TIGER BY THE TAIL – THE BUSINESS END OF DRUPAL

Romy Bolton| Director, Web and Mobile Development Aug 10, 2013

Romy Bolton romy-bolton@uiowa.edu

Director in ITS - Enterprise Services Light App Dev, Web Dev, Mobile and

PM UI Grad, grew up in Iowa City BA/SA Six Sigma Built a corporate intranet in 1994 One spouse (faculty), three Kids (two

in college ), three Dogs, Skyrim, Starcraft, Cooking and RAGBRAI

Brief History

Static Web service since 1996 Lime/Fog – the tilde Free Service Small student team for light design

Minimal web influence on campus ~2400 active sites remaining

Drivers for ChangeNavigation = “Jarring Experience”Desire for Light Branding Consistency

Licensing and Headaches Dreamweaver

Site and Page Management Issues

Drivers for Change Joomla, Drupal, Static, .NET, WordPress

Accessibility “Rating” – Fix This

Too Much for One PersonStaff Turnover

2010 - 2011

Investigate Options SiteFinity Ektron Drupal

Initially ITS liked SiteFinityOpportunity to Deep Dive into Drupal

Summer 2011 One developer, one server admin,

and hired a contract dev Brought up a server, named it after

a bird Hung a shingle…..more or less And Waited…..

“A year from now we will either be swamped or be a miserable failure”

Today Roughly 12 developers Built approximately 100 sites

College of Pharmacy Office of the Vice President for Research President Provost Outreach

Monthly Patch/Update Cycle Continuous Integration

Today Multiple server platforms

And We are 100% Cost Recovery

What?!?!??!

Financial Models Hourly Billing @$65 % of FTE

100% 50% 25%

Barter Eggs, Milk and Butter

Financial Models

Hiring Customer

Thoughtfulness

Prioritization

Tough Conversations

Big Change Colleagues Enjoy the Process Help the Have

Nots

Pros Cons

What Changed? Some staff turnover Expectations Complexity – data sources Other Drupal services

IowaNow Digital Signage Mobile

Our Story Value for the Expense Focus on Content Not Technology Partnership Accessibility Technical and Data

Enhancements Maintenance

What We Got Mostly Right

What We Got Mostly Right

Shared Service Model Site Request Form Card Sorts -Results Technology Tools - Jenkins, Drush, GitHub UI Bar (and now footer) Open Physical Environment

What We Got Mostly Right

Hiring the Right People Staff and Team Composition

Dev Ops Themer/Front End Developer (2)

One Lead, one Second per Project One Large, 2 Medium/Small Contract and Students

What Has “Evolved” Communication

Project Managers ActiveCollab

Base Theme (Parallaxy and Gravitas) Module Choices Mobile First No more Wireframes – In Browser MOUs (when we use them!)

Suggestions Welcome! Requirements Documentation Content Migration Customer Engagement

Too Much Too Little

Web vs Print Service Documentation and Training Scheduled Maintenance/Issues

Where are We Going? Bigger and More Complex Sites Additional Services Built on the

Drupal Framework Digital Signage Campus Calendar

Standard Service

Dialogue Where are You? What are Your Challenges What are You Building?

Dialogue Where are You? What are Your Challenges What are You Building?

THANK YOU