For the past few months we’ve been working with Drupal -  the Open Source Content Management System (CMS) – for a Local Authority client, implementing an Intranet site. We’ll be saying some more on here about this project in the near future once we’ve got some features and functions to show off.

Drupal is currently up to version 7 and the feature sets have already been locked in for v8 (which is due in the next 12 months). Whilst Drupal 6 is still the more mature version of the CMS we’ve jumped to Drupal 7 because the difference between versions 6 and 7 is quite pronounced, making the upgrade path more convoluted than normal. Upgrade to v8 will be a much smoother transition with v9 already on the drawing board.

As interesting to the maturity in features of the core Drupal CMS is the richness in functionality and usability of the extensions and bolt-ons to the core Drupal system that have been developed by the CMS’ world-wide developer community.

One example of this is the Workbench suite of modules which has dramatically improved how site administrators manage, update, publish and archive content to and from their portfolio of websites and webpages, allowing them to tailor workflows to their editors’ needs and to individual or departmental content management responsibilities. With Workbench user permissions can be configured around internal departmental structures rather than to the structure of websites, making the content management and workflow process much more intuitive and reflective of internal organisational structures. As a result Council Web Teams can devote more time to managing and updating content rather than having to develop Drupal core code in order to make their CMS meet the often challenging internal demands for publishing and updating new and existing content across their organisation. The Workbench suite is a prime example of the kind of user-friendly modularised extension that brings Drupal closer to the corporate-wide Internet and Intranet requirements of Local Authorities.

In the past Council web teams have often lacked the in-house coding skills that are required for developing the Drupal code base in order to meet their web content and functionality requirements and have instead opted for proprietary solutions or have tied themselves into contracts which require a significant financial investment in the time and skills of external consultants and programmers. However, with the advent of modules from the world-wide Drupal development community such as Workbench this Open Source CMS has reached a level of maturity, functionality and usability that can respond to the demands of a corporate-wide implementation in any UK Local Authority.