The presentation aims at introducing Drupal as a Rapid Application Development (RAD) framework for non-profits and NGOs. Introduces context of technology and opportunity for technology to contribute towards development of society. Evaluates fit for purpose of Drupal in the not-for-profit sector and introduces capabilities of Drupal as a content management system and as an application development framework.

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