ACTORS' EQUITY

SUPPORTING MEMBERS SINCE 1913

Actors’ Equity Association, founded in 1913, is the labor union that represents actors and stage managers across the country. Actors’ Equity specializes in negotiating and promulgating over 40 national and local contract agreements for developing not-for-profit theaters. Experienced in wage negotiation and fighting for safe work conditions, Actors’ Equity knows what it takes to make its members feel appreciated, secure and supported. 

When Actors’ Equity realized its members weren’t completely satisfied, it turned to SilverTech to help reimagine and develop a new member portal that enhanced both the user experience while providing more value to members. User experience experts at SilverTech were prepared to make Equity’s enhanced vision for its site to become a reality.

PAIN POINTS

To begin, SilverTech performed a full website audit and in-depth discovery sessions providing insight into the setup of the current site, Equity’s target market, and roadblocks of the internal team and external users. SilverTech found that navigation, website speed, search functionality and ability to schedule auditions via the portal weren’t making it easy for the users to accomplish desired tasks. 

Users were complaining of several issues hindering their experience in finding necessary information on the site. With 52,000 members and thousands of employees accessing the current portal and dozens of pages each day, it was important that the website quickly provided accurate results for each search and inquiry. 

The team was also able to identify valuable opportunities for the new site configuration, such as including calls to action on the homepage dashboard and adding a dropdown for relevant job openings based on each member's profile and history. After multiple discovery sessions, it became clear that there were many opportunities for Equity to provide a better and more valuable experience for its members.

PROCESS AND INTEGRATIONS

For the smooth transition of over 52,000 accounts, SilverTech and Actors’ Equity relied heavily on co-development and consistent communication. SilverTech took a strategic approach in allowing existing users on the old system to easily create new accounts on the new platform associated with their existing CRM data. Additionally, thanks to Equity’s IT director’s familiarity with Sitefinity, SilverTech was able to uncover an opportunity to familiarize the team at Equity with the new use of the CMS from the start of the project to allow them a deeper understanding of their website. With SilverTech’s expert developers and the help of Equity developers, the work of carrying over member information was split and the process for merging code was made fast and simple.

Beyond just the member portal, Actors’ Equity and SilverTech co-developed a new application called Casting Call. This feature allows actors and stage managers to search for auditions and be put in queues for auditions for the roles that are right for them. This integration uses a custom API through Sitefinity that can check for good standing in Actors’  Equity. The new Casting Call integration provides better, more accurate and valuable results for members while also not sacrificing efficiency. The capabilities of Casting Call far exceed the previous procedures and methods used for audition sign ups. Casting Call fulfills the needs that members have been expressing regarding finding work within the industry.