Publishing project profiles to the company website became a time-consuming, multi-step process for Christman. As a growing construction firm, Christman needed a more consistent and centralized way to manage project information across teams.
OpenAsset’s WordPress Connector transformed their workflows, enabling the marketing and web development teams to collaborate more effectively, reduce duplication, and push content live faster.
Company Background
Christman has been an OpenAsset customer for several years, using it as their central hub for project information and employee data. Recently, they implemented the WordPress Connector as part of a broader website migration led by Elexicon, their digital agency partner.
Before we go into the details, here’s a little bit about Christman:
Christman
Christman is a full-service construction management, real estate development, and general contracting firm. With over a century of history and a growing national presence, Christman is recognized for its commitment to quality, collaboration, and innovation in the built environment.
Their marketing and proposal team supports eight regional offices, managing an extensive library of projects and personnel assets. Therefore, collaboration, consistency, and efficiency across teams are critical to maintaining their brand and delivering strong business development support.
The Challenge: Unifying Assets to Improve Publishing Efficiency
Before adopting OpenAsset’s WordPress Connector, Christman relied on a mix of tools, workflows, and content sources to update their website. This approach made publishing more time-consuming and sometimes led to delays in keeping their online portfolio up to date. Their team needed a way to simplify publishing without losing control over how content was managed across offices.
Specific challenges included:
Too Many Systems, Too Little Time
Before adopting the WordPress Connector, Christman’s website content lived in silos. Different regional offices created project profiles with varying formats and levels of detail. Updates were often done manually, duplicated across systems, or delayed entirely.
“Things lived in five or six different places, which meant we were replicating work five or six different times. If anything slipped, it appeared like we weren’t taking action.” —Kelly Gmazel, Director of Corporate Marketing, Christman
Christman’s previous website host required third-party help for even small edits. This slowed their ability to keep the site current and made collaboration difficult between teams.
Searching for a Single Source of Truth
Inconsistencies between resumes, project descriptions, and website content created issues for the proposal team. One group might pull a project’s value from a resume, while another might reference the website, leading to discrepancies and confusion.
“We had people calling us saying, ‘I already told you that project value changed. Why isn’t it updated here?’ But wherever ‘here’ was, it wasn’t connected to the other systems.” —Kelly Gmazel, Director of Corporate Marketing, Christman
Christman knew they needed to consolidate their content in one system that could be a reliable source of truth across platforms.
OpenAsset’s Solution: The WordPress Connector
The WordPress Connector bridges your asset library and website. It pulls approved project content, including photos and information from OpenAsset, into WordPress without manual uploads or duplicated effort. It’s like flipping a switch that instantly syncs your marketing collateral to your website.
The connector uses WordPress-native components to create custom post types, fields, and taxonomies that map directly to your OpenAsset data. That means less manual input, more accuracy, and a setup that won’t break every time you update your site.
For AEC marketers, it’s a game changer. You control how your content looks on the front end while OpenAsset does the heavy lifting in the background.
Here’s how Christman made the most of the WordPress connector:
Website Migration and WordPress Connector Integration
With help from Elexicon, Christman migrated their website to WordPress—a more user-friendly and flexible platform. While WordPress was already an improvement, integrating OpenAsset’s WordPress Connector took things to the next level.
“We were already on the path to making this process easier, and having the [connector] just eliminated one more place where we needed to maintain the same data points.” —Veronica LaDuke, Proposal Development Director, Christman
Christman structured their OpenAsset project profiles with consistent fields and images to ensure smooth data flow. They also cleaned up content and aligned image formats to reduce inconsistencies during sync.
“Implementation was straightforward. Your [connector] uses WordPress standard features, so we were able to plug those data types in directly instead of jumping through a bunch of hoops.” —Justin Proxmire, Director of Development, Elexicon
Results: Streamlined Publishing and Long-Term Scalability
Since launching OpenAsset’s WordPress Connector, Christman has seen meaningful improvements across publishing speed, content consistency, and internal workflows. What used to take weeks now takes minutes. Project data flows directly from OpenAsset to their website, eliminating the need for redundant updates and freeing up their team to focus on high-value tasks.
Here’s how Christman transformed their workflow with OpenAsset’s WordPress Connector:
Reduced Manual Work and Faster Publishing
Previously, publishing a new project to the website involved multiple handoffs, redundant data entry, and lengthy delays. A finalized project could sit idle for weeks—or even months—before someone had the bandwidth to push it live. It was a clunky process that often got pushed aside for more pressing work.
With OpenAsset’s WordPress Connector in place, that bottleneck has been eliminated. Once a project is finalized in OpenAsset, it can be published to the website in just a few clicks.
“That project might’ve sat for a couple of months before making it onto someone’s list. Now it’s literally the flip of a switch.” —Veronica LaDuke, Proposal Development Director, Christman
Additionally, the integration supports daily automatic syncing, with the option to trigger manual updates when needed. This has made the workflow smoother, faster, and significantly less reliant on developer involvement, freeing up both marketing and technical teams to focus on higher-impact work.
“Now that it’s in place, it’s pretty hands-off. We sync once a day, and we can always queue for a manual sync if needed.” —Justin Proxmire, Director of Development, Elexicon
Enhanced Consistency and Accuracy With OpenAsset’s DAM
Before implementing OpenAsset, Christman’s teams often faced discrepancies between project data used in resumes, proposals, and on the website. These inconsistencies led to confusion, delays, and credibility concerns, especially when key details like square footage or completion dates didn’t match across documents.
With OpenAsset, Christman established a single source of truth for all project information. Now, updates made in OpenAsset are reflected across platforms, eliminating the need to re-enter the same data in multiple places. This improves accuracy, streamlines internal communication, and reduces the likelihood of mistakes.
“It was a huge benefit to clean up the narratives and push consistent data to the site. It’s a once-and-done approach.” —Kelly Gmazel, Director of Corporate Marketing, Christman
Team Empowerment
The adoption of OpenAsset has empowered Christman’s marketing and business development teams to work more independently and effectively.
Business developers can access basic licenses to research relevant project examples without relying on the proposal team. This self-serve model supports faster decision-making and reduces interruptions in the proposal workflow.
For proposal writers, having a centralized, structured repository of project data means they no longer need to track down scattered documents or verify inconsistencies. They can confidently build responses and collateral with current, accurate information straight from OpenAsset.
Christman typically adds around two new projects monthly to their online portfolio and anticipates a bulk upload of 20 or more in the coming months.
Thanks to OpenAsset’s WordPress Connector, the team is well-positioned to scale content updates with minimal additional effort. Therefore, their web presence remains fresh and comprehensive without stretching internal resources.
Create Your AEC Success Story with OpenAsset
OpenAsset’s WordPress Connector helped Christman modernize its digital content workflow, reduce manual duplication, and improve the accuracy and efficiency of its marketing operations.
Moreover, Christman keeps project content consistent and up to date across teams and its website by managing everything in one place, without overwhelming marketing or dev teams.
“We would absolutely recommend OpenAsset to other firms. It’s been a great tool for us.” —Veronica LaDuke, Proposal Development Director, Christman
Whether you’re preparing for a website migration or looking to reduce content silos in your firm, OpenAsset’s WordPress Connector is a proven solution for AEC teams looking to work smarter—not harder.
