Metsähallitus manages ten external websites, which attract some five million visitors on an annual basis. The most popular of these websites is Luontoon.fi/Outdoors.fi, providing information on hiking destinations, with almost two million visitors per year. Second in popularity are the general websites of Metsa.fi, and Villipohjola.fi (Wild North), which offers wilderness accommodation for rent. Both attract over one million visitors every year. In all, Metsähallitus has over ten thousand web pages that require updating, and over a hundred content producers.
As the previous content production system, used for approximately six years, began to approach the end of its lifecycle, Metsähallitus decided to replace the entire system with a more agile platform that would be as easy to use as possible in order to cater for the extremely decentralized content production of Metsähallitus. The majority of content producers produce and update websites, for instance, in between wilderness cabin maintenance duties or visitor or nature centre information services. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, MOSS 2007, was chosen as the platform for the new content production system.
Ease of use was the primary criterion for the system, since the updating of websites should not be an obstacle to anyone, even those performing updating tasks on an occasional basis. Agility was required to allow the use of the same platform for a variety of external websites and, in the future, for the updating of intranet pages. The four language versions of certain websites form a special challenge: facts on Upper Lapland are given in the Lappish language too.
Easier plot search
On the basis of competitive tendering, Digia Plc was selected as the supplier of the first websites to be constructed on the MOSS 2007 platform chosen by Metsähallitus. Digia has already gained experience of using the relatively new platform for other content management tasks.
MOSS also facilitates better customer service. For instance, in Laatumaa, you can now search e.g. plots with more precise specifications than before, and if you are renting a wilderness cabin, you will be able to check, when planning a booking, whether the cabins that interest you are available at the required time.
The first website to undergo an upgrade in the spring of 2008 was Metsa.fi, from where the process soon expanded to Laatumaa and Wild North services. All three websites will be opened/were opened in the renewed format in the autumn 2008. Other websites maintained by Metsähallitus include Retkikartta.fi, Morenia.fi, Suurpedot.fi, Merenkurkku.fi, Finforelia.fi and Siemenforelia.fi, of which some will be transferred to MOSS in the near future.