It’s day 2 of the Drupal Advent calendar and today we’re taking a look at the first step to any new website built with Drupal CMS, the site installer.

The previous Drupal installer wasn’t terrible, but it required a lot of steps, and typically needed a lot more work, finding and installing modules, when the initial install was complete.

The new installer has tried to simplify the process as much as possible, and offers a friendlier interface.

The primary question it asks is what are the main goals of your site:

At present, there are six options, but these are expected to be expanded in the future…

Tags

• Drupal CMS
• Installer

Welcome to this year’s Drupal Advent Calendar, and this year the focus is on the most important Drupal initiative in quite some time.

Code named Starshot, it aims to take Drupal to a new level of user friendliness and ease of use.

Over recent versions, Drupal has become incredibly powerful, and it now powers many enterprise websites for major corporations, governments, and NGOs around the world.

Starshot was announced by the founder of the Drupal project, Dries Buytaert, at DrupalCon Portland, in April of this year. This proposed a new default installation of Drupal with many extra features, and…

Tags

• Drupal Starshot

One of the common needs, or at least desires, for CRM users is to link their CRM to some kind of constituent portal. There are several ways your can architect a good data pattern for your constituent portal. The trick is picking the right one for your organization.

This is the first in a series on what your choices are, and now to select the right one. The architecture you select will drive the implementation cost, maintenance costs, and scalability.

The Purpose of Your Constituent Portal

Before deciding on the architecture of your portal, you need to have a clear understanding of its intended purpose and expected scale. The purpose of the portal will also dictate the direction(s) data flows, and the scale will help you plan the long term costs.

If you can’t clearly state why you need a constituent portal, you don’t need one.

Different organizations have different reasons to create portals. Companies that sell products may want a warranty or support portal. Nonprofits often want a donor portal that provides tax recipes and allowed recurring donors to update their gift information. Member organizations want a place for members to see their benefits, update their information, and renew their memberships. And so on.

The purpose of your portal will determine the direction that data flows through it. There are essentially three directions that data can move.

Outbound Data

You can send data from your organization to your constituent. That could be things like receipts, memberships status, or product warranty information. Anything that is data you have, that your member might need to see, but not update.

Data Exchange

You can allow constituents to update information. That could be address changes, support requests, donation schedule updates, event registration details, and more.

Data Network

Your third option is to allow you constituents to exchange information with each other. This could be a any form of member community where they engage with each other.

When planning a network, remember you have to plan for content moderation and acceptable use policies.

Primary Portal Data Architectures

To support your portal, whatever the data flow is, there are three main data architectures you can choose from, each which a different strengths and weaknesses. The more complex your architecture the more options you will have for what it can support, but it will also increase costs and maintenance efforts. Bigger is not always better – sometimes it’s just more expensive.

1. All-in-One Constituent Portals

In an all-in-one solution your constituent portal is part of your CRM. For obvious reasons this is the type of portal that your CRM vendor wants to sell you. In Salesforce land this means Experience Cloud. There are also many nonprofit-focused CRMs which include one in their solution. When your portal is part of your CRM you get a bunch of advantages:

• Data all lives in one place. There is no data sync to worry about setting up or maintaining.
• You have one vendor. That means you can centralize your support arrangement and billing.
• They are often fastest to implement. They are designed to be fast to market to help make them the obvious choice.
• They generally do not require a developer. Again, your CRM vendor really wants you to select this path, so they clear as many hurdles as they can.
• There is only one technology stack. By leveraging the technology of your CRM your investments in learning that technology carry over, at least in part, to your portal.

There are also downsides:

• New template system to learn. The CRM’s portal likely has a different template system than the CMS on your main web site. That may be hard to make match your primary online branding.
• The vendors make a lot of assumptions. To provide that ease listed above they make assumptions about how data flows, security, user experience, and how other elements should work – those assumptions may not match your ideal solution.
• Costs often scale linearly. There are usually license costs that are scaled based on user count meaning your costs grow as the portal grows at more or less a 1:1 rate. While there are price breaks and other incentives this is the right expectation to have for estimating.

