Building a community website using Drupal

Building a community website
using Drupal: www.jobcircle.nl

Ronald Huizer, CEO Jobcircle B.V. <ronald.huizer@jobcircle.nl>
Niels van Mourik, Software Developer Madcap B.V. <n.vmourik@madcap.nl>

FOSDEM - 8 February 2009 Building a community website using Drupal - www.jobcircle.nl

Before it all started



Why Jobcircle?

FNV Bondgenoten is the largest trade union


in the Netherlands.
The amount of members has been shrinking


and FNV Bondgenoten wants to attract
younger people (18-35).
The existing union proposition is not suited


for the next generation.
A 'stand alone' organisation can develop


more flexibly and adapt faster to changes.



The Goal

Targetgroup, younger employees (18-35).


To obtain a relevant position by providing services


on work and career development.
Sharing information, tips & tricks and experiences.


Our stakeholder, FNV Bondgenoten.


To build contacts and relationships within the above


mentioned targetgroup.
Keep a strong position in the Dutch society.




Start of a new
trade community



Why Drupal?

Bad experiences with proprietary products


like MS Axapta.
OSS has proven rapid development and


flexibility, vendor independence.
We want to show off OSS and increase the


userbase.
Headstart in social networking features out


of the box, like groups, buddylists, profiles
and blogs.



July 2007

Organisation and funding initiated.


Comparing different vendors using different


technologies.
Some good proposals, using PHP and .NET


based applications.
The .NET proposal seemed promising.


But, a proprietary path didn't ”feel good”.




August 2007

The 'first vendor, then technology' path


seemed wrong. We had to start over again.
Our consulting partner created a proof of


concept setup comparing Drupal, Typo3 and
Joomla.
Based on capacity, experience and overall


feeling the current vendor got selected.



The techies got
involved



The Big Rush

First commit on November 16th 2007.


Deadline of March 6th 2008.


6 people involved.


Focus on quantity and initial release.




th
5 of May



The Cool Down, Chimera

Officially branched on 29th of July 2008.


No hard deadline, November 1st 2008.


Number of people reduced.


Two to three developers.


Different graphical designer.


Focus on performance, modularity and


maintainability.



November 2008



Technical Architecture



Facts and Figures

Over 2000 code changesets and counting.


Number of nodes: 1004 (719 wiki items).


Modules from contributions/: 144


In-house developed modules: 40


Handed out 39 different SVN accounts.


Created 4 different Drupal themes.


Number of crashes on deployment: 1




For the sake of impressive graphs
User File Uploads
End User Interfaces
Framework level Code
Weblog Extentions
Upstream Drupal Code

Search Extensions
Wiki Resume Builder Backend Tools
Rate Your Company

Jobcircle Webshop
Opleiding Dienstverband Training
Profiel Account Taal

Invite EC Liquid
PROFILE
Forms, Hooks, Architecture
OG
Hobbie Instant Mess. Interesses

Drupal Contrib
Visibility
Vaardigheid Vereniging Werkplek
Visibility on node level

Buddylist
DBOL AUTH VISAPI JC
Views
Privatemsg
Object based persistent Registration and Simple API that handles Core helpers and
Database Layer auth. extensions 'visibility' of everything maintenance code

XML
Node Taxonomy Menu Search Poll Forum Theme
Drupal 5.15
RPC



Database Object Layer (DBOL)

Simple persistent database layer, works like


Drupal's node system but lightweight.
$pie = jc_dbol_load('pie', 35);// Pie-id 35.
$pie->topping = FALSE;
jc_dbol_save($pie);

Modular design.


Register data types:


hook_jc_dbol_objtypes()
Hook into all operations with data objects:


hook_jc_dbol_api($objtype, $op, &$object)



Visibility API

Handling the 'visibility' and access checks of


nearly every entity.
Uses a fallbacking meganism with


customizable defaults.
Works for Drupal nodes and all Jobcircle


Profile data.



Profile Modules

One core module which handles the user/%


page and the profiel/ user backend.
Modular design, submodules hook into


almost everything.
The users public profile, ”profile blocks”.


DBOL data handling.


Autocomplete data for autocomplete/%/%.


All submodules provide specific form bits,


not direct menu callbacks.



Application Level Modules



Profile

Users have their own public profile.


Customizable.


Different blocks of information exposable to


different groups of people.
Users add data to their profile using a


LinkedIn style 'my account' page.



Resume Builder

Build your own resumes based on all profile


data in a WYSIWYG form.
Expose different resumes to different


people, job hunters, friends, corporations.
Abstracted export formats and templates.


PDF (uses LaTeX)


HTML




Workwiki

It is ”the knowledge base” when it comes to


the Dutch working society and law.
Not a Wikipedia replacement.


Users can help contribute their content.


Over 700 articles, most are tagged.


Built on top of liquidwiki, simple nodetype.


Uses 'this is validated content' style marks.




Present & Future



1 February 2009

Pageviews: 3.455.851


Unique visitors: 676.590


Registered users: 43.901


Jobcircle is by far the biggest Dutch


community on labour.
Due to the economical crisis lots of


employees to assist.



The future

Interesting upcoming partnerships.


External deployment of the workwiki.


Flexible API to extend and exchange data.


Self growing userbase and buddylist.


Rating companies and exchanging


experiences.
All sorts of small improvements and


marketing campaigns.



Questions?


Building a community website using Drupal

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