We talked with Wayne and Selina at WayLay Design, a Las Vegas-based graphic and web design business about how they are using GravityView. For their most recent project, they used Gravity Forms and GravityView to build a database of film locations for the State of Nevada’s Film Office. The application allows business and property owners to submit and manage film-friendly locations in Nevada and then lets location scouts, location managers, production companies, and other filmmakers to easily browse through the submitted listings. It’s really slick 🔥💯🔥 Check out the Nevada Film Office GravityView application
1. Can you tell us about your business? What services do you offer? And who are your typical customers?
We are WayLay Design, a Las Vegas based graphic and web design business. We have been in business for about 9 years. We are a husband and wife team working from our home office. We design and build everything ourselves. We don’t subcontract or have any employees. It’s just the two of us and we build custom WordPress websites for small to medium sized businesses and organizations. We don’t use any premade themes or templates so we typically take on projects where an out-of-the-box solution will not work for the client’s project requirements. Because we are small (and we prefer to be), we enjoy working on projects where we feel like our skill sets can be the most effective and even learn a few new things in the process.
2. What initially led you to search for GravityView? In other words, what problem did you need to solve?
We have been working with the Nevada Film Office since 2013. The Nevada Film Office (NFO) serves as the go-to resource for location managers, location scouts, and production companies who are looking for filming locations and production crew in the state of Nevada. One of the projects we worked on recently with the Nevada Film Office was a redesign of their Filming Locations Database. Their previous Filming Locations Database was provided through a 3rd party company that offers a multitude of SAAS options to help film offices manage projects, filming locations, and production crew.
We found GravityView while looking for ways to build a directory in which users could submit and manage their own location listing from the frontend while also offering an organized search filter for the public to find available filming locations.
Although the feature-rich 3rd party platform worked great for the Nevada Film Office for many years, the needs of the office had changed, so we worked with the film office to develop a solution that would work specifically for them. We found GravityView while looking for ways to build a directory in which users could submit and manage their own location listing from the frontend while also offering an organized search filter for the public to find available filming locations. To start with, we had two main goals:
- Make sure that business and property owners can create an account on the Nevada Film Office website and manage their film-friendly location listings
- Make sure that location scouts, location managers, production companies, and other filmmakers who are looking for film-friendly locations in Nevada can easily find what they are looking for on the Nevada Film Office website.
We found GravityView while looking for ways to build a directory in which users could submit and manage their own location listing from the frontend while also offering an organized search filter for the public to find available filming locations. The Filming Locations Database project is the first project that we have used GravityView for, but we can see the potential for countless listing and project management systems that can be built with GravityView.
3. Why did you choose Gravity Forms and GravityView in particular?
As far as functionality goes, the core of the redesign involved a major change in the way the filming location listings were managed. The way it worked originally was that business owners with film-friendly properties would fill out a form on the main Nevada Film Office website (built on the WordPress platform using Gravity Forms to handle the form submissions) and submit their location details through the website. Location details included things like addresses, pictures, property features, etc. that might appeal to productions, and any other information about how the business can offer further assistance to productions who film there. The Nevada Film Office would receive the form submissions, review and confirm all information/pictures, then copy that information (along with uploading all of the location photos) over to the 3rd party platform. Essentially, the film office was managing all of the location listings on their end, which was a very time consuming process. They also could not keep the database up-to-date as properties changed owners or businesses shut down, etc.
Since the Nevada Film Office was already using Gravity Forms for filming location submissions, GravityView offered the most seamless integration to build a directory of user-managed location listings.
In an effort to free up more time for the staff at the Nevada Film Office and to help keep a more accurate database of available filming locations, the office wanted to shift listing management to the actual business owners themselves and also have a database that could be managed through their current WordPress website.
Read how Dragonfly used GravityView to create a curated talent database.Â
Since the Nevada Film Office was already using Gravity Forms for filming location submissions, GravityView offered the most seamless integration to build a directory of user-managed location listings. GravityView made it easy for us to customize the layout of the user’s frontend dashboard area, where they could edit their location listings (a.k.a form submissions). (Read more about letting users edit their own entries in our Knowledge Base.) It was also easy for us to transition the Nevada Film Office to the new database since they were already familiar with checking Gravity Forms entries. Now, instead of copying all of the location listing data into the other location database, the office simply checks a box and it’s live on the site. Ease of use for all website users is extremely important, and GravityView makes listing management as simple as it gets.
Now, instead of copying all of the location listing data into the other location database, the office simply checks a box and it’s live on the site.
4. Have you been surprised or delighted by a particular feature in GravityView? In other words, were you able to do something with the software that you initially didn’t know about?
The features described on the GravityView site were pretty thorough (which is another reason we went with GravityView), but we were still pleasantly surprised at its flexibility and the way it allows both tech-savvy and non-tech-savvy users to create custom interfaces for different groups of people using conditional logic.
To learn more about displaying Gravity Forms entries, read Displaying Gravity Forms Entries: The Ultimate Guide