2. External Constituent Portal

In this pattern an external constituent portal moves the user experience from within your main CRM’s sphere of influence into a separate platform. In my career I’ve mostly built these with Salesforce as the CRM and Drupal as the portal platform – it’s a powerful pairing. The strengths and weaknesses here are more or less the mirror of the all-in-one portal.

• You web team may already know the technology. If you use the same technology as your web developers use for your main web site(s) they already know who to handle design and branding.
• You have greater control over the User Experience. The assumptions that go into the portal are yours not the ones imposed by the CRM.
• You have greater control over security, along with data flow and formats. Since they aren’t built around assumptions you don’t control you have greater control and freedom.
• Costs typically grow more slowly. It is less common to have per-user license costs in this context so the cost curve is likely closer to logarithmic.

The downsides:

• You have to handle data synchronization. The two systems means data has to pass back and forth.
• You have two difference vendors/platforms. When you had one system everything was centralized, now you have two different systems handling constituent data.
• This design typically is harder to implement. All those short cuts your CRM provider had in mind for you are gone. Even if you use purpose built solution it’s going to take more time and effort.
• This approach generally requires a developer and/or data architect. To implement this pattern you need someone who understands both platforms – ideally both for setup and support.

3. External Constituent Portals with Data Proxy

In some situations it makes sense to insert a data proxy, or API layer, between your main CRM and your constituent portal. This creates a layer of abstraction, security, and data augmentation that can benefit a lot of organizations. While this is the most complex of the three main architectures it is one I find is frequently overlooked – in part, I suspect, because no one partner benefits from selling it.

This setup certainly isn’t for everyone, but when it’s the right fit it makes a huge difference. It also creates a significant number of iterations – all of those arrows could be one directional or two directional.

An extra data layer makes the most sense when data from your CRM is going to multiple places and/or needs to be augmented by an external data source. For example think about an organization that provides trail maps for hiking or paddling. All that data about trails does not need to be in your CRM, but you probably want to know which members are interested in which trails. An organization like that may have a portal for members, a web site to find trails for non-members, apps for iPhone and Android, and perhaps a public API for other people to use to build their own web sites with. That’s a lot of API calls all with different data sets, all of which need to be very fast.

Your CRM is designed to be very stable and reliable – it is not designed to be very fast. What’s more, you often have limits on the number of API calls you get in your package with extra fees charged if you go over. By inserting another layer between your CRM and other needs you can bypass these limitations.

There is another added benefit to this design pattern, and that is increased security. By creating an additional layer in your system you are able to create a separation of concerns between the various systems. Each should have access to only the data is absolutely needs from any of the others.

How to Pick?

There are lots of considerations that go into selecting the right architecture for your project – which is why that’s getting it’s own post soon.

The post Architectures for Constituent Portals appeared first on Spinning Code.

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The end of Drupal 7 support is approaching (January 5, 2025), which means this system’s users need to migrate to a newer version. This article explains how to move smoothly from Drupal 7 to Drupal 11, the key steps, and what to pay attention to. I encourage you to read the article or watch the video in the “Nowoczesny Drupal” series.

This week I fixed lots and lots of accessibility issues.

The open-source ecosystem thrives on collaboration, innovation, and inclusivity. Within this space, Drupal has consistently emerged as a beacon of robust, community-driven development. A significant contribution to this success comes from Drupal companies stepping up to sponsor Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) events, ensuring the platform's visibility and fostering its growth.

Some of them are doing more than just sponsoring events—they are cultivating spaces where Drupal can shine amidst the broader open-source community. By anchoring Drupal’s presence at these gatherings, they highlight the platform’s strengths, such as its flexibility, scalability, and vibrant community. Their efforts underscore the idea that Drupal is not just a content management system but a cornerstone of the open-source movement.

