The official Cogworks blog.

Strategy

Redefining Outsourcing: Canopius' Voyage to a Paperless Insurance Platform

Outsourcing has a new look. Here's how Canopius borrowed our cohesive Cogworks team to build and ensure total ownership of a pioneering digital product for the Marine Insurance sector!

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Build

Data Visualisation: Behind Bestinvest’s Grow My Money tool

Here’s how we transformed a complex financial data set into a fast, responsive, accessible graph that helps users make the next smart move with their finances.

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Build

Cloud scalability: Azure’s new cost-saving features explained

We recently attended an Azure Meetup where we chatted about an interesting autoscaling feature that could help to cost-effectively manage fluctuations in user demands.

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Build

How to Publish Npm Packages with GitHub

Creating packages is fun...but sometimes we need help to manage them! In part one of the GitHub series, Cogworks Dev, Adrian Ochmann, takes us through a step-by-step set-up of GitHub packages and gives us the low-down on all the benefits.

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News

The Carbon Neutral CMS: Umbraco’s Endeavor to Create a Better Planet

Following Umbraco’s first-ever impact report, we think every one of our clients should hear about their efforts to create a better planet.

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Build

7 Most Common Accessibility Issues (And How to Fix Them)

We have a duty to be responsible and inclusive with accessibility. Mateusz reveals the top 7 mistakes and what to do about them :)

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News

What We Know About Umbraco Following Codegarden 2023

Among other stuff, we're talking Umbraco V12, headless, improvements in Umbraco cloud, sustainability, web components, MACH, debugging and the Royal Navy!

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Build

Mach Architecture. Buzzwords, Trends and Benefits

In this 5-min read, digital experts Cogworks put techs' latest buzzword in the hot seat.

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Strategy

Cypress vs Playwright. A QA Teams Quest to Find the Best Tool

Come and be a warmly welcome fly-on-the-wall at our weekly QA leadership meeting!

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Strategy

We’ve Revamped Our Internal Hackathon and Teams Are Embracing It

Our side-project day is being embraced with open arms. Let’s have a look at our latest and greatest creations.

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News

What it Means to be an Umbraco Gold Partner

Explore our contributions to the Umbraco project and learn about being one of the original Gold Partners...

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Strategy

Is AI Calm and Stable? Unpacking the Hype Cycle

The Hype Cycle isn't a crystal ball but a good place to start.

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Strategy

6 Tips for Better Software Documentation in Agile Teams

Sure, we get that software documentation is crucial for project success, but how do you ensure your docs aren't putting everyone to sleep? PM Kas has some quick tips to spice up your documentation game.

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Build

Content and Personalisation. What Can Be AI-Powered?

Now is the perfect time to embrace AI and introduce AI-powered features into your solutions.

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Strategy

A World Without Software Documentation

Have you ever taken something for granted and only realized its value when it's gone? Here's what'd happen if Apple, Walmart and our banking system lost access to software documentation.

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Strategy

How to Declutter Your Workflows With Trello

Here's how a digital spring clean changed our project workflow with just a few simple changes to Trello 💮

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Strategy

Why Documentation Is the Key to Happier Clients and Teams

Writing and contributing to documentation is the key to happier clients and teams.

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Build

How to Set up a Private Nuget Feed With Azure or Any Service Provider

A new way to set up a NuGet feed with Azure, Docker or any service provider.

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Build

Meet Cogworks .Net Software Developer Adrian

We're talking tips for software developers; Britians got Talent and Artificial Intelligence!

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Build

How to Test Accessibility With Axe in Cypress

Aga, a QA professional at Cogworks, discusses the significance of web accessibility in software development testing and suggests the ideal tools to commence with.

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Build

From Manual to Automated Testing With Cypress - Our Story

Automating processes doesn't happen overnight. It's a journey, but it doesn't have to be complicated. Discover our story...

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News

PCUK Win Two Drum Awards for Its 30s Risk Checker Challenge

The award-winning, innovative Risk Checker is just one of the many impactful tools on the PCUK website. This feature has received endorsement from NHS England and has saved thousands of lives. Find out why.

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News

Mateusz Joins the Cogworks Quality Assurance Team!

As per usual, we enjoy getting to know each other! This is what we discovered when we temporarily took Mateusz away from project work for 5 minutes

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Build

14-Point DevOps Best Practice Checklist for High-Performance Teams

Level up DevOps best practices in your development team in 14 easy steps.

