The Echo Process

Scope of Work

Every Echo by E-dreamz solution is unique. Our business development team will work with you to outline exactly what content, features and functionality you'll need from your website along with any relevant notation on additional software integrations from our approved partners that will be of use to your and your business. This effort will result in the creation of a Scope of Work contract that will detail your pricing and general timeline.

Project Kick-off

Once you've contracted E-dreamz to set up your Echo solution, you'll be designated a dedicated project manager to guide you through the project process. Your PM will schedule a kick-off call or meeting with you to walk you through the steps of the Echo+ set-up and discuss your specific project timeline in greater detail.

Wireframe

Your project manager will begin the project process by discussing the site outline in the scope of work and developing definition and planning materials to map out your new website. This typically involves a comprehensive wireframe that encompasses all pages and features of the site. If your project includes sophisticated custom programming or integration with other software systems, an additional engineering guide may be developed during this phase of the process.

Design

Once the wireframe and other supporting planning documents are approved, E-dreamz will then schedule a brief Design Discussion with our on-staff designers to talk through the look and feel. We’ll initially prepare a homepage design, followed by a subset of interior page clickthroughs to illustrate how your design will carry throughout your website. Design revisions are loosely limited in the interest of protecting project timeline and scope, but we are always flexible in making additional minor updates to presented mock-ups, if necessary, until you are happy with your look and feel.

Development

Upon design approval, your project manager will schedule your website for build. During this time, E-dreamz's programmers and UI developers will build out the full CMS back-end and all layouts and templates to support the front-end of the website. Your project manager will update your timeline at this time to communicate when you should expect delivery of the prototype version of the site. Typically, the Development phase is the longest phase of the process. This is an excellent time to work on gathering content assets for your new website.

Testing, Review & CMS Training

When the prototype of the website is complete, a fully functional version of your new website will be set up in a sandbox staging environment that you can access for testing, review and content entry. Your project manager will schedule a review and training session to walk you through the website and show you how all controls on the CMS back-end are used to input and manage content. During this time, any issues or bugs that are discovered in the prototype will be fixed by E-dreamz developers as quickly as possible.

Content Entry

Content entry is the ultimately the responsibility of the client. E-dreamz will conduct a CMS training session with the designated single point of contact on the project to train that individual on the use of the CMS. If the client wishes to have E-dreamz assist with inputting content, we are happy to do so at our hourly rate of $130 per hour or with any remaining discretionary hours (see below). Additional training sessions may be requested at this hourly rate or by using discretionary hours.

Discretionary Hours

E-dreamz understands that no amount of planning can capture 100% of the needs of a website. A such, we build an amount of discretionary time into each project to allow for minor changes to the approved design, additions of minor features to the approved wireframe, or help with content entry. The total and remaining number of discretionary hours for your project will be noted in your Project Tracker Sheet (shared Google Sheet). Any/all hours can be used however you’d like. Your project manager will communicate to you when requests will pull from the discretionary hours bank and when the bank is depleted. All further requests beyond the discretionary bank will be billed at our standard hourly rate of $130 per hour.

SEO Set-up & Go Live

Once all content has been entered and you have indicated to E-dreamz that you are ready to launch your website, E-dreamz’s marketing team will optimize the website content according to current SEO standards and then schedule the Go Live. Your project manager will explain to you the go-live process in detail at this time. It is important that you have a technical resource with access to your domain registrar account and/or DNS management accounts in order to complete the Go Live. Your project manager will assist you with understanding the technical requirements of launching your new website.