Dear DIWD,

Slides: slideshare.com/zappos-fez/diwd-2011

Twitter: @zappos_diwd

Jeorbs: goo.gl/mwiwkjobs.zappos.com

Love,Zappos

We represent Zappos, Drupal was raised out in Holland

photo by Adria Richardshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/adriarichards/

Introductions

Alex Kirmse @alexkirmse History of early days pre-CMS, pre-Drupal, first Drupal project, Drupal growth and Advanced Landing Pages

Geoff Berger @geoffberger

Technical look into Advanced Landing Pages, Baffin and what’s under the hood.

Daniel Lopez @deshawnbw

Dynamic Components and building on top of the Baffin platform

Stephen Hayden @mestevo

Application, End-User Support and Documentation with Drupal

the early days…(2006-2008)

Our small front-end team….

10+ sites to maintain

Zappos Classic

- Perl/MySQL platform, proprietary templating system- non e-commerce content needed managing- Many requests to make link, image and wording changes- No Content Management System!

Typical Requests…

"We need to change the 3rd sentence in the Terms and Conditions….baah!"

"Please change the image and link on page..."

"We need a simple FAQ..."Baaah!Baaah!

Photo by: Aunt Owwee http://www.flickr.com/photos/aunto

Blogs and the first taste of a CMS- End of 2007 implemented a 3rd party Blogs platform for blogs.zappos.com

- Clearspace, J2EE Enterprise Social Collaboration Platform

- Used for blogs, but potentially planned for forums, wikis and customer interaction

+ Feature rich out of the box: User management, Forums, Wikis, Friends, Commenting, themeing  

+ Nice to have content be manageable via a CMS

Blogs.Zappos.com - In The WildBy early 2008 Clearspace was in production, under active use:

Developers we’re theming and customizing Blogs

Sys admins in production, sending traffic to site and managing the servers

Bloggers we’re writing 3-4 blog posts a day

Photo by Eric Miragliahttp://www.flickr.com/photos/equanimity/

Development Team:- not easily customizable- strange template conventions - front-end issues

End Users/Bloggers- Problematic rich text editor- Lack of 3rd party tools

Sys Admins- Performance and logging issues- Tough upgrade path- Longer deploy cycles

Blogs Feedback

photo by Patricia van Casterenhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/patries71/

Sidebar: Why Clearspace and not Wordpress?

- Sys team questioned the "enterprise"ness of Wordpress

- Engineer: Single Sign-on easier with Java than with PHP

- New site revamp is Java

Hearing about Drupal- SXSW 2008 CMS Roundup

- IA Summit, talked to maintainers of the Yahoo Designs Pattern library that uses Drupal

- Very flexible platform, but definitely requires deeper knowledge if you customize it

photo by Stephen hizKNITShttp://www.flickr.com/photos/hmalbert

An opportunity...

- Tony had an idea to create a new site: About.Zappos.com

- Primarily static content or content that needed easy updating by business users

- No e-commerce parts

- Stand-alone site

- New site, not replacing 

Let's give Drupal a try!

Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos.com

Compare both platforms: -Clearspace (theme and add new Blogs)-Drupal on About.Zappos.com-Switch developers!

Which is easier to develop on, customize, extend?

About.Zappos.com – POWERED BY Drupal

- Easy updates and maintenance – no code pushes or deploys- Quick turnaround on projects- Customization and plugins easily available

Zappos ZETA

- In 2008, Zappos was building a new Zappos site from the ground up- New templating system, new back-end code (Java), cleaner front-end code, new search indexer (SOLR)- Let's optimize the front-end to be more self-service and include a CMS for all the static content- FAQ, Legal, Customer Service pages to be managed in Drupal

FAQ, Customer Service Pages and Terms & Conditions

- Simple static content, frequent updates and additions- No complicated functionality- Simple for Drupal, Some challenges to combine 2 platforms

Challenge 1: Combining two technology stacks into 1 experience

Solution 1: Use our in-house proxy/rewrite engine to combine into1 experience.

Challenge 2: Dealing with common/shared code on both platforms.Make updates on both platforms?

Solution 2: Parse blank Zeta template into Drupal to share common code.

 

Mission: Create category shopping landing pages

Requirements:

-Expose categories-Independent management of links-Image management-Pull information dynamically from product catalog

Challenge 1: Pull information product catalog

Solution 2: Make a bunch of calls to internal APIs including SOLR

Challenge 2: Make an admin for non-technical users

Solution 2: Use a variety of contributed Drupal modules including:

- CCK- Filefield- Link- Nodehierachy- Views

Lessons LearnedUse a platform that works for your company, culture and development style. 

