So you want to build a simple Drupal website? Maybe it's a corporate website for a small organization or a small university department. Once you get started, you might realize that your website is not so simple after all. While Drupal provides lots of functionality out-of-the box, even the simplest website requires a lot of configuration, installing common contributed modules, and checking of checkboxes. How do you make sure that you haven't missed anything? In this presentation, I'll walk you through my checklist of essential core configuration and contributed modules that pretty much every Drupal website will need. I'll use a McGill University research group website as an example. Whether you're a project manager, site builder or administrator, this presentation should give you food for thought and help you build your own checklist for your next Drupal project.

1. DRUPAL SITE BUILDING
CHECKLIST

2. Drupal Consulting, Development, and Training
evolvingweb.ca
Suzanne Kennedy, Co-founder
@suzanne_kennedy

3. WHY HAVE A CHECKLIST?
• Plans change between design & launch
• Site building is an iterative process, so things
change and get inconsistent
• Avoid last minute fixes the week after launch,
or when the site admin starts adding content
• Your checklist can serve as documentation

4. WHAT’S ON THE CHECKLIST?
• Content Types & Views
• SEO
• Admin Tools
• User Accounts
• Content
• Pre-Launch Checklist

5. CONTENT TYPES

6. Remove Un-used Content Types

7. Manage Display: Is everything is the correct order?

8. Manage Fields: Is everything is the correct order?

11. Content Type Settings

12. VIEWS

13. Delete any Views or Views displays that you’re not using.

14. Document your Views!

15. Make sure that Views options are consistent

17. Check permissions for Views

18. SEO TOOLS

19. Add Google Analytics
drupal.org/project/google_analytics

20. Configure URL Aliases
drupal.org/project/pathauto

21. Update Aliases

22. Update Action for URL Aliases
Configuration > Search and metadata > URL Aliases > Settings

23. Fix missing navigation on 404 Pages
drupal.org/project/404navigation

24. Custom error pages

25. Page Title
drupal.org/project/page_title

26. Mollom
drupal.org/project/mollom

27. FOR THE ADMIN

28. Administrative Views
drupal.org/project/administrative_views

29. Draggable Views
drupal.org/project/draggable_views

30. Administrative Menus
drupal.org/project/admin_menu

31. WYSIWYG API
drupal.org/project/wysiwyg

32. BUEditor
drupal.org/project/bueditor

33. Configure Text Format Default
Configuration > Content authoring > Text formats

34. Configure Text Format Default
Configuration > Content authoring > Text formats

35. Embedded Images
drupal.org/project/insert drupal.org/project/image_resize_filter

36. Webforms

37. USER ACCOUNTS

38. Set up correct user roles

39. Test the permissions for each role
drupal.org/project/masquerade

40. Limit registration

41. Anonymous User Permissions

42. CONTENT

43. Remove all the test content & users from the site

44. Remove all the test content & users from the site

45. No required fields missing from ‘legacy’ content

46. Test Your Image Styles

47. PRE-LAUNCH CHECKLIST

48. Disable Modules You Don’t Need

49. Turn on Caching & Aggregation
Configuration > Development > Performance

50. Modules up-to-date
Configuration > Modules > Update

51. Change the Super Admin User Password

52. Disable Error Logging
Configuration > Development > Logging and errors

53. Security Review
drupal.org/project/security_review

54. CONTRIB MODULES
• Views Bulk Operations • WYSIWYG API
• Google Analytics • BUEditor
• Pathauto • Insert
• Page Title • Image Resize Filter
• Mollom • Security Review
• Administrative Views • 404 Navigation
• Draggable Views • Masquerade
• Administrative Views

55. TRAINING PROGRAM
We offer public and private Drupal training sessions.
evolvingweb.ca/training

56. THANK YOU!

57. Drupal Consulting, Development, and Training
evolvingweb.ca
Suzanne Kennedy, Co-founder
@suzanne_kennedy