USH also deployed collaborative workspaces using the XWiki solution. The Social Housing Union (USH) - in charge of the public housing sector - requested the XWiki SAS services in order to renew their resources center. This project required the import of existing data (Lotus Notes), the definition of a hierarchy plan, as well as the creation of a template to structure documents. An event website was also created. The USH was also able to deploy collaborative workspaces with XWiki solution. This allows network members to share information and documents on any project.

1. CASE STUDY
A RESOURCE
CENTER

2. XWiki SAS - 35/37, rue Beaubourg - 75003 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 45 42 40 90
Fax: +33 (0)9 59 26 92 14
Email: contact@xwiki.com
Website: www.xwiki.com
2
The Social Union for Housing (USH) is an “adhocratic” organization. In an unstable and complex
environmental, it manages multidisciplinary skills in order to stay engaged and carry out its
missions.
The USH has:
 a national representation role for the government, enterprises, media and public opinion
 a mission to study, reflect upon, and analyze all the issues related to housing and to the
development of proposals for social housing policies
 a function of information, advice and assistance from HLM organizations to facilitate and
develop their business and professional skills
Information and communication lies at the heart of the USH missions (it informs its members, its
federations, the HLM organizations and the HLM movement partners.)
Context
During the first half of 2012, an audit of the information production means within the USH was
conducted. The applied architecture was very heterogeneous and was not meeting the expectations.
The lack of consistency between the different systems of content production and the lack of a search
engine made the accessing content difficult for any producer service outsiders.
A "Resource center" was created with two objectives:
 to add value to the USH production, share information and produce data directly from the field
 to centralize production in an online tool enabling organizations to contribute to ongoing
projects
Sector: public
Need: structuring and
organizing the digital content
Solution: a resource center
Product: XWiki Enterprise
“XWiki allowed us to structure and better organize our
important digital content production while facilitating content
accessibility to satisfy a wider audience. The collaborative
editing proposed and adopted by many of our contributors now
allows us to understand and explore new opportunities, such as
having collaborative workspaces.”
(Thierry Bourreau, head of the USH resource center)

3. XWiki SAS - 35/37, rue Beaubourg - 75003 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 45 42 40 90
Fax: +33 (0)9 59 26 92 14
Email: contact@xwiki.com
Website: www.xwiki.com
3
Needs and constraints
Constraints regarding the tool:
Beyond the technical and functional requirements, special attention was paid to:
 the tool's ability to organize information
 the "native" collaborative dimension
 the proven capacity to reuse content
Constraints regarding the internal functioning:
> Mobilizing many contributors, some of them delocalized:
 a tool that can be accessible directly from a web browser
 a "standardized" production tool: 4 common templates
 a simple tool: Title + “Chapô” + Content
 a "light" and secure workflow, let at the governance of the contributing entities
 a very safe history for the contributors
> Allowing a rigorous information organization, efficient for production and easy to use:
 creation of an Unified Classification Plan from existing plans
 an easy and effective management tool (MC and associated tags with each entry)
 a batch tool for assignment (e.g. classification change, entity name or contact email)
 status management: private / public
 a customizable search engine (version 5.2.1 migration -> 6.x for SOLR)
 multiple access types: Plan / Type / Nature / Tags / Index
> Reusing the existing content:
 more than 45 000 "text" documents in a Lotus Notes database
 some attachments encapsulated in documents (wordx, pdf, pptx)
 hyperlinks (URL, Lotus Notes) needing to be maintained
 selection and cleaning of the existing databases
 mapping and identification of the content to reuse and associate it with target templates in
the CDR
 import with a document mapping in the new PCU (RCL)
 import achieved without systematic indexing of MC or tags

4. XWiki SAS - 35/37, rue Beaubourg - 75003 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 45 42 40 90
Fax: +33 (0)9 59 26 92 14
Email: contact@xwiki.com
Website: www.xwiki.com
4
Solution
The XWiki solution selection
A call for bids was made. The selected solutions: Drupal / Alfresco / Sharepoint / XWiki.
XWiki stood out on the following criteria:
 a good functional coverage
 a simple solution
 a single source (publisher and integrator)
 the recovery of the existing data (import)
The XWiki SAS team achievements
A resource center
The USH resource center is accessible at: ressourceshlm.union-habitat.org/ush/
The XWiki SAS team set up the USH resource center after several preliminary steps including the
creation of a classification plan by the USH and the reuse of existing data (Lotus Notes attached files
(PDF, pptx, ... docx), and hypertext links).

5. XWiki SAS - 35/37, rue Beaubourg - 75003 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 45 42 40 90
Fax: +33 (0)9 59 26 92 14
Email: contact@xwiki.com
Website: www.xwiki.com
5
An event site : « The Congres ».
For the event site « The congres », XWiki was used as a classic CMS.

6. XWiki SAS - 35/37, rue Beaubourg - 75003 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 45 42 40 90
Fax: +33 (0)9 59 26 92 14
Email: contact@xwiki.com
Website: www.xwiki.com
6
The first results
The first results were encouraging. The Resource Center made with XWiki meets the expectations of
the USH, especially the centralization and the valuation of all the productions of the HLM organization.
The targets of this reference portal on social housing were reached as the visitors number has
constantly grown since its opening in November 2014:
 more than 8000 unique visitors
 over 13,000 sessions per month
 almost 2500 pages viewed per day
The appropriation of this new way to produce and publish information continues to spread throughout
the organization. Nearly 300 new documents were produced this year by the various operational
departments, thus increasing the existing base of 2500 USH references.