Presentation given at the 2010 BADCamp at UC Berkeley. With appologies to Dr Suess, this presentation explores the use of Drupal as a Conference Site development tool, looking at both the good and bad aspects of Drupal and other Conference Site development tools.

1. One fish
Two fish
Red fish
Dru-phish?

2. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
• Who is this cat?
– Webmaster for the Delta
Science Program
– Developing web pages
for over a decade
– Drupal Rookie

3. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
The Evolution of the Science Program Conference
Websites
• My work is general maintenance for the Science Program,
but I have also been tasked with managing the websites for
our related conferences.
– 2005 State of the Estuary Conference
• HTML + CSS site
– 2006 CALFED Science Conference
• PHP and Postgres based site
– 2007 State of the Estuary Conference
• HTML + CSS site
– 2008 CALFED Science Conference
• PHP and Postgres based site
– 2009 State of the Estuary Conference
• Open Conference System
– 2010 Bay-Delta Science Conference
• Drupal with the Conference module

4. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
First Stab at Open Source
Conference Site.
Created the 2009 State of the
Estuary Conference site
using Open Conference
System.
• Open Source
• Very Powerful
• Too Powerful
• Not Manageable
Needed to find another option.

5. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Had to go back to the drawing board to see what might
work.
• WordPress – had potential but not really good for
what I needed
• Drupal – again had potential, but might be too
difficult.

6. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Went to my first drupal community
Event, and Presented my first talk,
looking for help.
• Conference Needs
– User Experience
• Static Pages for General Info
• Create/Edit Profiles
• Create/Edit Abstracts for
Presentations
• Register for Conference
• Add files
– Admin Experience
• Create/Edit Static Pages
• Create/Edit Profiles
• Edit Database
• Edit/Review/Approve
Abstracts
• Abstract Registration Info

7. Conference
Home Page
Static
Content
Pages
Sign-up
Create
Profile
Edit
Profile
LogIn
Abstract
Creation
Oral
Presentations
Poster
Presentations
Edit
Abstract
Submit
Abstract
Register for
Conference
Admin
Login
Edit
DB
Assign
Abstracts for
review
Review
Abstracts
Send
Notices
Create
abstract
print
views
Assign
Abstracts to
Schedule
RED = Admin Processes
BLUE = User Processes

8. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Decided to go with Drupal.

9. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Modules – What to do!
• COD???
• More fish
• Very cool but at the time not
what I needed. Now probably
the direction I would go.

10. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Modules – Final Decision
• Conference
• 80% of what I needed
• Unfortunately not supported, but
only had to do slight
modifications to get it to work.

11. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Problems – If you build they will come!
• Hacked!
– Being new to Drupal, I didn’t really know about
general security and in due course the site was
hacked.
– Google searched to find out what happened.
– Learned to use the .htaccess and to lock down
permissions.
– Fortunately not too painful, only my pride took a hit.

12. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Problems – If you build they will come!
• User Error!
– Not all users are created equal.
– Screen Size is important.
– Be clearer than when you think you’re being clear
enough.
– Create a FAQ page.

13. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Problems – If you build they will come!
• Blocked!
– Not all hosts are created equal.
– .Gov sites take Malware seriously
– Really it’s not me, it’s you. It’s your fault now fix it…
– There may be no fix.

14. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Problems – If you build they will come!
• Fracked!
– Sometimes it’s important to look a gift-horse in the
mouth, the teeth are sharp and they hurt.
– Generosity with no support is not generous.
– Get full access or get busy dieing.

15. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Problems – If you build they will come!
• MySQL vs Spreadsheet!
– Workflow adjustments needed to happen.
– Creating a secondary access to the Database would
have been a good idea.
– Trying to import Spreadsheet into Drupal was a major
pain.
– Gotta find a better way to sync updates and changes.

16. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Drupal == Happy
• Will need to refine the install for
optimal use.
• Need to think about workflow
adjustments.
• Will need to join COD to address
any modifications that will make it
better for our needs.
• Upside - Delta Science Program
website will be migrating over to a
full Drupal Install!!