The Canadian Cancer Society  is a prominent charity organization focused on advancing cancer research, awareness, and support. Through its website and initiatives, the Society empowers individuals with knowledge about cancer prevention, early detection, treatment options, and survivorship. The organization aims to build a supportive community for people affected by cancer for connections, sharing experiences, and offering emotional support. The ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life for those impacted by cancer.

Project Objectives

The project aimed to unite individuals affected by cancer, offering them a platform rich in informational resources concerning the disease. The main goal was to help people who’ve been through similar cancer experiences connect with each other in a supportive community where they can understand and encourage one another.

The Canadian Cancer Society organization needed assistance in migrating their existing two communities to Salesforce while also aiming to enhance the UI/UX experience for their members. It was crucial to implement a community switch button, enabling users to easily shift between the English and French communities. One key feature was empowering users to establish connections and engage with fellow members through sharing their individual experiences with cancer, while also offering valuable informational resources to support those seeking information and help.

Solution

The project involved creating two distinct Experience Cloud member sites, each offering either a fully French or fully English experience, while maintaining a shared user profile across both communities.

We implemented our AC Member Directory and AC Blog apps to fulfill the Canadian Cancer Society’s needs for group functionality, discussions, a member directory, and a blog. To address the specific UI/UX requirements, we developed and integrated a variety of custom features and functionalities, including a customized theme for the navigation menu and a custom registration form, aligning it precisely with the client’s vision.

We paid much attention to the security part of the site, making sure sensitive personal information from public pages like public groups and Chatter as well as the Members page is not accessible to guest users.

Benefits & Results

The implemented features have greatly enhanced the experience for website members, providing a range of benefits to those using the platform:

 ● The community switcher, message notification button, and search bar located at the top-right corner of the site enable effortless access to vital features. Members can switch between entirely French or fully English language communities based on their personal preferences. They can also quickly access private messages and easily search for the information they need, all directly from the homepage of the site.

 ● The AC Member Directory app, equipped with advanced filtering options, empowers users to connect based on shared cancer experiences. This enriches interactions and aids the Canadian Cancer Society in community support and networking. Custom component solutions enable seamless profile personalization. Privacy measures give users control over sensitive information visibility, including details like type of cancer, age, or gender, enhancing their sense of security and empowerment. The hidden information is not visible to site members but is stored in the backend and can be used by the Canadian Cancer Society for internal reports and further personalization. 

 ● Groups are a place for users to engage in shared activities. To enhance the user experience, we’ve added a special tile view that shows a quick group summary, like a short description, number of members and its status. We’ve also implemented private/public group functionality, allowing members to participate in private groups without concern about their personal information being accessible to other community members. Once they join a group, users start receiving weekly digest notifications in their email. The digest frequency can be adjusted based on the user’s preferences: every post, daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Registered users are automatically added to either the English or French version of the Announcements group, depending on the language version of the site where they registered. That way they stay updated with the latest news from the Canadian Cancer Society organization.

 ● The Discussions page is a central hub for all community members to engage in meaningful conversations, share insights, and exchange valuable information. We’ve implemented a “Tree of subtopics” functionality to transform the content organization on the Discussions page by allowing the addition of up to 10 subtopics to each main discussion topic or its subtopic, providing users with a personalized menu of discussions, tailored just for them.

 ● The AC Blog component has introduced a News functionality, enabling the Canadian Cancer Society organization to keep members informed with articles and updates directly on the website.

 ● The implemented tailored Chatter functionality, provides site members with an additional communication channel for engaging in meaningful discussions and exchanging information on the site. This is the place where users can ask questions, find answers to their queries, gain valuable insights, and receive tips from other members. The Trending Topics functionality enables users to see the most popular topics at a glance and engage in the most popular discussions on the site.

 ● The implementation of the client’s custom design, along with styling and customizing standard Salesforce functionality and a full mobile adaptation, has resulted in a visually appealing, intuitive and incredibly user-friendly website, ensuring that all users can easily navigate and enjoy it.

Learn more about Advanced Communities:

Visit AC Consulting Services page on the Salesforce AppExchange.