Modern drag-and-drop CMS enabling non-technical teams to create accessible, responsive homepages — reducing time-to-publish while maintaining design consistency and compliance standards.
Challenge
Socrata's existing homepage publishing tools were aging and required significant developer involvement for even small content changes. Their internal teams and clients needed a visual, component-based CMS that allowed anyone not just engineers to design, edit, and publish homepages that met accessibility, responsiveness, and branding requirements.
Our Approach
Our team partnered with Socrata to implement and customize GrapesJS as the foundation for a new, flexible homepage builder.
We developed:
- A custom library of 50+ reusable components, including banners, carousels, tile layouts, and dynamic content sections
- Custom GrapesJS plugins and extensions for image handling, icon pickers, and structured content blocks
- A migration process to convert existing homepage content into the new CMS format
- Automated accessibility and validation rules baked directly into component behavior to ensure every page meets compliance standards
- A CI-driven publishing workflow that allows content updates to move seamlessly from creation to live deployment
This solution provided a drag-and-drop experience that mirrored modern CMS platforms while remaining deeply tailored to Socrata's data publishing environment.
Results
- Successfully delivered the core GrapesJS CMS implementation and supporting infrastructure
- Built and tested over 50 custom homepage components with accessibility and responsive behavior
- Delivered migration scripts to transition existing homepages into the new system
- Enabled non-developer users to build and manage content visually — significantly reducing time to update or publish homepages
- Established a foundation for future client-facing rollout and integration across Socrata's open data ecosystem
Looking Ahead
The homepage CMS now serves as a scalable framework for expanding low-code content management across Socrata's platform. Future phases will continue to refine templates, add localization and accessibility enhancements, and expand adoption beyond internal teams to external municipal and agency users.
Our Role
We led the frontend integration and customization of GrapesJS, developed the full component library, implemented the content migration tooling, and supported the design of the publishing workflow. Our team's work bridges open-source flexibility with enterprise-grade stability — enabling Socrata to modernize its public data experience with a more open, visual, and maintainable CMS.