Our Work

Services Provided

Hop Studios began working with the YWCA Metro Vancouver in February 2019. They came to us for assistance setting up websites for their WorkBC Centres: one website for each of four locations, and later, a fifth.

The WorkBC Centres are part of many services that the YWCA Metro Vancouver provides for job seekers and employers, in addition to the wider umbrella of major program offerings they have: childcare, supportive housing, and legal support and resources for women who have experienced abuse. The WorkBC Centres provide free support services, including career planning, training access, and job connections with employers, to assist individuals in their job search.

As each of these centres is a partnership program funded by both the federal and provincial governments, the sites had to be in compliance with ministry guidelines. The YWCA provided the design and we got to work! ExpressionEngine was picked as the CMS for all of the sites, and hosting was set up with FullHost. Publisher, Structure, and Freeform were all used to enhance each site’s capabilities and the backend functionality for the client. Setting up English/French phrase functionality for all of the site’s text was just one of the parameters we had to meet given the government guidelines.

With the YWCA’s guidance we created a template for one site, and once established, cloned the files to create the nearly identical sites for the other locations. (Well, it was a little more involved than that, but you get the idea.) Once the sites were ready to go, we supported staff in loading content, and of course, provided training.

Port Moody WorkBC Centre
Coquitlam WorkBC Centre
Port Coquitlam WorkBC Centre
North Vancouver WorkBC Centre
Vancouver South WorkBC Centre

In the years since these sites were successfully launched, we have provided ongoing maintenance support to the YWCA’s team. In 2023 we performed an upgrade to Google Analytics 4, with training.

Most recently, we performed an EE upgrade on all five sites. This was a big performance upgrade for each of these sites, which were updated from EE5.2.4 to EE7 Pro. The server was also updated to the latest version of PHP. In January, 2024, we launched the live sites with the upgrade and gosh, did they ever run smoothly!  Inadvertently, the upgrade also resolved a disk space issue that was causing some headaches –– special bonus!

We value our relationship with the team at YWCA Metro Vancouver, and the unique opportunity we’ve had to support such a positive, purpose-driven community organization. We look forward to continuing to assist with the WorkBC centre sites and the YWCA.