drupal

MARINA BAY, Singapore, 6 November, 2024—Drupal CMS, the groundbreaking package built on Drupal core with the marketer in mind, will launch on 15 January 2025. Conference attendees at DrupalCon Singapore 2024 will have the exclusive opportunity to be the first to learn more about Drupal CMS directly from Drupal’s founder, Dries Buytaert.

Learn how Drupal CMS will enable site builders without any Drupal experience to easily create a new site using their browser, marking one of the most significant launches in Drupal history.

Alongside the Drupal Association leadership team, Dries will unveil key features of Drupal CMS, making DrupalCon Singapore 2024 a can’t-miss event for anyone in the Open Source community. Occurring one month before the release of Drupal CMS, DrupalCon Singapore 2024 is an exclusive opportunity for attendees to join in the conversation surrounding Drupal CMS directly with its creators.

“The product strategy is for Drupal CMS to be the gold standard for no-code website building,” said Dries. “Our goal is to empower non-technical users like digital marketers, content creators, and site-builders to create exceptional digital experiences without requiring developers.”

DrupalCon Singapore 2024, 9-11 December 2024, is a premier gathering of Drupal and Open Source professionals. Over three days, the conference will showcase the latest Drupal trends, facilitate networking opportunities, and offer a platform for thought leadership in the Open Source landscape.

Key features of DrupalCon Singapore 2024 include:

• Keynotes, sessions, and panels: The Driesnote and Drupal CMS Panel are two highlights amongst a packed schedule of insightful sessions.
• Contribution Day: Contribution Day is where attendees grow and learn by helping to make Drupal even better. Giving back to the project is crucial in an Open Source community, as the Drupal project is developed by a community of people who work together to innovate the software.
• Birds of a Feather (BoFs): BoFs provide the perfect setting for connecting with like-minded attendees who share your interests.
• Splash Awards: Celebrate the work and creativity of the global Drupal community with this awards ceremony, which recognises outstanding projects built with Drupal.
• Networking Opportunities: Network with experts from around the globe who create ambitious digital experiences.

Register for DrupalCon Singapore 2024 at https://events.drupal.org/singapore2024 and join the next chapter in Drupal’s evolution!

If you are paying close attention to the Drupal CMS roadmap, you may have noticed that our focus has mostly been on CMS features and the administrative user interface. Many people have asked: What about themes?

Drupal CMS will initially ship with Olivero, which is the default theme for Drupal core in the Standard profile. Of course, Experience Builder will completely change the way we build sites, and that includes support for design systems and single-directory components. In order to support this initially, the Starshot Demo Design System was developed (very quickly!) to show how design systems can be integrated with XB. We will also develop some components for Olivero so that Drupal CMS and eventually core have something to demo with XB.

Now, we are planning for what comes next. So we are seeking a strategic partner to collaborate on designing and implementing a comprehensive design system for our post-v1 integration with Experience Builder for Drupal CMS. 

The goal for this initiative is to create a modern and versatile design system that provides designers and front-end developers tools to accelerate their adoption of Drupal as their digital platform, by enabling them to easily adapt it to their own brand. This design system will enable content marketers to efficiently build landing pages and campaigns, allowing them to execute cohesive marketing strategies while maintaining the brand integrity.

Since it’s a big commitment for anyone, we are dividing the scope of work between design and implementation. We welcome applicants with expertise in one area who wish to specialize, as well as those who are equipped to handle the complete lifecycle of the design system, from initial design to full technical implementation and integration.

For more details, including information on how to apply, check out the full brief.

Interested partners should submit the following by 6 December, and we will announce the selected proposal(s) the week of 16 December. If you have questions before that, we’ll host a webinar the week of 19 November. You can also find us on Slack in #starshot or #experience-builder in the meantime.

We are looking forward to seeing your proposals!

Authored by Nadiia Nykolaichuk.

AI is shifting our perception of the impossible. It does things that past generations would have never imagined. Indeed, it has long since become a routine to ask AI assistants to play music, turn on the lights, or even order groceries. With the advance of generative AI, boosting content management through various AI-driven tasks has also become increasingly common.

The end of life of Drupal 7 is just around the corner and selecting the right migration partner is crucial for a smooth, cost-effective, and future-proof transition. Find out how 1xINTERNET and Pantheon’s unique solution can support your organisation!

LocalGov Drupal is the epitome of the principles of a Digital Public Good.

Product search is a key function in e-commerce today. This article will show how to create an advanced product search engine based on Drupal and its integration with Apache Solr. By combining Drupal, Droopler installation profile, and Solr, a powerful tool can be created to make it easier for customers to navigate and search large data sets faster. I encourage you to read the blog post or watch the video in the “Nowoczesny Drupal” series (the video is in Polish).