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Strategy

How to Run An Agile Client Retrospective

What should be done when errors occur? Conduct a client retro. And when things go smoothly? Client retro!

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Build

The CTOs Guide to Modernising Legacy Systems

This straightforward guide on modernizing legacy systems can assist you in determining your current setup and what steps to take next.

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Build

Keeping Up With Digital Transformation

Is Digital Transformation ever complete? To understand, we take a look at trends that have come, gone and firmly stuck.

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Build

Delivering Days Out With The Kids

Discover how our health check operates and how it aided in enhancing the user experience for both content editors and users on the UK's largest website for family attractions.

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Strategy

Getting Days Out Guide Back on Track With an Umbraco Health Check

Days Out Guide, owned by National Rail, provides 2-for-1 tickets for various major attractions throughout the UK when traveling by train. Learn how we brought their website back on track.

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Strategy

3 Ways to Win Consumer Trust With Your Website

Our team of strategy, design, and build experts has assembled the top 3 ideas to help you sustain trust in your digital services!

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Strategy

Why Side Projects Are Part of Our Process

We have been adding side projects to our process for many years to improve our knowledge and become better at what we love. These projects can be personal or with others, and having the choice to pick leads to lots of new ideas!

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Build

Why Integrate your Document Management System With Azure and Umbraco?

Find out how we joined Umbraco and the DotApprove Document Management System to improve compliance for Canada Life!

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Build

Website Security Checklist: The 4 Basics

These crucial tips should cover the basics for in-house monitoring of solutions to prevent any pesky issues!

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Build

Azure Resource Naming Tips 2022

HowToEnsure-your-azure-portal-resourcesareWELLNAMED

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Strategy

Powerful Content Automation Solutions for Better Web Editing

Content automation has the potential to resolve numerous publishing difficulties, but it doesn't need to lack personal touch!

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Strategy

Managing Our Minds at Work

To mark #WorldMentalHealthDay, our team share how they find calm in between looming deadlines and working from home.

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Build

Could Website Downtime Be Prevented?

Cogworks CTO, talks about three common ways development teams are protecting companies from digital disruption.

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Strategy

No Search Is Better Than Bad Search

Here's why the recipe for a great overall user experience is 1 part Azure Cognitive Search and 1 part Implementation!

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Build

A Frontend Developers Perspective on Headless Architecture

Is headless really that straightforward? Let’s take a look at some pros and cons of headless or decoupled approach from the frontend perspective

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Build

How to Automate Performance Testing in 5 Hours

Learn about the inspiration and tech stack behind Wojciech's creation, Performeter; a tool for performance testing.

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Build

How to Setup a Private NuGet Feed in Azure DevOps Pipelines

Developer, Greg shares his 4-step process on how to set-up a private NuGet feed in Azure Devops Pipelines

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Build

Quick Guide to Running Sub-Workflows With GitHub Actions

Automation wizard and Cogworks developer Adrian Ochmann talks about two strategies that can help you run effective sub-workflows using GitHub actions.

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Build

How to Use Google Chrome Lighthouse for Better Web Performance

Performance is always crucial. Fortunately, there's Google Chrome Lighthouse!

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Build

Should Developers Embrace Low-Code and No-Code Technology?

Are there any good reasons to embrace low-code and no-code development?

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Build

Creating a Dynamic ecommerce Website With Umbraco and Vendr

Here’s what happened when we united Umbraco and its customisable ecommerce counterpart, Vendr.

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Build

The Importance of Modern Web Performance Testing

Cogworks CTO, Marcin explains why performance testing is so important in a project and how we can apply best practice.

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Build

How to Publish NuGet Packages with GitHub

In part two of the GitHub series, Developer Adrian shows us how to publish a NuGet package.

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Build

The Quick Guide to Visual Regression Testing With Cypress

A quick guide to visual regression testing with the popular end to end testing platform, Cypress.

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Strategy

6 Reasons Why Your Business Should Migrate to The Cloud

Cogworks CEO & co-founder Adam explains the business benefits of migrating to cloud hosting.

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Build

Getting started with visual regression testing and WebdriverIO

Improve your visual regression testing using Webdriver with these tutorials, tips, and tricks from front-end developer, Arek.

