Website performance reporting for an open-source content platform

The R&D team developed a unique performance and deployment reporting solution, integrating advancements in up-time reporting, performance scoring (“Lighthouse”), and technical deployments.

The solution will be available to several organisations that use the Umbraco open-source Content platform, including Mercedes-Benz, Mortgage Advice Bureau, Momentum Global Investments, and NHS Providers.

The team was asked to combine the uptime, performance, and deployment history in a single application, enabling site owners to establish the reliability of their web platforms and identify areas of concern proactively. We achieved this by substantially merging the capabilities of the open-source Umbraco platform and systems like the Uptime robot, Google Chromium engine, and Microsoft DevOps using newly developed Application Programming Interfaces (API). 

Implementing the reports enables an organisation's marketing team to view current and historical reports of site availability, scores for accessibility, best practices, performance, SEO and code deployments, and associated release notes. Uniquely, reports are available site-wide as well as on a page level. 

The existing website code base required the development team to create custom functionality while also ensuring integrated systems were not compromised. This work aligned with previous work on performance reporting, and proprietary techniques were used to combine metrics in a single, easy-to-understand dashboard. 

Scientific or Technological Uncertainties

The advancements described above could not be achieved without resolving scientific/technological uncertainties. The main scientific/technological uncertainties that the company sought to overcome during this claim period are summarised below:  

• How to material merge the capabilities of monitors and code repository systems, automating  the process and merging information from all systems
• How to generate historical performance data using the Lighthouse engine across all web pages and for different installations
• How to ensure large teams of site owners can access the data in a secure, structured, and easy-to-understand way, to facilitate further improvements

Eventually, the team was able to circumvent all technological challenges to achieve a seamless user experience and deliver an efficient performance reporting engine for the client teams.