2010-01-11 Web Technology status call

1. Special Topics:

Overview of Web Site: history, how theme got put together, how it's set up, how it's managed. (Walt)

Late 1996, hosted site on Cablevision. Frontpage with several theme iterations then moved to Dreamweaver.
In 2007, ATC conference at Ramapo - built Drupal Website for that. All committee members contributed own pages - didn't require Web content person. Real project established; Doug Cleek involved in theming - lots of pdf mockups; Walt, Doug, Ed did information architecture to make site more intuitive to hikers (existing site modeled internal TC structure). Walt as primary maintainer; a few people used contrib. Built site and launched March 1, 2009.

Cautions: implementing permissions for various roles.

Important to set them when adding new modules, for example. (Don't run as webmaster unless you have to - that way, will see permission effects sooner.) Permission table is unwieldy due to its granularity and flexibility. Roles: admin, editor, then random roles that are not well thought out. Need to simplify roles so can assign less privileges than editor (e.g. on able to change certain content types). Book permissions have separate access table. Groups also have own set of permissions. Ann to put "Streamline permissions" into deferred items list for addressing after migration is completed.

Need to update permissions for access to some of the system stuff - Webmaster sees it, but Admin doesn't.
Ann to fix Access control page to remove ad. (or on any admin page)

Menu items ... grant member role menu item ... tweaking for D5 and D6. (Drupal hooks ...) depending on permissions, appears on menu item. (Change to not appear on any menu anywhere. Try on test system ... then pop to live system.)

Issue: user profile expiration info is not valid ... add something to warn user?

Will be implementing system to manage membership online: CiviCRM or equivalent.

2A. Subteam status reports - first and third Mondays

* Office status (Josh)

* Google Analytics and Theming (Doug)

* Social Networking (Doug-acting)

* Content (Georgette)

* Business model (Ann)

2B. Technology status reports - second and fourth Mondays

-- Drupal 6 (Walt)
Conversion plan, who does what.
-- template.php cannot be broken up easily; nynj-custom can be broken into pieces.
D7 - start wishlist for D7 and what we need to do and if we can move there quickly or have to wait. Need to have our list of modules we need (D5, D6, D7) and strategy to get from D5 to D7. What is Ubercart availability for D7?
Systems set up - now have to set up Drupal on each. (Also will have Drupal 5 test system.)
Not easy to update test systems from live system. (Need to use rsynch ... ).
-- Things to do on 5 before moving to 6.
-- Add date field to content types and get rid of events type. (Walt knows which content types need fixing. Bill to work with Walt to do SQL update for this.)
-- Store issues: Ubercart membership process - expiration date processing (Walt)
-- ebase fields to push to the Web site; synchronization plan (Walt)
-- CRM (Walt -acting) (SalesForce has special programs for nonprofits; Convio CommonGround; CiviCRM) Walt to attend meeting in NYC, possibly Rob also.
-- Managing large email lists ... contract out to third party, but who?

 

3. Set goals for next couple of weeks

• Get test sytems up and running
• Assign sections of php for migration.

4. Specific action items requiring discussion.

Review outstanding actions from prior meeting minutes
See http://nynjtc.org/meeting/actions

Meeting schedule:

Next meeting: phone or office?

Parking lot (for later discussion):