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Strategy

5 Tools for Effective Communication in Remote Teams

Our top 5 apps that get you talking...

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Build

Integrate Netlify With Cypress: A Quick Guide

Developer Grzegorz whizzes through a quick way to integrate Netlify with Cypress so you can power-up modern automation testing in your projects.

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Strategy

5 Ways to Ensure Your Financial Services Website Stays Ahead in 2021

Remaining at the forefront of the competition requires being responsive to shifts in customer behavior. The following are five tactics that financial services companies can employ to communicate effectively with first-time and returning customers via their website for a sustained impact.

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Build

How to Use Tailwind With BEM

Merge the King of Utility with the best of Modular CSS to create a brilliant combination for your projects.

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Build

Using TeamCity for continuous integration with NodeJS and Grunt

Warren Buckley documented what we currently use for our front-end build processes and takes us through how to install all those crazy tools!

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Build

Reasons to Replatform

A replatforming project for your website should consider every one of your users for years to come; that’s content editors, stakeholders and browsers of your site.

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Strategy

Contribution Is King

You may already know we're an Umbraco Contributing Gold Partner...but we're part of a much bigger community too; open source.

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Strategy

Working with an Agile Driven Agency

What to expect from working with Certified Scrum Professionals and Certified Scrum Product Owners

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Build

Generate Free SSL Certificates and Bind It to Azure Webapp With Devops

A mini Cogtutorial for those who have multiple Azure Web Apps with custom domains and would like to automatically bind SSL certificates to their Web Apps domains (for free).

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Build

How to Simplify Azure Search Implementations

If you have ever struggled with implementing Azure Search on your projects then you’re not alone. Find out how we solved this with a simple package, the Cogworks.AzureSearch.

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Strategy

5 Ways our Support Plan Can Help Your Umbraco Website Grow

An Umbraco support plan should work around the clock to keep your website safe...

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Build

How to Build a Desktop Application With Electron and Vue

Front-end Developer Wojciech works with American actor, Chuck Norris, to demonstrate how easy it is to create a desktop app with Electron and Vue.

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Build

Umbraco v8: How to Pick a Block Style Editor

An in-depth review and quick comparison of the currently available block style (grid-based) editors for Umbraco v8.

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Strategy

6 Reasons Why Manual QA Testing Is Here to Stay

Cogworks QA Testers, Kasia and Marcin, share why they think manual QA testing is sure to be sticking around for years to come.

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Build

7 Front-End Tools For Productivity

When you’re repeating similar front-end tasks daily, let tools be your friend. Here are seven essential front-end development tools that are time-saving and a pleasure to use. Cogworks have even created one from scratch.

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Build

7 Tips for More Effective Code Reviews

Developer, Marcin, reveals his top tips for effective code reviews and explains how you can apply them to your working environment.

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Strategy

5 Tips to Keep Your Zoom Call Secure

As a Cyber Essentials Plus partner, our priority is to protect our organisation online. These 5 tips will help to keep your Zoom conversations safe and secure.

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Build

Updating Cogworks Umbraco Find and Replace: V7 to V8

I Initially thought it would not be too hard a task, unfortunately I was wrong...

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Build

Introducing Nuxt.js: Why We Love This Framework

Wojciech and the front-end development team share their experience of using Nuxt.js in a recent web project and share some handy tips they found along the way.

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Build

Avoiding Inherited Project Horrors

Ever taken on a project from someone else and uncovered some unwanted skeletons in the closet along the way? We share our top tips on avoiding this nightmare!

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News

5 Inspiring Companies That Use Digital Solutions to Save the Planet

It's #EarthDay2020 today. We’re celebrating with a round-up of brilliant, environmentally conscious work being carried out in digital right now!

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Build

Umbraco VS Wordpress: Which is the winning camp?

They are both easy to use CMSs, they are both Open Source and are both used by millions of people and businesses across the globe. So, which one is the best – pound for pound?

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Strategy

Top 6 Apps and Tools for Productive Remote Working

Cogworks team share their top 6 apps and tools for distributed teams and home working.

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Build

How We Overcame Multilingual Struggles in Umbraco v8

Umbraco v8 introduced a new way of managing multilingual content and at first glance everything looked great...but the devil was in the details.

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Strategy

Process Mapping & I, a love story

This is a short story about how I became enamoured with translating almost every aspect of my job into a ‘structured series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end’.

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Design