Case study · WordPress + LMS

Watts Atelier.

A large art school whose marketing site and online school lived on one custom WordPress platform, running WooCommerce and Sensei LMS. We were their WordPress team, and we advised them on how to build the next version.

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Art school · WordPress · LMSin-person and online classes, based in Encinitas, California

WooCommerce + Sensei LMSconsulting, development, and ongoing maintenance

ConsultingMaintenancePerformanceSensei LMSWooCommerceWordPress

The setup

Watts Atelier of the Arts is an art school in Encinitas, California, founded by artist Jeff Watts. It teaches the fundamentals of drawing and painting through in-person classes at the school and an online program.

Their platform was a custom WordPress site running WooCommerce and Sensei LMS. The school’s marketing side and its online-school side shared one install, and the whole thing had to keep working for a lot of students.

We worked with them as their WordPress team: consulting, performance monitoring, technical support, WordPress development, and ongoing maintenance. When they started planning the next version of the site, we advised them on how it should be put together.

The challenge

Keep a large school’s WordPress platform steady, and plan the next version well.

Performance. A marketing site and an LMS with commerce put very different loads on a server, and on one install they compete for the same resources.
Update risk. On a single install, every core or plugin update touches the whole platform, so a change meant for one side can affect the other.
Complexity. WooCommerce, Sensei, and a marketing site in one codebase is a lot of moving parts for anyone to keep straight.
Planning ahead. The next version needed to be designed around those tradeoffs, not carried forward by default.

The solution

Hands-on WordPress support, plus architecture advice for what came next.

Consulting. Guidance on how the platform should be built and where it should go.
Performance monitoring. Watching how the site performed over time.
Support and development. Technical support and WordPress development when the school needed fixes or changes.
Ongoing maintenance. Routine updates and upkeep for a platform with a lot of moving parts.

The outcome

Marketing and school, separated.

Advised

we recommended separating the marketing site from the school and LMS.

Adopted

Watts Atelier has since made that split.

Supported

consulting, monitoring, support, development, and maintenance along the way.

Separate

today the marketing site and the online school run as separate sites.

Why we advised splitting them

A marketing site and a learning platform have different jobs. The marketing site is public pages that need to load fast for anyone. The LMS and store are logged-in, transactional, and heavier. Splitting them lets each get its own performance tuning and its own update schedule, so an update on one side doesn’t put the other at risk.

Each side on its own timeline

With two sites, the marketing side can change its design and content without touching the school, and the school can change courses and checkout without touching marketing. Different teams and different tools can work on each part, and each can be rebuilt when it needs to be.

More work

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Your turn

Marketing and LMS on one install?

If your marketing site and your LMS or store share one install, it’s worth asking whether they should. We’ll help you work out the architecture, and keep it running while you do.

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