After the huge success of the DrupalCon Portland competition, the Drupal Association is excited to announce that the t-shirt design contest will be returning for DrupalCon Atlanta! 

We want to see the Drupal community's design ideas for the official t-shirt, available for all attendees to wear and enjoy. Do you have a fantastic idea in mind? Let’s see your creativity!

The winner will get THEIR design on the front of the official t-shirt for DrupalCon Atlanta 2025!

What the judges are looking for

Judges are looking for a combination of creativity, impact, and relevance to the Drupal community. A design that tells a story and aligns with the values and aspirations of DrupalCon attendees is likely to capture attention.

While exploring bold ideas, consider how your design will resonate with a diverse audience. Think of classic elements that make a T-shirt memorable while pushing creative boundaries.  Avoid overcomplicating things; sometimes less is more, especially if every element adds value to the message. 

Now, for the finer details…

Your design must include the DrupalCon Atlanta Logo and will only be featured on the front of the t-shirt. Sponsor logos will be added to the t-shirt sleeves after the design is finalized. 

Specs: 

• PNG or PDF preferred
• 16 inches tall, 13 inches wide
• graphics need to be 300 dpi

All designs must be submitted by 31 December 2024 at 23:59 UTC, after which the submission form will close.

The Drupal Association will then select four designs to go forward to a public vote.

The top four designs, as chosen by the Drupal Association, will then be voted upon by the public, with voting closing on 18 January at 23:59 UTC. 

The winning design will be printed on the front of the official DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 t-shirt and the winner will receive a complimentary ticket to their choice of either DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 or DrupalCon North America 2026.

How to enter

Simply create your design, then fill out our submission form by 18 December to submit your final design. We also ask that you include a sentence or two describing why you chose your design and how it represents the Drupal community.

So, what are you waiting for? Submit your design now, and please help us spread the word throughout the Drupal community!

Good luck!

** Drupal Association staff and members of the DrupalCon Atlanta Steering Committee will not be permitted to enter this contest.**

Dear Readers,

Ever put your heart and soul into a project, be it an art project back in school or a work thing that sustains your corporate existence? Then you all will be able to relate that more than the work itself, it was the happiness and pride in the eyes of those who saw you, that made all the difference.  For all of us, it's that 'pat on the back' that pushes us to do better each day — the recognition, a token of appreciation. The fuel for motivation is not any different for Drupal, its agencies, and the community.

Did you know the Splash Award made its debut a decade ago? This time it is widening its ambit with the first-ever Splash Awards Drupal Asia at DrupalCon Singapore 2024. 10 years of an exemplary institution for recognizing and inspiring innovation through acknowledging the outstanding websites and digital experiences built with Drupal. The much relevant, nod of approval for the Drupal agencies to tread on. To put organizations and users who are doing extraordinary things in the field of Drupal in the spotlight and add a feather to their hat.

Esmeralda Tijhoff had an opportunity to interview Bert Boerland, one of the pioneers of the award about the genesis and growth of the Splash Awards. The prestigious accord stemmed from the need to promote Drupal better.

“Our dream is to grow into a kind of Eurosplash Awards with the best European entries!"

Drupal Splash Awards Asia will take place on Monday, December 9, 2024, at 5:15 PM inside the Garden Ballroom at PARKROYAL COLLECTION Marina Bay. The evening promises to be a night of glamour and inspiration, as Drupal developers and agencies gather to celebrate the exceptional work being done in the community. 

20 projects by various organizations have been shortlisted across five different categories along with Drupal’s Founder and Project Lead, Dries Buytaert, announcing the "Best in Show" award. This week The DropTimes will bring you a comprehensive overview of all the finalists in the series 'Splash Award Finalists'.

Along with these, other important stories from the last week include;

DrupalCon Singapore 2024 is less than a week away. If you are a first-time attendee, here are a few tips for you to smoothly navigate your first DrupalCon Experience: Countdown to DrupalCon Singapore 2024: Tips for First-Time Attendees

Adding to our happiness in efficiently collaborating with DrupalCon Singapore 2024, The DropTimes is now the official media partner for DrupalCon Vienna 2025. We will act as the prime location for all content surrounding the biggest Drupal event in Europe. This is the third time TDT has been named the official media partner for the European DrupalCon. 

Pantheon has introduced the Content Publisher, bridging Google Docs with WordPress, Drupal, and Next.js for seamless content publishing. The tool streamlines workflows with live previews, robust editorial features, and AI-assisted enhancements. Sign up for the beta to explore this CMS integration solution.

Developed by Anand Toshniwal and recognized by Dries Buytaert himself, a Python script now automates the creation of .component.yml files for Single Directory Components in Drupal. Simplifying workflows and improving accuracy, this tool supports projects like the Starshot Demo Design System, enhancing efficiency for developers.

MidCamp 2025 has opened its call for session proposals, inviting speakers to share their expertise at the annual event. Scheduled for May 20-22, 2025, the proposals are being accepted until January 12, 2025.

Drupal Developer Days 2025 is inviting sponsors to help make the event a success. Scheduled to attract over 200 attendees from across Europe, this four-day gathering is a prime opportunity for organizations to showcase their support for one of the fastest-growing open-source communities. The event is in Leuven, Belgium, from 15 - 18 April 2025.

Read this week’s edition of Events of the Week by The DropTimes, where we highlight notable Drupal gatherings happening around the globe. Whether you're a seasoned developer, site builder, or just starting your Drupal journey, there's something for everyone in this vibrant community.  

Carlos Ospina shared an update on the progress of the IXP Initiative, an effort to support company-IXP engagements within the Drupal community. Carlos replaced the proposed Google Forms tracking system with a proof-of-concept site. Utilizing the ECA and Group modules for the first time, he developed a working solution within two days to handle the entire engagement process.

Artisan, a new Drupal base theme created by Alejandro Cabarcos introduces a robust framework for building customizable and reusable Drupal themes. Developed by Metadrop, Artisan is built on Bootstrap 5 and Sass, offering extensive use of CSS variables to streamline customization and ensure consistent design across projects.  

Nigel Kersten has been appointed Chief Product Officer at Platform.sh to lead Product Strategy and Upsun Development. An influential figure in the DevOps community, Nigel co-founded the State of DevOps Report, introducing DORA metrics that have elevated software delivery practices across the industry. Serving as the primary co-author for 11 years, he pioneered best practices for modernizing complex IT environments through DevOps and platform engineering.

We acknowledge that there are more stories to share. However, due to selection constraints, we must pause further exploration for now.

To get timely updates, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. You can also join us on Drupal Slack at #thedroptimes.

Thank you, 
Sincerely 
Alka Elizabeth 
Sub-editor, The DropTimes.

In the above video, we’ll take our first look at Drupal CMS Beta, part of the Drupal Starshot initiative. This initiative aims to provide a downloadable packaged version of Drupal with pre-installed and configured contributed modules.

In the show notes below, you’ll learn about the Drupal Starshot Initiative, Drupal CMS, and how to install it using DDEV.

We’ll then explore Drupal CMS’s functionality and examine some modules included in the packaged solution.

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.

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