The document explores the benefits of using Drupal as a rapid application development framework for non-profits and NGOs, highlighting its ease of use, scalability, and extensive modular capabilities. It discusses various Drupal concepts, such as managing content, customizing layouts, and integrating with existing systems, while also illustrating potential use cases like citizen engagement systems. Additionally, it presents Zyxware Technologies as a major contributor to Drupal with various initiatives to support the free software community.

1. DRUPAL as a
RAD Framework for
Non Profits / NGOs
Anoop John
Founder & CTO
www.zyxware.com

2. • Society and space for Social Action
• How Technology can play a role
• What is Drupal?
• Why Drupal is a good fit for not-for-profits?
• Basic Drupal concepts
• Aspects of a web application
• Managing Layout in Drupal
• Managing Content / Data in Drupal
• Presentation of Content
• Roles & Permissions
Contents

3. • Workflows around Content
• Rules & Business Logic
• Ecommerce & Payments
• Drupal Commons – OOTB Social Site
• Other cool Drupal features
• Example
• Key modules to remember
• About Zyxware
• Questions
Contents (contd...)

4. • Society as a complex system
• Continuity from end to end, different stages of development
• Different problems requiring different solutions
• Different contexts requiring different solutions
• Market based approach
• Where markets don't work
• Where markets can complement
• Huge opportunity to contribute
• Complex problems to be solved
• Billions of lives to be impacted
Society and Space for Social Action

5. • Easy to learn system & technology
• Ability to leverage on existing systems
• Not have to re-invent the wheel
• Build systems without a lot of capital investments
• Use proven concepts and models
• Integrate with other solutions
• Ability to customize easily
• Ability to build and maintain
• Allow extending and growth
What a non profit would look for when
building web applications?

6. • A citizen centric system to audit and monitor progress of
public sector projects
• A system to collect public opinion through surveys
• A citizen centric system to report civic problems – eg:
unauthorized garbage dumps
• Notification system for letting citizens know about issues –
eg: Power/Water outage in a specific area
• Automation and improvement of efficiencies in existing public
systems
• Improving governance and government ↔ citizen
communication
• Monitoring rain water, monitoring power theft
A few examples

7. • My Experiments with Truth - M. K. Gandhi
• Development as Freedom - Amartya Sen
• Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid - C. K. Prahalad
• The world is flat - Thomas L. Friedman
Books for thought

8. • Drupal is a Content Management System
• Built on PHP, MySQL, HTML, JS, CSS
• Allows collection, presentation
& management of structured information
• Allows building websites
• Allows building dynamic web applications
• API to build and extend the application
• Extensible, Modular, Pluggable, Scalable
• Thousands of modules to extend the capabilities without
writing a line of code
• Drupal is more than a Content Management System. It is a
Rapid Application Development Framework
What is Drupal?

9. • Fully functional website out of the box
• Fully functional CMS out of the box
• More than 10000 modules to extend
• Ability to build applications with workflows, permissions, rules
without writing a line of code
• Out of the box CRUD system for complex data collection,
presentation and management
• Control over layout without coding
• Drupal distributions OOTB systems
• Strong API for future extension
• Stable and secure platform
• Good community support
Why Drupal is a good fit for non profits

10. • Entity & Node
• Content Types
• Modules – core & contrib
• Themes
• Blocks & Menus
• Roles and Permissions
• Administration
• Hooks & Callbacks
• Form API
Basic Drupal concepts

11. • Structure of layout
• Collection of structured information
• Presentation of information
• Roles and Permissions
• Workflow related to collected information
• Business Logic
Aspects of a web application

12. • Structure of layout
• Themes
• Regions
• Block System
• Custom HTML
• Automatically generated content
• Panels
• Panes
• Landing pages
• Contexts
Managing Layout in Drupal

13. • Entity
• Node
• Content Types
• Fields
• Edit forms
• Taxonomy
• Taxonomy listing
• Webforms – custom surveys
Managing Content / Data in Drupal

14. • Data abstraction with Views
• Views displays
• Pages, Blocks, Feeds, Panes
• Views theming
• Export – CSV, XML
Presentation of Content

15. • Access Control at interface level
• Access Control at code level
• Users
• Roles
• Permissions
Roles and Permissions

16. • Views & dashboards
• Roles & Permissions in views
• Nodequeues
• Flags
• Views bulk operations
• Workflow module
• Edit / View permissions
Workflows around Content

17. • Events & Triggers
• Context & Data
• Actions
• Send emails
• Redirect users
• Update content, set values
• Creating custom actions
• Exposing custom events
Rules and Business Logic

18. • Drupal Commerce
• Ubercart
• Paypal
• CCAvenue
• Banking gateway integration
Ecommerce & Payments

19. • Contact management
• Contributions
• Communications
• Peer-To-Peer Fundraisers
• Advocacy Campaigns
• Events
• Members
• Reports
• Case Management
Drupal + CiviCRM integration – specially
made for non-profits

20. • Supported by Acquia
• Social networking system
out of the box
• Integration with other social
networking systems
• Ability to extend using
modules / custom code
Drupal Commons – OOTB Social Site

21. • Multisite & Individual Domains
• Aegir for deployments & PaaS
• Third party integration
• Import and Export of Data
• Services, XMLRPC, REST, JSON
• Backend for mobile application
• Mobile theming + regular theming
Other cool Drupal features

22. • Roles – Admin, Speaker, Attendee
• Suggest Event – Event Content Type, Fields, Status
• Event – Status as not approved
• Event Schedule - View
• Approval Queue
• Blog
• Nodequeue – Home page
• My Events - Flag
Example

23. Rules Panels
Views
Nodequeue
Flag
Feeds
Context
Fields
Fivestar
Services
VBO
Webform
Taxonomy
Node
Admin Menu

24. Zyxware Technologies and Drupal
Zyxware is a leading contributor to Drupal from India and is one of only
eight Featured Service Providers from India listed on drupal.org
● Over 40,000 websites use our modules and themes
● More than 30 contributed modules and themes
● Maintainer of Search404, a top 100 Drupal module
● Over 1000 commits at drupal.org
● Contributes all patches back to Drupal
● Our profile on drupal.org - http://drupal.org/user/222163
● Knowledge partnerships with Acquia, New Relic and Volacci

25. ● Freedom Walk, a 44 day walk by a team of
Free Software Evangelists across the length of
Kerala to promote Free Software
● Building RithuOS, an Operating System for Engineering
students with Free Software Engineering applications
● GNU/Linux Install Fests in Schools, Colleges and at Technopark.
● Local language (Malayalam) computing camps in colleges
● Building and Maintenance of Freedom Toaster, a Free Software
kiosk
● Conducting Free Software workshops and
lectures in colleges in Kerala
Free Software and Zyxware Technologies

26. • Check us out at http://www.zyxware.com
• Mail us at drupal@zyxware.com
• Like us at http://www.facebook.com/zyxware
• Follow us at http://www.twitter.com/zyxware
• Connect with us at
http://www.linkedin.com/companies/zyxware-technologies
• Talk to us at +91-9495969446 between 9AM - 9PM IST
• Skype me at aj_zyxware
Contact Us