What it Means to be an Umbraco Gold Partner

In 2008, we became the first dedicated UK Umbraco Partner...two years later, we became one of the first Umbraco Gold Partners.

Today, we have a history of collaboration, contributions and achievements within the Umbraco community that we continue to build on. In 2021 we were announced Contributing Gold Partner for the second year running. 

What does it mean to be an Umbraco Gold Partner?

Let's examine how we've maintained our Gold Partnership with our favourite, free, friendly CMS.

Over the years, Umbraco has awarded Cogworks and our teammates these badges to officiate our everlasting love and commitment: Umbraco Gold Partner, Contributing Gold Partner, and MVP Awards.

Our Gold Partner status.

To obtain Gold Partner status, two or more Developers must be Umbraco certified”  - Umbraco

We took these criteria and ran! Seven members of the Cogworks Development team, across the UK and Poland, are Umbraco Certified experts or professionals, holding a combined 24 official certifications.

Our Umbraco expertise doesn't end there; all of our digital creators, from Project Managers to Designers, receive Umbraco Fundamentals training, meaning our team has the know-how to take on any Umbraco project.

Every year, we train to keep our certified Umbraco skills polished. We’ve even trained four team members to ‘Umbraco Masters’, the highest possible certification status. In June 2021, Cogworks Developer Imran earned his Umbraco stripes with an official Umbraco Certified Master. 

What we get in return.

Having Gold Partner status means we have access to some of the best perks available for Umbraco Partners, such as a direct line of support from Umbraco HQ and annual Gold Partner training with unlimited access to the online training portal, Umbraco. tv

How our Gold Partnership influences our work.

We work with Umbraco not just because we’re huge fans but because we trust it.

Keeping our Gold Partner status topped up keeps our Umbraco skills in top form for our cross-sector clients: international consumer brands, industry innovators, and public sector organisations to ethically-minded start-ups.

Umbraco’s open-source flexibility means it's always the right fit to realise our clients’ visions:

• A seamless migration from Sitecore for Smith and Willamson, where Umbraco’s flexibility and our agile workflow allowed for a seamless switchover of 4500 pages across two websites.

• A custom-built intranet for influential architecture firm Foster + Partners, merging Umbraco and Azure technology to create an intelligent live search that serves their global workforce in real-time.

• A sustainable Umbraco eCommerce platform for Fed by Abel & Cole with custom APIs that help create a personalised office delivery experience.

* A dynamic and highly flexible Umbraco website featuring intelligent integrations that future-proof business-critical legacy systems for Canada Life.

Umbraco gives us the tools to create intelligent, engaging experiences, and our know-how gives us the edge to find innovative solutions no matter the project.

What is a Contributing Gold Partner?

The Contributing Gold Partner badge is a new achievement that shines a light on Gold Partners that go the extra mile for the growth of the Umbraco project and its community within a 12-month period.

We’ve contributed to Umbraco for as long as we can remember through community events, technical contributions and education. We realised early on the more you put into Umbraco, the more you get in return.

In November 2021, Cogworks was recognised as a Contributing Gold Partner 2021! 

Our contributions to the Umbraco community.

The Umbraco UK Festival. In 2010, we hosted Umbraco’s 5th Birthday celebrations as a way of bringing the community together and sharing our love for Umbraco. The event doubled as a forum for developers or “Umbracians” to meet, collaborate and share their Umbraco experience. Since then, we’ve hosted ten consecutive annual Umbraco UK Festivals and three in Poland!

...The 2019 festival was the largest known community-run Umbraco festival (ever).

2010 also saw our Co-founder, Adam Shallcross, launch the London Umbraco meetup. The first meetup was eight like-minded folks keen to talk Umbraco. Now it has 536 members dotted around London with 120 meetups, from BBQs to round table discussions and themed quizzes. Recently, it has adapted to a remote set-up, and the conversation continues online!

Our technical contributions to the Umbraco project.

As an industry leader, we worked with Umbraco HQ to design and implement the installer process for Umbraco 6 and have built numerous other packages!

Building packages is one of our favourite ways to contribute to the Umbraco world and fulfil our need to find simple, user-friendly solutions. Some of our ingenious packages include:

Find and Replace - A simple and intuitive package which allows editors to find and replace content in Umbraco.

Sitelock - A security package for Umbraco that locks down a site so only users logged into the backoffice can see the public website.

Multilingual Url Picker Property Editor - A package that allows editors to pick nodes in the content tree from different languages to manage multilingual content simply and standardised. You can read all about it in our - recent blog post.

Our contribution to Umbraco education.

In 2016, Umbraco HQ asked us to improve the quality of customer implementations in the UK and Poland. We helped Umbraco reach more customers as the official trainer for what was then Umbraco Level 2 until their courses moved online in 2019. 

After a well-received Umbraco Examine workshop held at the Umbraco UK Festival 2016, we adapted the session material into a full-day training course and offered it to Umbraco. We then delivered this in the UK and Poland as part of Umbraco’s official training program.

We’re always looking into new ways to give back to the Umbraco community. We’re focussing on exciting new packages and continuing to engage with the community during these unprecedented times.

Cogworks Umbraco MVPs.

To be an Umbraco MVP means you are a great ambassador of what the Umbraco community stands for.   ‘MVPs represent the best of the community, which is one of the main building blocks in what makes the foundation of the Umbraco project.’

Gold and Contributing Partner badges prove we know our stuff about Umbraco. That said, it’s important to shout about our individual team members. Umbraco has classified 5 Cogworks team members as  “Most Valuable People” for their undivided attention to Umbraco and the community.

Since we became a dedicated partner, Cogworks Co-Founder Adam Shallcross has been recognised as an Umbraco MVP for his influential role within the community. The long list includes the London Umbraco meet-up, the Umbraco UK Festival and supporting MVPs at Cogworks. Groovy.

What does it mean to be an Umbraco Gold Partner?

For us, it means the world. We love being part of the Umbraco community and giving back in any way possible. We’re always looking for new ways to learn about the most flexible CMS and engage with the talented community behind it!

For clients, it means we provide the best possible service, apply the best technical strategy, and create intuitive experiences for content editors and users alike. It means we know the value of long-lasting partnerships, and that’s why we’re on hand when the project is over to train developers and editors for ongoing support and to find new ways to improve their digital presence continuously.

So whether your project is just an idea on a notepad or already off the ground, as an accomplished Umbraco Gold Partner, we're here to help.

Want to explore more of what we talk about? Scroll through Cogworks' latest musings on LinkedIn, and why not say hi?