AFWERX Intranet

AFWERX is the innovation arm of the Department of the Air Force and is part of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). AFWERX brings cutting edge American ingenuity from small businesses and start-ups to address the most pressing challenges of the DAF.

I was brought in through a federal contractor called JST (JSToogood) to replace a team of 2 web developers who weren't cutting it.

The Air Force needed an intranet for the AFWERX team to allow sharing internal information for employees and contractors. I was able to build a completely custom website without resorting to "install a plugin for it". The resulting website has custom sections for each division of AFWERX as well as a way to share communications on a per-division or AFWERX-wide basis.

Some highlights of the site include:

• Extensive custom post types to allow for end-user management of much of the content on the site.
• Custom user types to allow division admins to manage division pages without having access to another division's pages.
• Custom pages that give a stylized dashboard for division admins to update their division info. They never have to user, or even see, the WordPress back end.
• Custom Google calendars embedded on each division page, managed by the division.
• Full site locked behind Google Single-Sign-On integration. This allows user management through the global Google directory rather than users needing a login specific to the intranet.
• Custom Extended Profile that marries data from the global Google Directory to the WordPress user system allowing for custom fields, such as education, hobbies, work history, additional contact methods...
• Custom integration of BigQuery directory data into the intranet in various places, including the division leadership section on each division page. This allows changes to division leadership through the global Google Directory rather than division admins having to go in and edit their respective leadership section every time leadership moves around or a title changes (this happens a lot, so it's a big deal).
• Custom Google Map using directory data to group pins for each user based on location set in their custom profile.
• Live Search on directory pages.
• Mission/Vision/Strategic Direction accordions. Each only shows if a mission, vision or strategic direction have been added in the back end.

When I started with AFWERX, the previous developers were of the thought that if the Air Force asked for a new feature they could just find a plugin to handle it. The original intranet and directory (2 sites for some stupid reason) had something like 70 plugins each that had not been vetted for security or accessibility. In fact, most of them were licensed to the contract developer, which is a HUGE issue for a government entity. My first order of business was to build a new development stack that could pass the USAF security standards, didn't cost an arm and a leg and could be sustained long term. The stack is currently down to ~7 plugins and all custom features are built using Metabox for custom post types and code blocks in Bricks.

Most pages on the website sit in the mid-90% range for accessibility and include many SEO features that make the marketing team happy.