Parse3 News & Articles

Crayola International Sitecore Initiative Launched

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:56:00 -0500

Crayola has engaged Parse3 to assist in the launch of eight international site versions of Crayola.com which is built upon Sitecore’s enterprise CMS. This began with the initial launch of a global and localized version of the Australian Crayola site.

“We were really excited when Crayola reached out to us with their international initiative,” said Peter Ladka, President and CEO of Parse3. “Localized websites are an important part of Crayola’s ongoing marketing plan. With Parse3’s strong technical experience in developing localized websites, we felt like we were a good partner fit for Crayola.”

Parse3 will be assisting in the launch of additional Crayola sites within the Sitecore CMS in Europe and Asia well into 2013. The architecture that Parse3 developed will allow for rapid spin-up of additional sites which will reduce the friction of considering more international deployments after the eight in the current initiative.

When asked to comment, James Brown, the Director of Information Solutions at Crayola stated “After a few conversations with Parse3 it became clear that they were just the type of talent we needed. They evidently have a vast understanding of Sitecore and quickly gained an understanding of what Crayola needs. The fact that they were able to deliver on time and on-budget was key to the success of our plans. We look forward to continuing this work with Parse3.”

Sitecore's Specialization Program Selects Partners Demonstrating "Above and Beyond" Competencies

Wed, 02 May 2012 16:00:00 -0400

"The CMS is the heart of any Sitecore site project, but select Sitecore partners like Parse3 have demonstrated competency in going above and beyond with related technologies." - Sitecore

Parse3 is being recognized as having achieved specialization status in the following categories:

Email Campaign Management (ECM)

This can include utilization of Sitecore CRM connector or custom connection developed for a particular customer need

Demonstrate and share with Sitecore technical team the level of experience acquired
Considered by many customers the greatest divergence from traditional CMS project
Significant investment in the promotion of CRM integration is expected in 2011 and beyond

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Partner has successfully proven effective integration with ANY industry leading CRM technology
This can include utilization of Sitecore CRM connector or custom connection developed for a particular customer need
Demonstrate and share with Sitecore technical team the level of experience acquired
Considered by many customers the greatest divergence from traditional CMS project
Significant investment in the promotion of CRM integration is expected in 2011 and beyond

Sitecore Certified Marketer (DMS)

In addition to being awarded the above specialization status from Sitecore, Parse3 has also achieved the still rare DMS Marketer Certification in April 2012.

Florida high school junior job shadows Tom Antola at Parse3

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:27:00 -0400

Each year, the Warwick Chamber of Commerce matches up students from the local high schools with a business mentor from a local business for a day of job shadowing. The goal is to expose the students to an actual job or profession which coincides with their particular area of interest.

When Tom Antola, Tech Lead at P3 and father of a daughter entering HS next year, heard about the job shadowing program that the chamber was running, he remembered how much his own mentor helped him find his way to a successful career in computer programming. He felt that volunteering his own time would be a great way to give back.

Tom was matched up with ambitious Florida High School Junior, Adam Meier, who is already cultivating his great interest in designing video games and is also part of the high school science club which recently received a MIT grant.

Prior to the job shadow day at Parse3, Tom and Adam spoke at the Meet and Greet arranged by The Chamber so that each teen would be able to ask questions about appropriate attire and how they should prepare. During that meeting Adam expressed his interest in video game design and his desire to attend The Rochester Institute of Technology.

When Adam visited Parse3, he not only learned about the kinds of technology Parse3 chooses to design and build solutions with, but he also was able to meet up with 4 RIT graduates who happen to work at Parse3. Later in the day, he was even invited to sit in on a weekly status meeting for Parse3 Fortune 500 customer, Pearson Education, in order to learn more about software development life cycle and process with important customers.

Of his experience that day, Adam commented, “Even if I do not plan to go into programming, seeing the work environment that day was a big help in visualizing my future."

Parse3 and CHCF Recognized as Sitecore’s Site of the Year 2011 Category Winners for Best Healthcare Website in North America

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:58:00 -0400

Software Solutions Company, Parse3, announced today that customer, California HealthCare Foundation, and P3 have been named the 2011 North American Sitecore Site of the Year healthcare category winners. They are being recognized for their use of Sitecore’s Web Content Management (CMS) and digital marketing technology to develop more effective business processes and advanced web strategies.

CHCF.org, which won for best healthcare website, is the flagship site of the nonprofit, grant-making philanthropy, California HealthCare Foundation. The Foundation works as a catalyst to fulfill the promise of better health care for all Californians. It supports ideas and innovations that improve quality, increase efficiency, and lower the costs of care. The new site, created in conjunction with Project6 Design, provides a more engaging online gathering place for grantees and a better way to deliver their large library of content and information through multiple marketing channels in a synchronized and automated fashion.

“Parse3 has demonstrated excellence in creating a website that combines a creative design with rich data sources and applications to educate, inform and motivate website visitors,” said Jason Crea, VP Client and Partner Engagement, Sitecore. “We were impressed with the overall user experience of the site.”

