Customer Case Study – The City of Rye

The City of Rye is a small (15,000 people) coastal city located an hour and 20 minutes northeast of New York City. 

They approached us to develop a mobile app that would improve community engagement, be easy to use, maintain and could be built within eight weeks at a reasonable cost.

Task at Hand

The first step was to organize a kick-off call so we could get a better understanding about their requirements, their content needs and to explain our process. From there we sent them a follow-up email with all of the information and content we needed to begin building the app. This included a request for some of their tangible assets, such as their branding scheme, their logos, any images they would like to use, as well as the content they would like us to include.

Action

Our team immediately got to work to begin building a beta app, which is a test version of the app. We create beta apps for all of our clients so they can provide us with feedback about what they like or don’t like about the app. We develop in a collaborative way all through the process so the client isn’t surprised or disappointed with the final result. This is critical in our process because it provides us important feedback to make the app better. 

After getting their feedback and making the required changes, the city got another opportunity to review the app before we officially launched it, which can be downloaded in the App Store or through Google Play. Once the app was launched we provided staff with hands-on training so they knew how to use the content management system (CMS) properly and manage the content on the app. 

Results 

In most cases, the apps we develop for municipalities are similar to the mobile app we developed for the City of Rye because many of them have the same requirements. With that said, this doesn’t mean we can’t customize an app. For example, the City of Rye wanted their app to be able to accept Freedom of Information Act requests from their residents. This was easily added through one of Info Grove’s modules. 

One of the best parts about Info Grove is how flexible the platform is, which comes with more than 35 different modules that can be easily used by the client’s staff to add or remove content. This helps to ensure the app reflects the changing needs of the municipality over time. For example, if a municipality wants to add or change a calendar or a new list of contacts, they can easily do that themselves with a few clicks of a mouse. Info Grove also provides support after the app is launched to help with any troubleshooting needs.

If you are a municipality that’s interested in engaging with your residents in a meaningful and informative way, download the City of Rye’s app to get a sense of what we can do for you. Alternatively, you can also contact us directly and we would be more than happy to discuss your community needs.

About the author: Karim Mansour is an Inside Sales Representative at 14 Oranges, the creators of the Info Grove platform.