Pension Support Service

Project Brief

Circle Medical Services first approached us when the sole developer responsible for building the first version of the Pension Support Service website was no longer able to support them, a story we hear regularly. Although the initial remit was to build just one website, we quickly identified that we needed to build and support a platform that was ready to scale as Circle Medical Services had ambitious plans to roll out their services to more NHS trusts across the UK.

Our Proposal

Based on our discussions with the client, we proposed the following:

• Create a WordPress website that utilises multisite functionality to enable further near-identical websites to be spun up with ease;
• Develop functionality to allow users to sign-up via employee number;
• Add custom event management to give the ability to add events and enable user registration, including email notifications.

Web Development

WordPress Multisite

We utilised the WordPress Multisite feature, allowing us to create multiple websites using a shared theme and shared assets, with a single back-end for admins to access and maintain.

This means that each site has the same information and resources, but unique events. It also means that users for that particular site can only view those events available to them. Throughout the years, we have added more sites – recently adding two more NHS regions. WordPress multisite makes it easy for us to set up new sites as needed, while providing each NHS trust with a dedicated space.

Event Confirmation & Reminders

The system will send a confirmation email to the member once their booking is made, with an additional reminder email being sent again shortly before the event begins to maximise attendance.

Video Conferencing Links

What’s more, as online attendance has become the norm, we’ve added the functionality to allow any event to be virtual rather than at a physical location. This allows admins to add a link to the event (such as Microsoft Teams, Google Meet or Zoom) that is automatically included in booking confirmation and reminder emails, allowing users to easily join on the day.

Event Calendar Integration

The latest improvement to this system to maximise attendance is calendar integration, whereby emails now include an iCalendar attachment to add the event to your calendar app of choice (Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Apple Calendar, etc.). Not only will the user receive emails from our system, but their calendar will also help ensure they don’t forget to attend; depending on their settings and digital habits, it will be included in their daily schedule digest and as device push notifications. The calendar item will also include a link for members to join the event, if provided.

User Import

The previous site was built on Umbraco, which notoriously doesn’t play well with others, so we built a custom script to transform the user registration data (including encrypted passwords) from the Umbraco database to import into WordPress. Users were therefore able to log into the new website without having to re-register, and only upon successfully authorising the user against their Umbraco login details did we automatically convert their account to use WordPress’ password encryption method.

Secure User Registration

Security is paramount for these sites – only authorised users should be able to register and login. Therefore, each month we receive the employee numbers of staff from each NHS trust that have authority to register, and we update our database.

When a user registers, they are asked to provide their employee number which we match against our database. We also periodically remove any users whose employee number no longer exists, indicating they have left the corresponding NHS trust and should no longer be granted access to Pension Support Services.