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The new IT Web Site

The new IT Web Site. Tim Bell Cath Noble IT Technical Forum 15 th June 2012. Agenda. What is Drupal ? CERN Drupal implementation Old IT web site New site Next steps. What is Drupal ?. Free and open source Content Management System Small core engine written in PHP with DB backend

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The new IT Web Site

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  1. The new IT Web Site Tim Bell Cath Noble IT Technical Forum 15th June 2012

  2. Agenda • What is Drupal ? • CERN Drupal implementation • Old IT web site • New site • Next steps IT Web Site

  3. What is Drupal ? • Free and open source Content Management System • Small core engine written in PHP with DB backend • Themes to set the look and feel • Over 16,000 modules enhancing functionality available • Developed by community of 18,000 members at http://drupal.org IT Web Site

  4. Drupal Usage • Originally written by Dries Buytaert in Belgium in 2001 • Over 700,000 sites worldwide (1.5% of all websites) • Drupal 7 is becoming the standard version with legacy sites on Drupal 5 and Drupal 6 IT Web Site

  5. Powerful but complex IT Web Site

  6. Typical Sites IT Web Site

  7. Drupal Structure Sites are built dynamically rather than serving static HTML pages • Themes – the colors, fonts, layout • Taxonomy – list of terms such as IT groups/sections, keywords, … • Nodes – Sets of fields such as text, taxonomies, numbers, links • Views – Dynamic content based on selecting fields from nodes such as tables or RSS feeds • Panels – Combining views, fields and custom PHP to provide a page IT Web Site

  8. Example – User View IT Web Site

  9. Example – Edit • Editor just modifies contents of field without worrying about the layout IT Web Site

  10. CERN Content Management • Work started in 2010 at how to renew the CERN web content • Main CERN site www.cern.ch • Experiment sites • Department sites • During 2010, IT surveyed the various content providers at CERN on providing a new CMS • We also added questions into the IT user survey IT Web Site

  11. Survey results The “other” category produced a long list of known (Python, vi, emacs, perl, PHP) and exotic (TextWrangler, SeaMonkey, KompoZer, plin, redmine, ezPublish etc) IT Web Site

  12. ENTICE community • The ENTICE user community was formed “Enterprise Needs for Tools and Infrastructure for Content Exploitation” • IT provides the base infrastructure and some specific modules for IT applications • Users help each other on entice.web.cern.ch • Module reviews • Tutorials • Themes • Forums IT Web Site

  13. New CERN Site • The CERN main site www.cern.ch is high maintenance and is not a showcase for the organisation • Activities started to define • Style guide for CERN web sites • Support smartphones and tablet form factors • Framework for deploying Drupal sites with these characteristics easily IT Web Site

  14. Style Guides ux.web.cern.ch IT Web Site

  15. Toolbar – standard navigation • Provide a Google-like bar with • User name • Search • Adapts to browser for mobiles, tablets, etc. IT Web Site

  16. Public Page Prototype Combine the style guides to produce a user page IT Web Site

  17. Drupal Infrastructure IT Web Site

  18. Database Selection • Oracle was not widely used in the community • IT database team agreed to support Drupal MySQL DB • Experience gained led to establishing the DB on Demand service for MySQL IT Web Site

  19. Infrastructure • Base configuration • SLC 6 • Apache / PHP 5.3 • MySQL via IT/DB • NetApp storage for shared files • Pacemaker for high availability • Shibboleth for SSO integration • E-groups for roles • Site owners can install modules themselves • Common ones are shared between all sites IT Web Site

  20. Department Sites IT Web Site

  21. Outreach IT Web Site

  22. Experiments IT Web Site

  23. Clubs IT Web Site

  24. Old IT Web Site IT Web Site

  25. Old IT Web Site • User Experience • Information fragmented and hard-to-find • 300+ independent websites • Majority based on previous department structures • Lots of sites, lots of conflicting information • “Variations on a theme” template make usability difficult and unpredictable • Navigation is unstructured & has often disintegrated • Information is unreliable • Content maintenance…Owners come, owners go • No archive policy • No central editorial or style control IT Web Site

  26. Aims • Information architecture based on audience needs • Who ? • Why ? • What ? • Improved control over • Style • Navigation • Content IT Web Site

  27. New IT website IT Web Site

  28. New IT site… digging deeper IT Web Site

  29. CDS Integration • Allows embedding of photos, slideshows and videos from CDS IT Web Site

  30. Indico Feeds • Uses an Indico module which imports new meetings automatically IT Web Site

  31. Workbench • Manage permissions and document lifecycle • Sections of the site are owned by editorial teams such as IT secretariat, Safety or an IT group • Lifecycle defined between draft, review, published and retired • Rules to force documents to be reviewed automatically every year IT Web Site

  32. Books • Structured documents such as user guides, and configuration documents • Automatic table of content and navigation IT Web Site

  33. Broken Link Checking • Regular checks that all links are externally accessible • Issues reported to content owner • Explain root cause of problem IT Web Site

  34. Upcoming : Multi Language • Drupal has excellent multi-language functionality • Translator • Site builder • Content manager • New Drupal site builders – how to figure out what to enable for a multilingual site? • When you request a new Drupal site, plan to ship a CERN Drupal site with the option of: • a ‘normal’ site • or multilingual site • relevant internationalisation modules would be pre-enabled • Final go-ahead pending IT Web Site

  35. Upcoming : Multi Language • Tutorial on how to build/retro-fit multi-language functionality in Drupal • Published on ENTICE www.cern.ch/entice IT Web Site

  36. Upcoming : New Modules • LDAP • Automatically import people’s phone numbers, office location, e-mail addresses • Allows pages to be created without hard-coding these details • Search Integration • Indexing of protected content to CERN Search • Custom searches such as all IT sites IT Web Site

  37. Upcoming : SNOW Integration • Use SNOW as a master data source • Service descriptions • Service levels • Links to create incidents and standard requests • Add service specific information • Service Status • User guides • Installation packages • News / Developments • Target is to limit service specific web sites with inconsistent look/feel and quality • Work to be done on the catalog alignment first IT Web Site

  38. Upcoming : SNOW Integration IT Web Site

  39. Further Ideas • MyIT / Newsletter • News from groups / services can be consolidated into RSS feeds or weekly newsletter assembled • Service managers publish information with tags • Users select what interests them • Service manager internal documents for functional elements • Installation guides for how to set up an application • Problem determination guides • Exploit document lifecycle to enforce review or archive of old procedures IT Web Site

  40. Summary • The IT web site has been refreshed with new look and feel • Modern content management techniques are used to create dynamic content such as RSS feeds • Import of existing information is advancing and replacing links to legacy content • Work is ongoing in the service area to define the structure and align the web site and service catalog • We’ll contact service managers when this is ready • Many options for future enhancements such as custom newsletters Feedback is welcome via https://cern.ch/it/feedback IT Web Site

  41. Useful Links • IT web site • http://cern.ch/it • ENTICE • http://entice.web.cern.ch • Drupal • http://drupal.org • New CERN site blogs • http://change.web.cern.ch • http://ux.web.cern.ch IT Web Site

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