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.

1. Back to the Old School
Drupal for Webmasters
by Brett Baker

2. Wayback in the
good old days of web…
1996

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

8. Background & Training
Webmasters are
variable generalists.

9. Complex Organizational Needs

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

12. Webmaster Methodology + Drupal

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

16. What is Children’s Aid?

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

22. Update the brand on the web

23. Streamline micro-site branding

24. Visually “fit” more content
Visual Information
Hierarchy informed
Drupal Regions
Knowledge of Drupal
theming sped up
design process

25. Visually clarify existing content

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

29. Keep it simple.

30. Theme Zen + custom subtheme

31. Modules
Core Optional Admin Content/Layout Functionality
book admin cck global redirect
comment ckeditor cck blocks google analytics
database logging devel context jquery update
help logintoboggan date mollom
menu insert mp3player
email
nodewords
path node clone fancybox
path redirect
php filter node export filefield pathauto
search seed image api token
taxonomy views bulk operations imagecache typekit
imagefield webform
menu block
nodereference views
views
views attach
views rotator

32. Get the most
out of your modules
Context module
CCK Blocks
Menu Block
Views
Views Bulk Operations
Book

33. Challenge:
“micro-sites” for centers/events

34. • Custom Module?
• OG + Spaces
• Context is already there

35. Context theme variables
page-center.tpl.php

36. Challenge:
Job Postings and Applications

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

39. Challenge:
“reference any piece of content anywhere, anytime”

40. Challenge:
“reference any piece of content anywhere, anytime”
#1 - Node Reference + CCK Blocks + Node Reference Views

41. Challenge:
“reference any piece of content
anywhere, anytime”
#2 - Taxonomy + Views

42. How else can you leverage Drupal +
a few basic modules?

43. Simple Rich Media nodes
Podcasts - mp3 module allows user to upload a file
and have it appear automatically in a flash player

44. Simple Rich Media nodes
Video - simple cck field to paste “embed code”

45. Simple Rich Media nodes
Cck Imagefield + Imagecache + Fancybox
= easy photo galleries

46. Simple feeds do work!
Core Aggregator
+
Cron
+
Views

47. Questions?
http://www.childrensaidsociety.org
brettb@childrensaidsociety.org
or
brettLbaker@gmail.com
http://www.webandfinearts.com