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Case study Website maintenance + redesign

How Provis stabilised and redesigned the Practice PPE Exams platform while learners kept studying.

Practice PPE Exams helps engineers in Canada prepare for their licensing exams. Provis took over maintenance and development of its WordPress subscription platform, put every change through staging first, and built a new front end: the homepage and key pages, a next-steps selector, province pages and Google sign-in.

  • WordPress + MemberPress + LearnDash
  • New UI, live today
practiceppeexams.ca today, in the design Provis created: Get your P.Eng. up to 50% faster, with a form to pick your association and licensing step
The same homepage on a phone

Shown: the homepage Provis designed for practiceppeexams.ca. The headline claims and award on it are the client's own.

Client: Practice PPE ExamsLicensing-exam prep for engineers in Canada
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The outcome

What changed for Practice PPE Exams.

No learner downtime
from any release
Every release went through staging first. None took the platform down for learners.
A clearer way in
province, step, course
Learners pick their province and licensing step and get their next steps and course. Google sign-in and free accounts let them start without paying.
Clean handover
documented, access removed
Setup and workflows documented for the client's team, and Provis's access removed at the end.

At a glance

  1. Problem

    Bugs, subscription issues and manual admin had piled up, and updates went live without a safe place to test them.

  2. Solution

    Provis took over maintenance and development, moved every release through staging, and built a new front end for learners.

  3. Result

    No release took learners offline, and the homepage now points each learner to the course for their step.

Client
Practice PPE Exams (practiceppeexams.ca)
Industry
EdTech: licensing-exam prep for engineers
Market
Canada; based in Ottawa
Platform
WordPress subscription site with MemberPress and LearnDash
Services
Website maintenance, UI design, WordPress development, workflow automation
Built with
WordPress, PHP, MemberPress, LearnDash, n8n
Engagement
Maintenance, development and a new UI, now complete
Ownership
Hosting, site, staging and n8n in Practice PPE Exams' own accounts

Provis Technologies provided consistent technical support and helped stabilize our platform while continuously improving workflows and user experience. Their proactive approach ensured our learners could focus on studying without technical disruptions.

Gavin Simone, P.Eng. Founder, Practice PPE Exams
The situation

A platform engineers pay to study on, changed without a safety net.

Practice PPE Exams has helped engineers in Canada through their licensing steps since 2012: the NPPE ethics and law exam, the competency-based assessment (CBA) and continuing professional development. Learners subscribe through MemberPress and study in LearnDash courses on a WordPress site.

Before Provis, a change took the route below.

Before Provis: how a change reached learners

  1. A change is needednew content, a plugin update, a fix
  2. No staging copynowhere to test it first
  3. Straight to the live sitewhile subscribers are studying
  4. Something breaksa bug, or an access issue
  5. Fixed by handreported by learners, patched one by one

Highlighted steps are where the risk came in.

After Provis

  1. A change is neededcontent, a plugin update, a fix
  2. Backup takenbefore anything changes
  3. Tested on staginga copy of the live site
  4. Releasedto the live site
  5. Rollback readya way back if needed
Practice PPE Exams didn't need a new platform. It needed a safe way to change the one it had, and a front end built for learners.
The problems, and what fixed each

Change the platform without stopping anyone studying.

  1. Subscriptions that needed constant attention

    MemberPress decides which learner can open which course. Access and billing needed continual troubleshooting and customisation to stay correct.

    What Provis didCustom MemberPress handling and WordPress hooks

    Provis customised MemberPress and wrote WordPress hooks where the plugins stopped, to keep access and billing correct.

  2. Every update went straight to live learners

    There was no staging environment, so a plugin update or a new feature was first tested where learners were studying.

    What Provis didA copy of the site to test on

    Set up inside the client's own hosting account.

  3. Bugs that kept coming back

    Recurring bugs and issues reported by learners added to the support load and wore down the experience.

    What Provis didIssues reproduced and fixed

    Reported issues reproduced and fixed before release; plugins and WordPress core kept current.

  4. Admin that still needed hands-on work

    n8n was already in place, but recurring operations still relied on manual steps, which slowed the team and left room for mistakes.

    What Provis didReworked n8n workflows

    Provis reworked the existing workflows, so recurring admin needs fewer manual steps.

  5. An interface that had grown inconsistent

    Layouts and navigation had drifted apart from page to page, making it harder for learners to find their course, their login or their province's page.

    What Provis didA new design, phones first

    One layout and one navigation, designed for phones first, across the homepage, the course, help, About and province pages, and the signed-in My Courses and profile pages.

How the work ran

Assess, change safely, hand over.

  1. AssessThe WordPress setup, subscriptions and workflows reviewed for risks before anything changed
  2. Change through stagingSubscriptions, custom WordPress logic, n8n workflows and the new UI
  3. Support, then handoverBug fixes, updates and new features, then the setup documented for the client's team

  • Subscriptions: custom MemberPress handling and WordPress hooks where the plugins stopped, to keep access and billing correct.

