Presentation by Brett Baker, Web Manager at The Children's Aid Society given at Drupal Camp Atlanta 2010 on October 2, 2010. The talk discussed how a single person or small team can leverage the Drupal CMS to tackle difficult deliverables.
3. There were lots of
webmasters.
Webmaster - Any person
responsible for all websites
or online deliverables for
an organization.
4. In 1996
a few HTML pages
some images (maybe
scanned)
a bit of FTP
Content Editing
Content production
Banner Ads…
5. In 2010 The game has
changed.
Design Server Admin
Front-end coding Analytics
CMS 1000’s of pages
configuration Content Editing
Theming Content
Back-end coding production
Database Email design
management and code
Hosting Banner Ads
administration Social Media
Domain Admin And so on…
6. How do the needs of an organization
change when you have one
webmaster instead of a whole team?
They don’t.
7. What are the
challenges?
Variable Background & Training
+
Complex Organizational Needs
Demanding & Difficult Deliverables
10. Demanding and Difficult
Deliverables
• Often challenging
• Often custom
• Often/always needed
immediately or preferably
yesterday.
• Must be achieved while
maintaining other work
activities, meetings, budgets,
reporting.
• Re-create something seen
elsewhere on the web
11. Drupal is the solution.
• Powerful out of the box
• Great contributed modules
• Easy to theme
• Great on-line community
• Flexible
• Fixable
13. We know about Drupal. What is
the Webmaster methodology?
Inventory and Prioritize Organizational Needs
Plan for Large Scale Shifts/Needs
Keep the Site Simple
Design/Program for Iteration/Realignment
14. Part 2: The Children’s Aid Society
a case study
(or how Drupal made my life easier...)
15. Case Study: The Children’s Aid
Society
www.childrensaidsociety.org
17. Children’s Aid...
is broad and complex
was founded in 1853
serves New York City's most vulnerable children and their families.
provide comprehensive support for children in need
serves more than 100,000 children a year
operates 40 community-based centers, schools and health clinics
in 2009 provided 81,000 health and mental health visits to 14,000
patients
Community Schools program partners with 22 local public schools
has nearly 2000 employees, more than 1000 full time
18. Background
a Drupal journey...
Flat Files Drupal 4.7 Drupal 5
2000-2007 April 2007 August 2008
Drupal 6
August 2010
19. Inventory and Prioritize
Organizational Needs
Meeting these needs with
limited resources was
a series of challenges.
20. The big 3
Design Challenges
Corporate/Organizational Challenges
Functional Challenges
21. Design Challenges
• Branding/Design conflicts
• Continuity concerns
• Find visual space for more content.
• Widespread agency usage of IE6
• Microsite Branding concerns
26. “micro-site” sections
UI needed to make sense when experienced as it’s own site or
as part of the larger Children’s Aid website
27. Corporate/Organizational
Challenges
• Competing stakeholders: Centers, Programs,
Executive, Development (Donations).
• 13+ physical locations need their “own” website
• Scores of programs needing a “section” - several
pages of content
• Need to quickly aggregate content around trending
topics i.e. Obesity Prevention
28. Functional Challenges
• Micro-sites to import
• Wordpress blog to import
• Connect related content
• No body fields
• Extra content types
• Legacy input php
• External php files
• 2000+ nodes (from D5, D6, Wordpress)
• Poor and random URLs
• Odd image sizes
37. Node Clone + Webform module
Modules already in use
Easy to understand
Stores applications
but...
Needed to hide “complex”
webform editing fields
38. Challenge:
Content Inconsistencies
overly long titles, image availability, nodes that only have a view
Taxonomy + Context for
small layout adjustments
