Working with DoF
Salsa Digital has been collaborating with the DoF and Acquia since September 2015 so we can offer GovCMS training to government agencies. As a subcontractor to Acquia we’ve trained over 100 public servants, mostly from federal government agencies. We also meet with Acquia and the GovCMS program team fortnightly to discuss training feedback, which courses to run, and so on.
Over the past few years we’ve built a strong relationship with the DoF as both providers of GovCMS services (building websites) and trainers (training public servants). We’ve created a strong set of training materials and delivered our ‘standard’ courses and customised courses.
The courses
The standard GovCMS courses are broken into two tracks, developer and content management. These courses meet a diverse range of audience needs — from those wanting to learn how to manage/maintain their GovCMS site to IT professionals who need to know how to build and configure their agency’s website. These needs also reflect different stages of the GovCMS journey, from assessing the suitability of GovCMS to upskilling for site build/maintenance/expansion.
Sometimes we deliver training after a site build, other times it’s before a site build to upskill in-house developers so they can be involved in the development.
You can view Salsa Digital’s web page detailing our GovCMS training services however a brief overview of each individual course offered is outlined in the table below.
Course name | Track | Level | Overview |
Developer | Introduction | Get a solid introduction to GovCMS in one day. Learn about the most essential features and concepts of GovCMS through hands-on activities. | |
Developer | Intermediate | Learn how to manage media, build calendars, build complex queries of content, and configure popular modules. | |
Developer | Advanced | Learn how to use GovCMS’s API to create custom modules. | |
Content management | Introduction | Learn how to navigate a GovCMS site and recognise custom roles, content types, taxonomy systems and contrib modules. |
We’ve worked closely with Acquia’s course structures, customising the course content for GovCMS. We review the content on an ongoing basis to ensure we keep up with the government’s needs and any changes to the platform. This is made easier by our close working relationship with DoF and Acquia.
These courses are delivered onsite or in our offices.
Customised courses
We also offer customised courses, tailored to an agency’s needs and website. These courses are generally based on one of the standard courses but the customer works on their own website. We set up a copy of their site in the Salsa Digital training environment. We then go through the training manual and hands-on exercises on the client website. Customised programs also allow us to focus on areas where a client is having issues, or on new functionality that they need to work on.
Among many government agencies, some of the agencies we’ve delivered tailored and/or private training for since early 2016 are:
- Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA)
- Department of Health (DoH)
- CRIMTRAC — now part of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission
- National Capital Authority (NCA)
- Tax Practitioners Board (TPB)
- Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC)
- Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC)
- Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA)
- Australian and New Zealand Association of Clerks at the Table (ANZACATT)
These courses are also delivered onsite or in our offices.
Regular training in Canberra
We deliver training once a month in Canberra, typically at the National Library Australia (NLA). These courses are small to meet the needs of all attendees, with 8-12 public servants in attendance. Attendees are mostly based in Canberra at federal agencies, but we’ve also had lots of people fly in to take the course. We sell tickets to our training courses using EventBrite and the course details are promoted by the GovCMS .
Why Salsa Digital?
Salsa Digital is an Acquia partner with a proven track record working with both and GovCMS. Our developers have experience and accreditation in Drupal/GovCMS and we were Acquia’s Partner of the Year Asia Pacific and Japan (2016). We’re trusted in the marketplace and we know the product extremely well. Our trainers are experienced developers who work with GovCMS every day.
“Training is very different to developing, but I love the variety and passing some of my knowledge onto others. My GovCMS experience means I can deal with any problems and questions that come up during training. This also helps to establish and maintain a rapport with attendees.”
- Ivan Grynenko, Technical Lead (and trainer), Salsa Digital