Sitecore’s Site of the Year contest recognizes organizations that have leveraged Sitecore’s technology to develop the most outstanding websites. Nominations are judged on creativity, integration with rich data sources and applications, the ability to engage, educate and motivate an action, and the overall user experience. The Sitecore Site of the Year contest is divided into four regions, International, Denmark, UK, and North America.

About Sitecore
Sitecore redefines how organizations engage with audiences, powering compelling experiences that sense and adapt to visitors both online and in-person.

Sitecore ‘s leading Content Management System software is the first to cohesively integrate with marketing automation, intranet portal, e-commerce, web optimization, social media and campaign management technologies. This broad choice of capabilities enable marketing professionals, business stakeholders and information technology teams to rapidly implement, measure and manage a successful website and digital business strategy. Businesses can now easily identify, serve and convert new customers with Sitecore’s Digital Marketing System, part of its encompassing Customer Engagement Platform.

Thousands of public and private organizations have created and now manage more than 32,000 dynamic websites with Sitecore including ATP World Tour, CA Technologies, Comcast, Heineken, Microsoft, Omni Hotels, Siemens, The Knot and Verizon.

Sitecore Only .NET Player in Leader Section of Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 15:47:00 -0500

Today, enterprises expect Web Content Management to provide measurable business benefits, not just to improve productivity. Therefore, many enterprises must look for new WCM offerings. The November 2011 Magic Quadrant from Gartner Research evaluates the key vendors within this new context for the first time. Last year, Parse3 became a Certified Sitecore Partner due to the robust nature of Sitecore's CMS (Content Management System) and accompanying DMS (Digital Marketing System). As you can see, Sitecore received great recognition as the only .NET solution in the leaders section of the Magic Quadrant. It's nice to receive outside confirmation of our choice in a partner!

Download the entire Gartner Report for a full analysis of each WCM offering.

Parse3, Launches New Web Presence for the California HealthCare Foundation

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Software solutions company Parse3 announces the launch of a new flagship website for nonprofit philanthropy, the California HealthCare Foundation. After recently creating and implementing a plan for a more unified and autonomous hosting environment for all of CHCF’s associated websites, Parse3 turned its attention to the complete redesign of the highly visited California HealthCare Foundation website, CHCF.org.

The new website, built in conjunction with award-winning agency Project6 Design, provides a more engaging online gathering place for grantees with its new graphics, site architecture and user interface. CHCF administrators now enjoy the ability to enter, synchronize and distribute a large library of content through multiple marketing channels. This synching of information supports multiple touch points for the “Ideas and Innovations” messages provided by CHCF to site users and grantees.

Sitecore’s comprehensive CMS was utilized for the redesign because of its sophisticated content management and robust customer relationship attributes. Its modular attributes allowed for creating distinct building blocks so that web pages could be truly unique yet share content in a variety of ways. As always, the need for a user-friendly control panel for administrators is satisfied by Sitecore’s intuitive and familiar framework.

See more details on how Parse3 used Sitecore to manage and repurpose large quantities of content in the CHCF case study.

About the California HealthCare Foundation

California HealthCare Foundation works as a catalyst to fulfill the promise of better health care for all Californians. The nonprofit, grant-making philanthropy supports ideas and innovations that improve quality, increase efficiency, and lower the costs of care.

Custom Software Development Company, Parse3, Adds to Business Development Team

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:24:00 -0400

Parse 3, is proud to announce the addition of Kate Brunkhorst to the business development team as part of Parse3’s continuing efforts to provide more customers with reliable software solutions. The outreach will focus on three industry segments in which Parse3 has garnered vast experience. They are Ad Agency partnerships and Sitecore CMS and DMS solutions as well as completely custom application development.

Kate Brunkhorst graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University this past spring with a Bachelor of Science in Public Relations. She has excelled in NYC internships at Attention, which is a renowned PR and Social Media Marketing firm, and at Perceptional Production, a post-production company.

On the side, Kate runs her own multimedia marketing consultation business and blog, Fruit Root Marketing.

“We feel fortunate to have found Kate at a time when it is more important than ever to reach out to clients, informing them and arming them with great technology solutions which will reliably improve their functionality and efficiency. Building and maintaining long-term relationships with our customers based on trust and reliability is very important to us and we believe Kate is a perfect candidate to help us in those endeavors,” says Peter Ladka, president of Parse3.

Mobile Web Development - Top Reasons to Consider jQuery Mobile for Your Mobile Site Build

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

As a software development company who consistently uses cutting edge technologies and tools to provide the best possible applications for all our clients, we naturally searched for just the right mechanism to build our own mobile website, m.parse3.com. The jQuery Mobile Framework which includes multi-platform support, a very native app feel along with an appealingly lightweight footprint, met our high standards of excellence and was chosen.

Since we utilize jQuery for some of our software development projects already, we have developed a significant amount of trust in its library which provides many features and conveniences – another good reason to choose jQuery Mobile. Leveraging a framework tailored for mobile devices that is built on this powerful library meant that we could focus more on the user experience side of the project. While the mobile framework is still in the Alpha stage (at the time of this writing), the open source nature ensures continued support and enhancements.

