Shifted from using GitHub to manage the site in Markdown format by the engineering team to using Shifter to manage the site in WordPress by the marketing team.
Utilizing the Shifter partner network, the marketing team’s work efficiency was greatly improved.
Company Information
SORACOM, INC.
Headquarters: Ojima Building 3F Corporate, 4-5-6 Tamagawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 158-0094, Japan
Website: https://soracom.com/
SORACOM is a platform that simplifies the “connecting” of the IoT. SORACOM provides long-range wireless communications that are ideal for IoT communications, cellular lines that use cell phone networks, and LPWA such as Sigfox.
They also provide services necessary for building IoT systems, such as line management, cloud platform integrations, authentication management, security enhancement, and dashboard visualization. Customers can quickly realize their IoT goals with less initial startup cost by combining the necessary service options according to their applications.
The service is used by more than 15,000 customers from various industries and scales, ranging from large corporations to start-ups. (As of March 2021)
Interview
About the interviewee
Kyohei Matsushita
Technology Evangelist
As an evangelist of SORACOM, I disseminate information about IoT utilization and SORACOM. I also speak at seminars, give lectures on YouTube, and write articles. As for our own media, I am in charge of the content on the official SORACOM blog (https://blog.soracom.com/), which includes explanations of SORACOM technology and how to use IoT devices and clouds, as well as work techniques as an evangelist.
In addition to creating content, I also lead efforts to improve the website and blog by communicating information via SNS and making the information on the site easier to read, so that more people can visit the website and blog and get information.
Soracom site using Shifter
- Solacom Corporation Corporate Site
https://soracom.com - IoT communication platform service site
https://soracom.jp - SORACOM official blog
https://blog.soracom.com/ - Device shopping site SORACOM IoT Store
https://soracom.jp/store/ - SORACOM IoT DIY Recipes
https://soracom.jp/iot-recipes/
Implementation Overview of Shifter
SORACOM chose WordPress on Shifter as a system that would allow anyone to easily update the website, while collaborating with engineering teams overseas.
DigitalCube (DC): Please tell us how you came to use Shifter.
Mr. Matsushita: As the number of members who create website content increased, we started looking for a system that would allow everyone to easily update their sites, and discovered Shifter when an overseas team at Solacom was using it to manage their service website. After learning more about the product, we decided to migrate our Japanese site to Shifter in December 2019.
DC: Before using Shifter, how did you perform related tasks?
Mr. Matsushita: When we started in 2015, most of our team members were engineers, so we created web pages in Markdown and managed updates on GitHub. However, the marketing team was growing too and frequently needed to post content about events and campaigns on the website. We needed a system that would allow engineers and non-engineers alike, to easily update the website.
Leverage Shifter and the Shifter Partner Network to significantly improve the efficiency of your marketing team
DC: What kind of work has been improved by the introduction of Shifter?
Mr. Matsushita: The time it takes to create web pages has been greatly reduced, and we are able to update them more frequently. Our marketing team members use Shifter not only to update content, but also to replace banners on the website. We are now able to smoothly reorder the content.
When planning improvements to the site’s look and feel, we feel that another advantage is that since the site is based on WordPress, which has many users, we have many partners who can help us design templates and add functionality to the system.
Devising operating rules and reviews that take advantage of Shifter’s characteristics
DC: Please let us know if there is anything you are working on in using Shifter.
Mr. Matsushita: When generating pages to the production environment (Generate), we are temporarily unable to update the web pages. In our company, multiple members update multiple sites, so when we generate pages for the production environment, we make it a rule to announce in advance via Slack what time the work will be done. In this way, it is possible to generate pages to the production environment on demand while simultaneously editing them. It also reduces problems such as pages that were not saved during the update process.
Also, when creating content for a blog, multiple reviewers review the content; reviewing is possible within Shifter, but only those with accounts can access it. So we have improved the CSS to include a printable version so that Shifter pages can be output as PDFs for review. This will allow members who don’t normally log in to Shifter to work on updates to join the review.
Feedback for Shifter
Mr. Matsushita: When Shifter is not used for a while, it sometimes goes offline due to session loss. If you are working, you may go offline without being able to save your work, so we would really like to have a function that notifies you how many minutes you have left before you go offline.
If you have an article that you want to publish at a specific time, it is difficult to publish it at that specific time. It would be helpful if there was a mechanism to reserve a specific time for new service announcements, etc., and publish it at that exact time.
Generating pages to the production environment requires a regular look at the dashboard, which I sometimes forget to do. It would be great if there is a mechanism to notify us via API or Callback that the page has been updated.
DC: Thank you for your feedback.
Message from SORACOM
The most recent site created by Shifter is the “SORACOM IoT DIY Recipes” site. This is an “IoT development guide” for beginners that provides detailed explanations of the necessary equipment and step-by-step instructions for specific IoT applications. The pages are also structured in such a way that you can see which step you are currently practicing. We hope that you will take a look at the site, as you can get ideas for using IoT just by looking at the recipes.
After Note (Seiji Akatsuka)
Shifter is a tool that simplifies the management and administration of WordPress websites and allows users to focus on their core tasks. Shifter is a tool that simplifies the management and administration of WordPress websites, allowing users to focus on their primary tasks. I hope that many of you will find this article useful and take advantage of the 120% benefits of Shifter.
Reference information
Related documents to the feedback we got.
