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Cornwall Wildlife Trust

Automating how species and habitat data can be accessed by the public, through the web

Cornwall Wildlife Trust open on a tablet and mobile

The challenge

CWT & ERCCIS x Hiyield

The Cornwall Wildlife Trust (CWT) and The Environmental Record Centre for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (ERCCIS) had a new idea to help transform internal processes.

Services
Discovery & UX Design
Company Size

SME

Range

£80k -£100k

Website datasearch.erccis.org.uk/

The solution

Manually collating data was a dead end.

The idea was to automatically (digitally) retrieve the Geospatial species and habitat data gathered over the last fifty years through an application, delivering the data to people and businesses that need it.

The reports were a significant revenue stream for ERCCIS, so digitally transforming this process would create massive potential.

Previously, retrieving the information required employees to manually search their database, collate the right information, put it into the correct format, and then send it over – a lengthy process that can’t scale.

Taking the lead in this project was the ERCCIS manager, Martin Goodall. He recommended Hiyield’s expertise, and after a few meeting going through previous work, he saw that Hiyield were a great match.

A bespoke product to collate data and provide customers easy experience.

Objectives

Hiyield clarified the objectives and formed a clear vision for this unique digital product.

It would allow ERCCIS clients to self-serve by creating accounts and purchasing reports on a geographic location via the web. Data would then be retrieved from their database and converted into a PDF in real-time by a web app.

Discovering the project users

Hiyield’s Founder and head of technology, Matt Ville took the CWT and ERRCCIS team through a discovery session, putting together a user journey that their users would take, from ‘Home ‘to ‘Order Success’.

Many post-it notes later, the user journey was decided on how users would search, account types, search fields, and the PDF layout.

Matt then had all the information to create a product wireframe using Flow Mapp.

Developing the digital product sprint-by-sprint

Using an Agile approach, Hiyield utilised several technologies to overcome a massive amount of Geospatial data in the region of 5 Gigabytes – this is a lot bearing in mind the data is just text on a spreadsheet, no images or anything like that.

Key technical elements:

  • Language: C#, Javascript, CSS3, HTML5
  • Server-side: ASP.net MVC Web API
  • Client-side: Vue.js,
  • CSS and UI: Bootstrap CSS

While building the product, Hiyield came across new ideas and better ways of developing the product. At every sprint, Hiyield had meetings with Martin to discuss further and better options. 

Soon enough, the product was built. 

The results

Time to go live!

A soft rollout

CTW and ERCCIS directed their clients toward the new digital product. Hiyield carried out automatic testing, fixing errors or any significant problems. And over time, as the clients started using the product, Hiyield worked with the ERCCIS team to monitor and intercept any issues, making the product even smoother.

Customers are now buying rich data more than ever

The product works fluently with the users, providing information about Cornish Wildlife that is only a few clicks away. Martin and his team have achieved their vision, scaling up the amount of data they can give to clients and, ultimately, increasing revenue.

Cornwall Wildlife Trust open on a laptop
anita jones asterisk

Let’s get started!

Great digital products aren’t just built, they’re co-created. Together, let’s breathe life into your idea, crafting solutions that stand out.