More on our favorite jQuery Mobile features:

1. Multi-platform Support

The fact that the jQuery Mobile framework provides such consistency across multiple mobile operating systems was a huge bonus for us. We didn’t have to create multiple workarounds or separate layouts in order to support the vast majority of smartphones.

2. Native App Feel

jQuery Mobile utilizes AJAX to create a similar feel to that of a native app for the user by streamlining page loading and eliminating full page loads. When an internal link is clicked in a mobile page, the framework loads the HTML in the background and then uses a transition animation to display the new page within the page’s content area. This method keeps the site feeling more responsive and more akin to an app instead of a web site.

Another benefit stems from the caching that happens in the framework. If a user needs to open a page that was opened previously, jQuery Mobile can just display the saved HTML instead of downloading the page again. This benefits the user by reducing bandwidth usage, as well as keeping the site feeling snappy.

3. Small Footprint

Bandwidth is sometimes an extremely valuable resource for smartphone users. The jQuery Mobile Framework recognizes this and provides a very compact code base. This resource conservation carries over from the sideloading method from the previous point. By keeping pages cached as well as only changing the contents of the page instead of refreshing the entire thing, a user can be assured that resources aren’t downloaded multiple times.

4. Optimized for Touch Input

Mobile devices use touch for input almost exclusively now, and the jQuery Mobile team recognized this. They provided a flexible system for creating UI widgets that are optimized for such controls. HTML elements can be easily transformed into large buttons, toggle switches, sliders, dialogs, and a host of other items. This rich set of layouts and widgets can be utilized to create rich user experiences. Our mobile site didn’t have much need for many of the form elements, but we did utilize a number of the layout elements provided (popup dialogs, list views, and navigation bars primarily).

Our experience with the jQuery Mobile Framework was very positive overall. We are definitely looking forward to seeing the project mature over time and see what direction the framework takes in its future iterations. Visit m.parse3.com (or simply parse3.com from your smartphone) to see the mobile site and leave us a comment.

Software Solutions Company, Parse3, Launches Its Mobile Website Using jQuery Mobile in Alpha Test Phase

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Software solutions and custom web development company, Parse3, is pleased to announce the launch of m.parse3.com, an optimized version of the Parse3 corporate website for smartphone web browsing. Parse3 continually researches new technologies and tools in order to provide its customers with the best possible applications. It is of particular note then, that Parse3 chose to utilize the jQuery Mobile framework, though currently still in Alpha test phase.

Leveraging a framework tailored for mobile devices which is built on top of the trusted jQuery library meant that Parse3 could focus more on the user experience side of the project. Although the main Parse3site recognizes a smartphone user and redirects them to the new mobile site, a user has the option of navigating back to the main site if preferred. Handy links for emailing, finding directions or calling Parse3 offices are at the bottom of every page with opportunity to join social media conversations on each page as well.

The jQuery Mobile framework provided Parse3developers with some very appealing features including consistent support across many mobile operating systems. Since jQuery utilizes AJAX, the Parse3 mobile site is very responsive with its streamlined page loads and a feel which is more akin to a native app than a web site.

Additionally between its conservative page loading and caching methods and a very compact codebase, the new Parse3 mobile site runs without using a lot of precious bandwidth.

Parse3 Announces Web Development and Technology Operations Partnership with the California HealthCare Foundation

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Software solutions company Parse3 announces a new partnership today with the California HealthCare Foundation to help the nonprofit philanthropy with a variety of technology operational support and software development initiatives. The first is to create a more unified and autonomous hosting environment for all of CHCF’s associated websites. Parse3 is providing strategic direction for the migration and will also implement the shift with a goal of creating a stable independent base for all future development and support of CHCF web properties. Parse3 will also assist in the acquisition and training of qualified resources to manage the new environment once in place. Simultaneously,a complete redesign of the highly visited California HealthCare Foundation flagship site, CHCF.org, is in process and will be developed by Parse3.

CHCF’s new main site, to be built in conjunction with award-winning agency Project6 Design, will enable CHCF to tell the stories of its grantees in more engaging ways, to improve the site as an online gathering place for grantees,and to improve the ability to organize, publish and multi-purpose a large library of content. CHCF will also be able to gain better insight into the behavior of site visitors, enabling them to continue to build a strong community online whose needs they can understand and provide for.

Sitecore’s comprehensive CMS will be utilized for the redesign because of its sophisticated content management and robust customer relationship attributes. The vast number of publications, resources and rich content delivered by CHCF.org dictates the need for an intuitive and user-friendly control panel for administrators and end users alike.

When asked about the new relationship, Parse3 President Peter Ladka remarked, “We recognize the importance of the great work in healthcare that CHCF is doing for the residents of California. The new partnership with CHCF is an exciting opportunity for Parse3 to improve the delivery of their message through the useof great technology.”

About the California HealthCare Foundation
The California HealthCare Foundation works as a catalyst to fulfill the promise of better health care for all Californians. The nonprofit, grant-making philanthropy supports ideas and innovations that improve quality, increase efficiency, and lower the costs of care.