Landtag Rheinland-Pfalz Case Study Header

Relaunch of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament
with management of MP profiles

Informing citizens about current issues and decisions in the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament is one of the central tasks of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament Administration. In addition to traditional overview and detail pages, frequently recurring and identically structured content such as news and events plays an important role. Furthermore, the simple maintenance and provision of complex member profiles is a key requirement. For the relaunch, the experts at the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament selected the CONTENS content management solution.

Landtag Rheinland-Pfalz
Business

State Parliament Administration

Highlights

CONTENS CMS / CONTENS Formbuilder / CONTENS Docker Image / CONTENS Headless Objectstore / Microsoft Azure / Kubernetes / Elastic

Link

landtag-rlp.de/

The Task

Several websites of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament were to be migrated to a unified content management system (CMS) as part of a relaunch. Ease of creating content and pages via an intuitive WYSIWYG web interface was just as important as the new CMS's high flexibility for implementing future requirements.

Furthermore, the content management system had to enable intuitive maintenance and publication of complex content structures, such as the comprehensive profiles of state parliament members. The new websites also had to comply with current accessibility and data protection regulations and be suitable for display on various devices.

The Solution

The project began with a comprehensive analysis of the existing websites and the desired optimizations. A detailed design was then created to structure the various websites and define the required content elements. This included determining which pages would be editorially designed with which content elements in the future, and which content would be delivered automatically via predefined applications.

Traditional overview and distribution pages can now be structured according to editorial requirements and individually compiled with different content elements. Identically structured content, such as news and events, is captured headless as content objects in the CONTENS backend and automatically delivered via configurable applications after publication.

A highlight of the solution is the customized management of a total of 170 MP profiles. A powerful application was developed for this purpose to optimally handle the multitude of different data and setting options. In addition, central category areas were defined that can be assigned to the different content and used as filters for automated delivery in configurable applications. All applications are configurable via permissions, allowing clear definitions of which editor groups can make which changes.

 

Accessibility and Responsive Design

The entire page structure and navigation are built using static pages in CONTENS. Static pages require minimal loading times and are permanently available.

Overview and detail pages can be individually constructed in CONTENS from content elements such as articles, teasers, documents, links, and fold-out elements, depending on requirements. Furthermore, configurable applications for displaying headless content such as news or events can be placed at defined locations on static pages.

The templates are developed using responsive design, so that all pages and content can be optimally displayed on different devices such as desktop PCs, tablets, and smartphones. To make the pages easily accessible to as many users as possible, great emphasis was placed on accessibility. In addition to an optimized design with easy-to-read font sizes and high contrast, the entire website can be navigated using the keyboard, and content and controls can be read using a screen reader.

Central Categories

Due to the specific requirements of a state parliament administration, individual category areas were designed for the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament, for example:

  • Topics for news and events
  • Fractions and groups with the name of a party, parliamentary group, or group and their logo
  • Roles for functions of members of the State Parliament, as well as roles for members of committees and bodies
  • Constituencies with constituency numbers and assignment to an electoral term
  • Elective terms with a time period, constituencies, and a sortable list of parliamentary groups
  • Committees and bodies with assignment to an electoral term and selection of a committee type
  • Event locations with addresses
  • Event types with customizable sort order
  • Meeting types with customizable sort order

The content of these category areas is centrally maintained by authorized editors in CONTENS and can be assigned to content elements such as news, events, and member profiles. These category areas are also used to configure applications that control the automatic output of content. Extensions to the central categories (e.g., creating a new fraction or group, new topics, committees or boards) have an immediate impact on the website and the search filters.

News and Event

News and events are content elements that are used very frequently and displayed in various places on the website. The website currently contains approximately 1,900 news items and more than 600 events. They must be easy to create and quickly published. Furthermore, all news items have an identical structure, and the same applies to events. Both elements generally do not require individual page design, but can be presented using defined templates. The consistent presentation of all news items and events in the state parliament's corporate design significantly enhances the professional appearance.

Due to these features, it is advisable to create this content as headless elements centrally in CONTENS and display it in various locations using configurable applications.