Recently, Nico Grienauer wrote an article in the Drop Times about acolono’s presence at ‘Kiss the Globe,’ an interdisciplinary event held in Vienna, Austria. Acolono was one of the event's sponsors, but it did not end there. The company offered discounted tickets to Drupal developers, enabling more contributors to attend. This approach democratizes access to knowledge-sharing opportunities, allowing developers to engage with the broader open-source world while representing Drupal. 

Such measures ensure Drupal's representation and help create a collaborative bridge between diverse technologies and communities. This cross-pollination of ideas enhances the value of open-source events and reflects the cooperative ethos that defines Drupal.

In a world where competition often overshadows collaboration, these efforts remind us of the power of community. Such initiatives deserve appreciation as they propel Drupal forward and uphold the principles of open source—accessibility, inclusivity, and innovation. 

Now, let’s look at the important stories from the past week.

In an interview with Alka Elizabeth, Martin Anderson-Clutz reflects on his experiences presenting at NEDCamp. He delves into his work under the Starshot initiative, which aims to enhance Drupal’s capabilities for event management. He highlights the evolution of Drupal recipes, explores the complexities of event-based tools, and shares developments slated for upcoming releases. He also discusses how collaboration within the Drupal community has shaped tools and practices, offering insights into the future of event management and site-building with Drupal.

For acolono, Open Source is not just a technical solution but a philosophy. It represents collaboration, innovation, and shared responsibility—values that align closely with the ethos of Kiss the Globe. By leveraging Drupal, acolono develops digital tools that are both innovative and environmentally conscious, reinforcing the agency’s belief that technology can be a driver of sustainability. Nico Grienauer shares about acolono's partnership with Kiss the Globe event and their giant push for Drupal.

Bernardo Martinez writes about how DrupalCamp Atlanta regained momentum in 2024 after one of its lead organizers stepped down last year. Earlier in the week, we had published his reflection on this year's Open-Source/DrupalCamp Chattanooga. Here's a report of the event from Bernardo Martinez.

This week, from November 25 to December 1, 2024, features several Drupal events, including the MidCamp 2025 Planning Meeting, the Event Platform Initiative Discussion, and the Dutch Splash Awards. Have a look at the Drop Times’ article on events this week.

Pamela Barone has provided updates on the progress of Drupal CMS version 1 and outlined plans for new work tracks to advance the platform further. With version 1 nearing completion, successful tracks like Project Browser and Workspaces as Content Moderation continue to drive improvements.

DrupalSouth has officially announced its committee for 2024, bringing together a group of dedicated professionals to lead the organization’s activities and initiatives. The newly appointed committee includes individuals with diverse experience, ready to advance the Drupal community in the region.

DrupalCon Singapore 2024 is set to roll within a month. The grand event that brings together Drupal enthusiasts from Asia and beyond is going to be a goldmine of networking opportunities. Have a look at the Social Events at the event.

DrupalNYC invites Drupal enthusiasts to participate in its upcoming "Contribution Day," scheduled for Friday, December 13, 2024, from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The event encourages both new and seasoned contributors to collaborate on advancing the Drupal ecosystem.

DrupalCamp Poland 2025, the country's largest Drupal-focused conference, will occur on June 7 in Warsaw. Organizers have announced that the call for session proposals is now open, inviting speakers to submit their topics for consideration. 

A new podcast series was launched exclusively to deal with topics connected to LibreOffice. The series titled LibreOffice Podcast is being published on PeerTube. The first episode, published on 20 November, discussed the topic "Marketing Free Software".

James Abrahams, Director at FreelyGive. Ltd, recently shared an update on the integration of AI agents into Drupal, sparking a wide-ranging discussion among experts on LinkedIn. His insights focused on the critical role of evaluations in AI systems, as well as the challenges of creating intuitive tools for non-developers within the Drupal ecosystem.

With that let's wind up this week's newsletter.

Thomas Alias K
Sub-editor, The Drop Times