Business Academy Aarhus embraces digitalisation

Upgrade and design lift

The web landscape at Business Academy Aarhus is primarily made up of the main site www.eaaa.dk, but also contains several subsites. The Academy's international department, library and alumni community have their own web universes.

When the time came for an upgrade and a thorough design lift, Illumi was in charge. Illumi has been responsible for the multisite solution since 2009, and the business academy and Illumi have worked closely together throughout the years.

Based on a design proposal developed by Business Academy Aarhus, which Illumi has cleaned up and tightened, the project has resulted in what appears to the visitor as a 100% new website, but where content and structure are largely reused. The Academy has therefore managed to launch the "new" website with an editorial effort of just about 14 days.

We went into the project with a desire for a web solution that just worked better - but was otherwise the same. Our old site could be compared to a car that the workshop could no longer repair. With this project, we have - once again - succeeded together with Illumi. Illumi understood our wishes, challenged them and helped us make the right decisions so that the website is now strongly equipped for the future.

Signe Dahl Iversen, Digital Project Manager at the Business Academy

In addition to renewing the visual identity of the website, Illumi upgraded the platform to the latest version of Umbraco. This required extensive backend work, converting old modules to new ones and migrating content.

Selling courses from the online shop

In the course universe, Illumi has specially developed a shop for selling courses. To optimise both the user experience and conversion, personalised check-out flows have been developed that are based on data such as educational background that users provide during the flow.

Complex structure but simple to use

Several systems are linked to the web platform, so online enrolments from prospective students land directly in the academy's study administration systems. In addition, the platform takes into account the many different needs of users and editors who interact with it on a daily basis.

The interface in Umbraco is really an upgrade for us. There are many features that make editing much easier, such as searching content and media, language versions, copying content elements, access to all system texts and transparent SEO settings. We have had a number of colleagues who were inexperienced with the CMS, and training them has been very short and completely unproblematic.

Signe Dahl Iversen, Digital Project Manager at the Business Academy

New search function based on Elasticsearch

As part of the project, the old search engine has been replaced with Elasticsearch. Elasticsearch allows editors to "manipulate" the search results in the website's search function for the benefit of users. For example, if editors notice a common misspelling in users' searches, they can work with synonyms to display relevant search results. They can also boost and prioritise search results, view lists of search terms that don't return results, and much more.

We have improved our online presence across the board in terms of technology, usability, system integrations, performance, security, SEO and mobile optimisation. From the start, there has been a great understanding of our business and wishes, and at the same time we have received constructive feedback on some of our requirements; feedback that has clearly improved the end result. And throughout the process, we have experienced quick access to help, answers and corrections.

Signe Dahl Iversen, Digital Project Manager at the Business Academy

About Aarhus Business Academy

Business Academy Aarhus is one of the largest business academies in Denmark. More than 5000 full-time students and 6000 part-time students follow the academy's practice-oriented, higher education programmes.