A national website that grew with SLSA

In 2013, Surf Life Saving Australia asked Nano Solutions to build and host its national Drupal website at sls.com.au. The original brief centred on publishing news and organisational information for surf lifesaving clubs, members and the public.

Over the next decade, the website took on a much larger role. We wrote custom Drupal functionality that brought BeachSafe information and live competition results into the site. We then extended the same platform to support shop.sls.com.au, where members and club officers could order uniforms, equipment and operational products.

Nano remained responsible for the hosting, releases, security maintenance and ongoing development through 2023.

At a glance

Client: Surf Life Saving Australia
Delivery period: 2013–2023
Scope: national website, member and club store, custom Drupal development and managed hosting
Integrations: BeachSafe, live competition results, SLSA member data and Oracle NetSuite
Operational result: less repeated data entry for members and staff, with online orders connected to finance and fulfilment

BeachSafe and live results in the main website

Nano created custom Drupal integrations that brought two important SLSA services into the main website:

BeachSafe search helped visitors find beaches, clubs and safety information without leaving the national SLS website.
Live competition results let people search carnivals, competitors, clubs, teams and events from the same familiar experience.

Information already maintained elsewhere in SLSA could appear on the main website without staff copying and republishing it. Each source system remained responsible for its own data.

A member store built around existing accounts

The next stage added online ordering for members and clubs.

Members entered through the existing SLS portal. Their identity, membership role and club relationship followed them into the store, giving each person the appropriate shopping experience. Club officers could have their organisation's delivery information carried into checkout, reducing repeated form entry and avoidable mistakes.

Orders sent directly to Oracle NetSuite

Nano connected the Drupal store to Oracle NetSuite, SLSA's finance and order-management platform.

Completed orders were transferred as structured sales orders with the customer or club reference, products, quantities, delivery details, freight and payment information. Staff could see whether the transfer succeeded and retry an order when intervention was required.

This reduced manual re-keying between the website and finance system and gave staff a visible path for handling transfers that needed attention.

We stayed responsible after launch

Launching the store was not the end of the engagement. From 2013 to 2023, Nano hosted the platform, released security updates and changed the custom functionality as SLSA's requirements developed. The retained project history covers the website, integrations, member access, online ordering, NetSuite transfers, deployment and security maintenance.

Outcomes

SLSA extended its national Drupal website into a member and club ordering service without starting again.
BeachSafe and live results became part of the main website experience, improving access to information already held elsewhere in SLSA.
Existing member and club information reduced repeated account and checkout entry.
The Oracle NetSuite integration reduced manual order entry and connected online purchasing to SLSA's finance and fulfilment workflow.
Nano provided hosting, security maintenance and ongoing development across a ten-year engagement.

What this project demonstrates

This is a historic project, not a claim that SLSA still uses this platform. It demonstrates Nano's ability to build custom Drupal functionality, connect an important website to operational systems and remain responsible for it over the long term. Our current Drupal managed hosting service covers supported Drupal releases, upgrades, staged security maintenance, monitoring, backup and recovery.

Related Nano Solutions services: Drupal Managed Hosting · Managed Cloud Services · Enterprise System Integration. WA Government agencies can engage Nano through its CUAICTS2021 panel listing.