Supporting an Ecosystem of Sites for a Major Corporation

Evolving Web helped Sollio Cooperative Group digitally adapt its new brand identity and migrate its intranet to Drupal. By moving the Sollio intranet from SharePoint to Drupal, employees have better access to relevant information and resources. The Sollio intranet now serves as a critical employee hub driving connection and productivity.
 

Sollio is one of the world's biggest agricultural cooperatives. Our design team adapted the new Sollio brand across its main corporate website and intranet, while building a more engaging user interface design. Evolving Web now provides support for the full scope of Sollio websites, including two multisites and several separately managed Drupal websites. We collaborate with both Sollio and a network of agency providers to improve the overall digital presence. 

Sollio Cooperative Group is one of the world's biggest agricultural cooperatives and the only agricultural cooperative serving all of Canada. Sollio is a major leader in the Canadian agriculture industry.

Founded in 1922, the cooperative group represents more than 122,000 producer and consumer members across Canada, employs close to 15,000 people, with 2024 sales totalling $7.8 billion.

A key driver of growth and innovation in the agriculture and agri-food industry, Sollio has integrated a supply network for products and services that is essential to and managed by producers.

La Coop Fédérée rebranded as Sollio Cooperative Group to better support their cooperatives and strengthen their identity as an organization that values sustainability, growth and collaboration. Evolving Web's first mandate was to digitally adapt the new Sollio brand, designing elements that can be used to build a unified user experience and engaging web content that tells the range of stories that make up Sollio’s brand identity.

Our second mandate was to improve the intranet and increase its adoption rate. 

The previous intranet, built on SharePoint, was unable to handle the daily needs of Sollio's many departments. The content architecture was lacking a clear site map, and the user interface was difficult to navigate. We needed to define the goals of its many users and create user journeys around the most useful content and features. Collecting a wealth of information during the discovery phase, we worked with IT, Communications and HR teams to account for everyone's needs. This allowed us to better restructure the intranet and present its content to appeal to different types of users: occasional users, newcomers, and super users.

The partnership with Sollio has resulted in a better presentation of the Sollio brand online, and a consolidation of the organization’s technology stack. 

Our work across the platform has included:

• Designing brand elements for the digital context for use on various Sollio websites
• Keeping the Drupal websites secure and up-to-date
• Designing a timeline feature for the organization’s centennial website 
• Moving the intranet to Drupal, improving the content structure and features to better serve users
• Implementation of a social media feed that automatically displays content without the need for manual updates
• Addition of the new Drupal Paragraphs module, providing content editors with greater flexibility 
• Migration of the Intranet from SharePoint to Drupal, while greatly improving the user experience based on extensive discovery work
• Implementation of Apache Solr for more accurate global search results
• Addition of new content features, such as the ability to download favourite content for easier access, plus integration with third-party applications such as Outlook
• The ability to comment on and reply to news, events, and other user comments, which creates a more collaborative and social online environment
• Development of single sign-on (SSO) capability for employees to simplify access
• An event calendar that consolidates events across departments and helps users keep track of internal trainings, meetings, and more
• Personalized homepages
• An improved admin interface, including the ability to see the number of people interested in an event
• Features to improve workflows, such as a publication scheduler that defines roles and responsibilities, and flags which content needs to be reviewed or published
• Notifications and reminders about events, news, and tasks
• Optimization for mobile devices 

The success of the initial engagement has  paved an expanded relationship that’s fueled by Evolving Web’s flexibility, expertise and determination to work within a framework of the client’s distinct needs and expectations. 

The digital adaptation for the main Sollio site and intranet successfully showcases the new branding leveraging the best practices of responsive user experience and user interface design.   

The intranet, built on Drupal, is equipped with a more intuitive user interface, optimized for personalization and productivity. News and events are highlighted and equipped with calendar integration. The portal gives quick access to career development opportunities. Improved content management, search, and notification systems have significantly enhanced efficiency.