  • Workflows: the existing n8n workflows reworked, so recurring admin needs fewer manual steps.

  • A new front end: one layout and one navigation, designed phones first, and tested on phones, tablets and desktops.

  • Where Provis's part ends: the courses, their content and the AI study tools are Practice PPE Exams' own products. Provis worked on the platform underneath them, and on the redesign.

Safe changes:

Every release went through staging first.

There had been no staging copy, so changes were first tested on live learners. Provis set one up inside the client's own hosting account.

No release took the platform down for learners.

Setup documented for the client's team, and Provis's access removed at the end.

How Provis builds web platforms
The redesign

A new front end, designed and built by Provis.

Designed for phones first, tested on phones, tablets and desktops, and switched over by June 2026.

What Provis built (tap or click any screen to open it full size)

  1. A next-steps selector

    On the homepage, a learner picks their province or association and where they are in licensing. The selector returns their next steps and the course that fits. Shown: Ontario (PEO), “Need NPPE prep”.

    The selector filled in: Ontario (PEO), Need NPPE prep, See my next steps
    Pick
    Your NPPE steps in Ontario (PEO): register for an exam sitting, block an hour a day, spend extra time on ethics, practice and law; recommended action: start NPPE prep
    Next steps

  2. Province pages with a map

    A page for each province and territory: its regulator, its designation, and the courses for each licensing step, with a map of Canada that highlights the learner's province and zooms in on it. Shown: Ontario, in the lens and on the map.

    The map on the Ontario page, with Ontario highlighted

  3. Google sign-in and free accounts

    Learners log in with Google or with email, and can create a free account that starts their licensing plan.

    The login: Continue with Google, or log in with email; Get Started Free

Before

The earlier practiceppeexams.ca homepage: Want your P.Eng. sooner? with a video and 955+ Google reviews
The earlier homepage, already in place when Practice PPE Exams came to Provis.

After

The homepage Provis designed: Get your P.Eng. up to 50% faster, with a form to pick your association and licensing step
The homepage Provis designed and built, live today.
  • One question first. Learners pick their association and licensing step, and get their next steps.
  • Proof up top. Engineers helped and the Google rating sit above the headline.
  • Straight to a course. Direct routes to the NPPE, CBA and CPD courses under the hero.
  • One navigation. The same menu, login and Start Free button on every page.

Key pages Provis also designed and built (tap or click to open full size)

  • The NPPE Fast Track course page: Pass the NPPE with a clear study plan
    NPPE course page
  • The CBA Blueprint course page: Get your CBA approved faster
    CBA course page
  • The FAQs page: a search box and topic filters for NPPE, CBA, CPD, courses, IT and payment
    Help and FAQs
  • The About page: Canada's Licensing Advisor
    About

Also redesigned: My Courses and the profile pages learners see after signing in, the Tools page, the other province pages, Guarantee and Contact.

The same pages on a phone

  • The NPPE course page on a phone: Pass the NPPE with a clear study plan
    NPPE course page
  • Help and FAQs on a phone: a search box and topic filters for NPPE, CBA, CPD, courses, IT and payment
    Help and FAQs
Where Practice PPE Exams is today

Live, and still helping engineers reach their P.Eng.

The figures below are Practice PPE Exams' own published numbers on practiceppeexams.ca as of October 2026, for its whole business, not project outcomes.

25,750+
engineers helped by Practice PPE Exams since 2012
4.9
on Google, from 1,000+ reviews
See it live:practiceppeexams.ca (opens in a new tab)

Practice PPE Exams was also recognised in the 2026 EdTech Breakthrough Awards (Test Prep Innovation of the Year).

After the project

Scope delivered. The platform is theirs to run.

The engagement ended when the agreed scope was delivered. Provis documented the setup and workflows for the client's team. It had worked in accounts Practice PPE Exams invited it into, and its access was removed at handover. Practice PPE Exams can come back to Provis for changes or support whenever it wants.

Need longer-term support? Provis still runs The Vault (since 2012) and TrueWholesale (since 2022).

How Provis runs projects today

Confirmed for this project: one project lead, a written weekly update and a demo, and every release through staging in the client's own hosting. The list below is how Provis runs projects today.

  • One project leadyour single point of contact
  • A written weekly update and a demoof what was built that week
  • A staging link and your repoyou see the work as it is built; the code goes straight into your repo
  • Yours from day onecode repo, cloud account and domain in your company's name; our team joins as collaborators, and you can remove access at any time
  • Our team works in India, on ISTUTC+5:30: 9.5 hours ahead of New York (10.5 in winter), 4.5 ahead of London (5.5 in winter), 1.5 ahead of Dubai, 4.5 behind Sydney (5.5 in the Australian summer)
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Running a platform people pay to use, and afraid to touch it?

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Running a store, a SaaS product or a membership site? The same discipline applies: every change checked on a copy before customers see it, billing and access kept in step, and repetitive admin automated.

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