How strategic planning enhances Drupal site maintenance
The world of Drupal site maintenance can be monotonous—think module upgrades—but it’s often punctuated by unexpected twists and turns like security updates and bug fixes. As Drupal developers supporting client sites long-term, we can find ourselves in these two extreme environments of repetitive and reactive work.
Strategic road-mapping with clients can greatly improve this situation, transforming the traditional reactive model into a forward-thinking, proactive one. With Palantir’s Drupal Continuous Delivery Portfolio (CDP), we wanted to create an environment where we could promote sustainable growth and enduring client relationships, perfect for carrying out proactive roadmapping together, as well as fostering team members’ learning opportunities
Roadmapping in Drupal CDP is the process of identifying new business goals and needs, defining time-sensitive events (such as Drupal 9 end of life or a third-party vendor change), and planning out desired feature developments within a given timeframe. Our goal is to hold a roadmapping session with each of our clients on a quarterly basis, which allows our team to understand client needs, proactively plan work, identify learning opportunities for teammates, assess risks, and respond effectively to future challenges.
This may sound like common sense, but we received such a strong positive reaction that we realized it may not be common practice.
Here are a few benefits of roadmapping with our clients:
When clients see that their consultants are taking the time to understand their long-term goals and creating plans that align with those objectives, it builds trust and provides a space for conversations, which promotes the development of a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership. Plus, many of our clients are small teams trying to wear many hats. They appreciate the outside impetus to pull out of the day-to-day and focus on the health of their digital program.
Navigating the lifecycle of live Drupal sites alongside client organizational goals and changes can be tricky. For example, a client might decide to make an update to their brand that will impact many areas of their site. Roadmapping the “knowns” and “known unknowns” helps us anticipate these risks and devise strategies to mitigate them before they become critical issues. Having proactive measures in place can reduce the need for urgent, reactive problem-solving that often leads to stress and increased costs.
3. Increasing efficiency and productivity
With a clear plan in place, team members can be allocated more effectively, enhancing productivity. It allows us to gather proper expertise in advance to achieve our goals, which results in a smooth, coordinated approach to delivering value. Roadmapping also contributes to Palantir’s passion for growing talent by recognizing upcoming learning opportunities for team members. This is especially helpful within the Drupal CDP team, where we are aware of each other’s learning goals through team chartering.
Roadmapping can play a big part in fostering strategic growth, both for clients and Palantir. We are constantly monitoring new features and innovations to help improve user experience, such as privacy legislation and accessibility requirements. Discussing these with our clients and helping align them with their business goals guides us to make informed decisions and plans. We often surprise some of our clients with our consultative approach. We come to them with ideas that challenge their status quo and have the potential to change the course of their digital program. Some of these clients have grown significantly in our portfolio after years of doing just the baseline. And we’ve been able to push the boundaries of our own portfolio work by experimenting with our braver clients. In the end, the whole portfolio wins.
We all know that Drupal development can surprise us. Future roadmapping with clients is a great tool to help guide us on the long-term journey of maintenance and consulting. Roadmapping helps us develop stronger relationships, mitigate risks early, increase efficiency, and foster strategic growth. As we continue to expand Palantir’s Drupal Continuous Delivery Portfolio, we are excited to navigate the path ahead as proactive partners with our clients.
Image by Carl Martens
Drupal Drupal CDP StrategyIn the vast landscape of content management systems, one platform shines with unparalleled potential – Drupal. While WordPress enjoys popularity, acknowledged for its versatility, it's vital to recognize that Drupal emerges as the superior choice for certain scenarios. In fact, there are compelling reasons for migrating from WordPress to Drupal. While this transition may not be seamless due to inherent differences, the journey can be initiated with relative ease, facilitating substantial content migration to Drupal.
In this blog, we explore Drupal migration as the optimal solution and how this transformation can be accomplished in A-B-C steps.
In the world of web development, ensuring accessibility is paramount. For visually impaired users, alt text plays a critical role in describing the content of images. The Auto Alter Drupal module is designed to automate the generation of alt text using Artificial Intelligence. Let’s admit that content editors often skip alt text for the sake of convenience. But don’t just blame content editors, programmers also love to say that the content of the image is an image. There are approximately 270,000 occurrences of this in public GitHub repositories. An AI-generated alt text is much better than a profoundly negligent one, we can agree on that.
One simply cannot talk about what’s new in Drupal 10 without mentioning CKEditor5. Bursting with new features, the renovated text editor has been steadily hitting the headlines for over half a year. As a result, there is a ton of great content out there on its highlights and capabilities.
Below is a curated collection of top articles about CKEditor 5, from both a content manager's and developer’s perspectives. Hopefully, they will give you some insights to optimize your experiences with Drupal’s new text editor.
The final countdown to the Drupal 7 end-of-life has begun ticking after receiving its final extension. Why is upgrading from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 so daunting? Three problems must be faced when upgrading from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10:
The Drupal project has announced that Drupal 7 will officially reach its End of Life on 5 January 2025. This date marks the 14-year anniversary since Drupal 7 was released on 5 January 2011. This will be the final extension of support for Drupal 7, meaning that after this date, if your site still runs on Drupal 7 it may become more susceptible to security vulnerabilities if no action is taken. Thus, it is recommended to migrate your site as soon as possible.
In order to assist Drupal 7 site owners in migrating their sites, we have established a resource center and encourages all site owners, support teams, and contractors to visit the site to learn about transition options. We’re here to support you in your Drupal 7 site migration!
The Drupal Association is working to get the word out to Drupal 7 site owners that support will be ending and to provide them with reliable information to make plans to transition their sites,” commented Tim Doyle, CEO of the Drupal Association, “Drupal 7 site owners have options, from graduating to Drupal 10 or looking at other open source CMS that might be more appropriate given their goals for their site.
If you are still maintaining a Drupal 7 site – now is the time to begin your migration plan from Drupal 7! The Drupal 7 End of Life page will be continuously updated with new resources as End of Life approaches, such as how to migrate and a list of migration partners.
For more technical information, refer to the Drupal 7 Security Advisory post.
Ongoing assistance is achievable due to the dedicated efforts of Drupal core maintainers, the Drupal Security Team, as well as the contributions from organizations and volunteers addressing Drupal 7 concerns. You can support the work of the Drupal Security Team by donating on their Security Team Donations page. Your support is valuable!
Stay tuned for even more resources that will help you during your migration process. We are confident that this resource page will make your Drupal 7 migration experience a breeze! Begin your migration journey now.
The Drupal Association is working to certify migration partners to help Drupal 7 site owners.
Certified Migration Partners will be promoted on Drupal.org, alongside a migration resource library, to any end users looking for help. Learn more about the Drupal 7 Certified Migration Partners program.
Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram to also stay up to date on the latest Drupal 7 End of Life news.