So i have been delving into the world of Drupal for the last couple of weeks (my first time using a CMS) and after figuring out how to create my own theme i am beginning to wonder if im using the right tool for the job at hand. At the end of it all i want to have a basic website explaining our service, a blog area and then a section where users who have subscribed can login and control many aspects of the service they have signed up to. This login section will basically be a project management tool and is where the real value and focus of the website will be.
After getting into Drupal i can see it’s benefit if a was creating something like a news site and i had a few contributors who could easily create and edit basic article type content. Is that basically it though? Can Drupal also be used as more of a framework for a project management tool i am creating or will it just complicate the entire process needlessly? I can create the entire project myself with my html, css, php, mysql and jQuery knowledge but thought this would give me a more robust and tested platform to work off but the more i look at it i think it is just adding an additional layer of complexity into the project with little benefit.
Does anyone with a bit of Drupal experience have any thoughts on this? I still havent looked deeply into the whole Module side of things and maybe everything i want to do will be made possible… and simple through the addition of modules? I get the feeling at this point though that alternative Plugins other than Drupal modules would be available to me if needed and i wouldn’t be tied into a specific framework if i just did the project myself.
Thanks!
What i know i have seen a lot of modules for Project Management on the Drupal Modules Site ,
Case Tracker , Invoice , To Do List which help in project management.
But you know better whether those plugins would actually help you , which completely depends on what kind of tasks or features do you want to give the members who are going to register on your site ,
When you say
control many aspects of the service they have signed up to.
selecting a plugin would depend on what are the aspects of the services??
If you really feel that developing it completely by yourself would prove better do it… as CMS’s would always keep you depended on other plugins , or if you are comfortable with developing Drupal plugins you can do it…
Hey Banana Man,
As you get into it, you’ll find that Drupal is more of a web application platform than a CMS and I think most CMS systems are moving in this direction. As a result, there are a few ways to achieve what you want and I usually put a fair bit of time/effort into deciding which approach to take. This is well before looking at design/theming, etc…
I have no doubt that Drupal can achieve what you want to do but there will be a fair bit of R&D on your part that will have to be done to achieve it. I would spend a fair bit of time Searching either just through Google or within Drupal.org to see what others have been doing and what has worked/failed for them.
Have you looked at the installation profiles section on Drupal? It has installation bundles that have been set up for specific needs. http://drupal.org/project/distributions
I was looking at Open Atrium and Drupal Commons for a sort of project management setup where I could invite clients in to collaborate on projects or just to allow them to collaborate with one another. Both show a lot of promise in this arena.
Open Atrium: http://openatrium.com/
Drupal Commons: http://commons.acquia.com/
Cheers,
Andrew
Just looking through the installation profiles now and their seems to be some great stuff available. This might be exactly what i need. Thanks!
Glad to help out.
By the way, whenever I look at the Modules or Profiles I double check to make sure that they are current and haven’t just faded into oblivion.
Andrew