The end of life of Drupal 7 is just around the corner and selecting the right migration partner is crucial for a smooth, cost-effective, and future-proof transition. Find out how 1xINTERNET and Pantheon’s unique solution can support your organisation!

Post co-authored with NSW Resources. A critical issue with the management of content currency on our Drupal website, nsw.gov.au/nswresources required an innovative solution to provide us with an automated content audit process. 

Due to the complexity and size of our Drupal web presence, ensuring each page was up-to-date and reviewed by the appropriate business unit became increasingly challenging. We needed a tool to track how long it had been since a page was reviewed, set specific periods for future reviews and easily identify the page owners for each section of the website. Furthermore, with the required frequency of daily updates to the site, the solution had to be ‘live’ to accurately reflect these changes.

Choosing the right solution

To tackle these challenges, we collaborated with our Drupal web development partner, PreviousNext, to create a live .csv file of all relevant web pages. This file included custom metadata detailing each page’s review frequency, page owner, date of last page update, date of last content review, publishing status and the next scheduled review date. By using this .csv file as a data source, we built a user-friendly content audit report dashboard in Microsoft Power BI.

The PowerBI dashboard provides executives with a high-level overview of which sections of the website are most in need of review. A complementary dashboard for ‘content champions’ offers a more granular view of the status of each individual page, enabling targeted content management.

Power BI implementation

Implementing this solution involved several steps:

Internal stakeholder consultation

We engaged with the various business units in NSW Resources division to identify page owners and establish appropriate review periods for each section of the website.

Metadata assignment 

Metadata bulk-uploaded to the pages included the custom metadata fields created for the project, such as review periods and page owners.

Data manipulation in PowerBI 

Data from the .csv file was manipulated within PowerBI to ensure that columns were in the correct format. We created a 'Review status' column based on the next date of review to provide clear visibility. We also filtered out any unpublished or archived content to make it more streamlined. 

PowerBI build

Using the dataset from the website's metadata and Google Analytics, we built a comprehensive dashboard in PowerBI Desktop and then uploaded it to PowerBI Service for broader access. Live links to the web pages were integrated into the dashboards for easy navigation.

Executive overview report

We developed a high-level summary report that shows how many pages each business unit is responsible for and includes Google Analytics page views from the past 30 days.

Content audit report

This report provides filtering by review status and sub-areas within each business unit, offering direct links to the listed web pages and conditional formatting utilising a traffic light system for review status indicators.

Overall tracker

Designed to be used exclusively by the NSW Resources website team, this site-wide and document overview provides an overall tracker, including documents, events, and articles that are not part of other reports.

Internal integrations 

PowerBI reports were integrated into Microsoft Teams and the SharePoint intranet, facilitating use across the business.

Internal work request form 

The form was updated to distinguish whether a web update is part of a comprehensive content audit review, therefore requiring a review period reset, or just a minor adjustment that means the review status remains unchanged.

A content audit that works for everyone

The project required extensive consultation to define the scope and needs of each business unit. Following this, identifying the correct page owners, along with setting appropriate review periods, posed significant challenges. 

As business units sometimes want entire website sections to be marked as reviewed with a change in the review period, the Drupal-side dashboard allowed for bulk changes to both owners and review periods by uploading a revised version of the .csv file, saving substantial time.

Understanding the correct licensing requirements for PowerBI was another challenge. After consulting with our internal IT team, a group workspace was set up under an enterprise agreement, and an individual licence was obtained for the team member managing the dashboards.

Testing the PowerBI dashboard

To ensure effectiveness, the solution was initially tested in a development environment that mirrored the production site. This approach allowed us to test the limitations and user experience prior to going live. During this phase, we tested the bulk upload of the .csv file to update page metadata.

A soft launch of the content audit dashboard provided valuable insights, such as the realisation that a three-month review period was too short, given the number of pages each business unit manages. 

As a result of this testing period, we made minor adjustments, such as requiring a defined review period for each page and allowing users to opt-out of updates considered a ‘review’ for reporting purposes. This might include, for example, correcting a typo, which doesn’t constitute a page review in the context of the content audit dashboard.

Transforming content auditing

This solution significantly enhanced reporting capabilities across NSW Resources, reducing the need for manual intervention. Now, page updates are easily reflected in the report dashboard automatically.

The PowerBI dashboards offer real-time updates and clear visibility of page ownership and review status, making it easier for business units to manage their content.

Business units can independently track the currency of their pages without needing data from the digital team, streamlining the process and increasing efficiency.

Future plans for the dashboard

The solution will continue to evolve. We plan to use the work done on the PowerBI integration to inform future website improvements with the potential for further Google Analytics data integration.

A document audit is currently a separate and opt-in process for business units, but future plans may involve greater integration.

Conclusion

Overall, this innovative solution addresses a critical need for NSW Resources by providing a robust, automated and user-friendly content audit process that adapts to the dynamic nature of our Drupal website.