Clearspace == Feature rich, out of the box, not meant to be modified heavily or often, not easily upgraded

Zappos == heavy customization, iterative changes, rapid deploys, flexible

Drupal better fit for Zappos company and development style

Leverage the creativity of your team to bend technologies to meet business needs

Solutions don’t have to be documented or blessed

Remote template

Hybrid

Usage of API’s

Moving on from ALPs

• Quick Turn Around• Automation isn’t always

the answer• Limitations of the

existing toolset• Allow for more

configuration/flexibility within reason

Baffin

Baffin: Layouts

Baffin: Components

Baffin: Request Cycle

Baffin: Layouts

info file | template file | class file

Baffin: Components

Baffin: Components

class file | view file

CCK: Leveraging (?:In|Ex)ternal APIs

• Search• Product• Generated Imagery• Reviews

Baffin: Shoes Page

Baffin: Shoes Internally

Baffin: Internal Admin

Baffin: Admin Management

Baffin: CCK Field

Baffin: Final Outcome

Components With Attitude

Super awesome ya

Content Management System / ALP

Content Management System / ALP

System Solidarity / Iterations

Content Management System / ALP

System Solidarity / Iterations

Super awesomely cool stuff

Cat-Skillz

Content Management System / ALP

System Solidarity / Iterations

Super awesomely cool stuff

Cat-Skillz

Open SourceMaybe?

...Hopefully? (probably not)

Content Management System / ALP

System Solidarity / Iterations

Super awesomely cool stuff

Mo Problems Mo Solutions

flickr.com/people/rakkhi/

link video

Product Ticker

link video

Geolocation Product Ticker

link video

Hero Video

link video

Zappos Video

link video

Grid Selector

link video

Limited Access

link video

Limited Access

A Top Secret City For Zappos VIP?

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?

?

????? ?

?

?

?

link flickr.com/people/snoguitar/

on Flickr by INTVGene

Application Support

 

Where I come from…

Started in ZCLT in 2005

Helped manage Powered by Zappos sites 2006-2010

Became an ASS in 2010

Application Support Specialist

 spice  via Danielphoto via: flickr.com/people/alces/

Get It? ... GET IT???!

Great, we have help, now what?   

Own some processes, stop the frustration• Permissions• Login pages• Documentation

Help the business collaborate • Do more with existing tools

Listen to business needs, identify pain points• JIRA

Put all that together...

Stop, Collaborate and Listen...

Permissions

Permission levels

Layouts• Homepage• Three-Column• Vertical• Trends

Components• Category Navigation• Page Content• ...and a bunch of others

Fields• URL aliases• Google Analytics settings

Permissions

User categories

Teams that own pages• Visual Merchandising• Information Architecture

Teams that update pages• Visual Design• Content

 

Permissions: Versatile Roles

Permissions: Well, kinda versatile.

Permissions: Examples

Information Architecture team

Permissions: Examples

Visual Design

Documentation

Just in case someone reads it, we put some together...

Documentation

Documentation: Components

Documentation: Visual DiagramsHomepage layout Three-Column Layout

Homepage layout Three-Column Layout

Documentation: Visual Diagrams

BCP: Baffin Control Panel

Acronyms are cool, especially if they don't make sense

• Just a way to view our content internally• Diving into the admin to find content wasnt fun 

BCP: Baffin Control Panel

Login Pages

Uninspiring and generally useless login page:

New and improved!

JIRA

• Our Swiss Army Knife that we use Task management • 60 projects, 450 custom fields• All IT requests, asset management, customer feedback, lost

shoes/items• Prioritization, resourcing

JIRA: Landing Page Queue

• Purpose• How will this page be

found• Expectations• Live Date• Expiration

JIRA: Landing Page Queue

• Notify relevant departments

• Track pages to completion and beyond

Just the tip of the iceberg

• Role grows as the platform does• Doing more with less• Every day is different

Drupal Progression 2008 to Present

Do It With Us!Jobs.zappos.com

Check out our booth at DIWD

Thanks for coming!

Dear DIWD,

Slides: slideshare.com/zappos-fez/diwd-2011

Twitter: @zappos_diwd

Jeorbs: goo.gl/mwiwkjobs.zappos.com

Love,Zappos