Public Safety Testing

Public Safety Testing (PST) helps police, fire and dispatch agencies recruit and screen candidates. Its website handles registration, test scheduling and results for candidates and the departments that hire them.

When PST’s previous developer moved on, they found Joe Oppegaard and Montana Banana through the Magento Certified Developer listings. That search for ongoing support became a development partnership that began in December 2014—and still includes a meeting every week.

Challenges

Public Safety Testing homepage with candidate and agency links, test scheduling, and upcoming tests.

PST needed a team that could learn the business, advise on changes and maintain the site while candidates continued to use it.

Changing rules
State and local hiring requirements keep changing. Updates affecting candidate data, accessibility, privacy and testing standards need to reach the website accurately and on time.
A platform that can't stand still
Payment, security and hosting requirements change too. The platform needs ongoing updates without interrupting candidates as they register or schedule a test.
A gap in ongoing support
The departure of PST’s previous developer left a complex, business-critical site without a maintenance team. PST needed a partner who understood the codebase and the people using it.

Approaches

Public Safety Testing career selection for law enforcement, firefighters, corrections and animal control officers, and 911 dispatchers.

We built the engagement around a standing weekly meeting. PST brings what’s changing in its world; together, we decide what the website needs next.

Weekly planning
Every week, we review requirements, prioritize work and plan the next release. Legal and regulatory changes get scoped as they surface, with a clear place in the development schedule.
Improvements shaped by users
Candidate and agency feedback feeds into scheduled UI/UX improvements. We help PST weigh what to build, how to build it and what each change means for the people using the site.
Maintenance planned ahead
Platform upgrades, security patches and infrastructure changes are planned in advance. Familiarity with PST’s business and codebase helps us assess changes before they become urgent.

Results

Dependable operations

PST’s site has remained dependable through years of feature releases, fixes and platform updates, with an established team responsible for its ongoing maintenance.

Regulatory adaptability

PST has been able to respond to changing laws and regulations with a development partner that understands its business and plans the required website updates.

Continued improvement

The partnership has delivered new features, platform updates and UI/UX improvements over more than a decade. Weekly planning continues to turn ideas into scheduled work.

Support as PST grew

As PST has grown the number of agencies and candidates it serves, it has kept a development team in place to maintain and improve the platform.

Your next hire: a development partner?

Let’s talk about a team that can learn your business and keep working on what comes next.