involved in the Sheffield Women in Tech organisation since the beginning of 2022 and had the honour of organising the July face-to-face meetup. After a break over the summer, a programme of autumn events has been announced – the first of which was last week with a high tea supporting MacMillian Cancer Support. Women in Tech aims to support and encourage women in technology.