 

News

News consists of a series of mandatory entries, such as the date, headline, teaser text, and news text. Optional information such as images, documents, and links can also be added, as well as categories such as topics, legislative periods, and committees or bodies. The assigned categories control where on the website a news item is displayed. For example, a news item assigned to the "Health Committee" can be displayed on the main news page and simultaneously on the Health Committee's page.

News are displayed automatically after publication via applications that can be editorially configured. For example, category areas such as topics, committees, bodies, or legislative periods can be selected as filters. Additionally, a time period can be defined from which the news items should originate. In this way, for example, all news items from a specific committee from the 18th legislative period or the year 2025 can be displayed on one page. Predefined applications are available for displaying the news items as a list or as map elements.

Events

Events are maintained in a similar way to news as content objects in CONTENS. In addition to mandatory information such as the event title, start and end times, optional fields for teasers, event descriptions, documents, links, and media can be edited. Assigning categories includes topics, committees and boards, and election periods, as well as the option to select an event type and location. For events that take place over a longer period (e.g., August – October), specific event days and times can also be selected (e.g., Mon, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., Wed, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m., and Fri, 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.). Furthermore, alternative event days can be defined if a selected day falls on a public holiday, for example.

Published events are automatically output via editorially configurable applications. An event box, for example, clearly displays upcoming events on the homepage or a committee page. By selecting categories and time periods, you can define which events should be displayed in each location, e.g., all events for all committees, all future events for the Committee on Health, or all exhibitions in August.

The event calendar shows all events for the selected topics for the respective month in calendar format. For a clearer display, colors can be assigned to individual topics or topic groups to highlight the events in the calendar. Users can browse the calendar by month and filter, for example, by events of committees and bodies. In addition, individual events or series of events can be subscribed to and imported into your own calendars such as Outlook, Apple Calendar, or Google Calendar via a link. If the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament updates an event, subscribed events are also updated.

 

Members of Parliament Administration

The most important content on the new website of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament includes the profiles of a total of 170 members of parliament (101 incumbent and 69 retired members). Since a member's profile contains a wide variety of data, a customized data structure was developed using the CONTENS FormBuilder, which can be expanded at any time as needed.

  • The "Basic Data" section includes, for example, a person's name, portrait, and biographical and professional information.
  • The "Political Data" section includes, among other things, election periods, party affiliation, documents related to information subject to publication, links to speeches and parliamentary inquiries, the constituency, and, if applicable, the role in the State Parliament. Memberships and roles in committees and boards can also be found here.
  • Under "Contact Data," the official address, the citizen's or constituency office, and private contact details can be managed.
  • In the "Career" section, important professional and political milestones in the CV can be recorded chronologically.
  • Additional functions and memberships can be added under "Memberships."

Additionally, each profile can be maintained to show how long a person has been a member of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament, whether they have retired or died, and who their predecessor or successor is, if any. This allows not only incumbent members of parliament to be featured on the website, but also former members.

All incumbent members of the State Parliament are presented in alphabetical order in the Member of Parliament search. The full-text search, the name index, and filters for roles, parliamentary groups, committees and boards, or constituencies make it easier to quickly find a member of parliament profile. The Member of Parliament profile clearly presents a person's essential information and, in practical drop-down elements, offers all further detailed information on their career, political and social functions, and committee and committee memberships. Retired members of parliament can be found on a separate page using a comparable application that only displays former members of the State Parliament.

 

About the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament

The Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament is the parliament of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, located in the state capital of Mainz. Its 101 members are elected by the people every five years. The most important tasks of the State Parliament include the public discussion of the diverse interests of the population, parliamentary oversight of the state government and its subordinate administration, and the determination of the state budget and state legislation. As the highest body for political decision-making, the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament provides information on its website about its tasks, current issues, members of parliament, and the work of committees and boards.

The Highlights

  • Responsive and accessible website with optimized access

  • Dedicated youth page with specially prepared content for children, young people, and teachers

  • Central news system automatically displays current news on the homepage and, based on categories, on defined subpages of committees and boards

  • Clear and structured management of the profiles of members of parliament, committees, and boards

  • New Member of Parliament search with an alphabetical index, various filters, and full-text search

  • Flexible event application with filters and a subscription function for importing events into your personal calendar

The Project Details