GENUKI Drupal implementation plan

Introduction

The planned transition to the use of Drupal as a content management system to manage the GENUKI web service is taking place, in a staged manner, and is intended to encompass all of GENUKI's existing web pages. The planned use of Drupal was documented before the transition started. This documentation is being upgraded to reflect changes required to handle various issues encountered during the transition. The transition started with the top level pages, before progressing down the tree. During this process the same web server is being used to provide both the new Drupal-based pages and those existing GENUKI pages that still have to be converted, so that GENUKI's users see the service as providing a single set of inter-linked pages, some of which still have their original appearance, the others an equivalent Drupal-based appearance. The primary aim of this conversion process is to convert existing web pages into a similar form using Drupal instead of raw html. Whilst there are number of new features that we could introduce, we will defer that until all the existing GENUKI pages have been converted.

Documentation

The documentation presently consists of the following documents, drawn up to meet specific needs and particular audiences:

• A brief description, targeted at our users, of why we are making the change. We have seen the complaints that have arisen from major changes to commercial sites, and we need to give just enough detail in this document to re-assure our users, and possibly to encourage them to help in the future.
• An overview of how we are using Drupal's features. This is the starting point to introduce the existing GENUKI maintainers to Drupal, describing the features that we are using initially, and hinting at what we can provide in the future. This is intended to help explain why the conversion will be worthwhile.
• A list of the various types of (Drupal) user, explaining their different roles. This list is used when we define which role is required to be able to perdorm a particular task.
• A list of the pre-requisite tasks that can be performed by each county maintainer, in order to prepare that section for conversion. (Our aim is to minimise this set of tasks!) 
• A set of comments and hints have been put in place within Drupal (i.e. in the maintainers' editing view of Drupal-based GENUKI pages). We need to check and where necessary extend and improve these comments and  hints, which are aimed at making it as easy as possible for maintainers to use the new system, and to minimise the need for extensive maintainers' documentation. It would be helpful if we could recruit somebody not currently involved with creating the Drupal-based GENUKI pages to help with this task.
• A checklist of the set of tasks that are required to convert a single county, or section, of the GENUKI web site. Against each step we note the user role required to perfom that task so we can assign them to appropriate people for each county.
• Advice on the post-conversion checking that is then needed
• A summary listing of the conversion status of GENUKI's various sections, identifying those that have been converted to Drupal and made live (i.e. visible to users of GENUKI), those that are in the process of being converted, and those that are not yet ready for conversion as unique "place codes" have still to be assigned to and associated with their entries in the GENUKI gazetteer

The overall plan that we are aiming to follow

• Write and check documentation.
• Inform county maintainers about the upgrade plan, give them time to read and become familiar with it and respond to any suggestions for clarification and improvement.
• Start the process of setting field R (the allocated internal unique place name field) in the gazetteer entries. This is a pre-requisite for each county conversion.
• Scrutinise the existing GENUKI website to identify any errors that need correcting, and any changes required to the look and feel. Record these in the Support ticketing system.
• Make any necessary pre-conversion changes to the existing GENUKI website.
• Inform our users about the upgrade.
• Consider whether to increase the frequency of spider runs during the conversion. These could highlight isses that need attention.
• Replace the home page with the Drupal version. This is the start of the conversion of the web site with both Drupal and the existing pages being served as part of www.genuki.org.uk
• Convert and install the country sections of the web site, and then the counties, starting with the counties maintained by the installation team to help build up expertise in the conversion process. It may then be useful to convert the counties without a maintainer, as these can hopefully be done quite quickly. Then we should convert the ones currently hosted at Mythic Beasts, in order move away from running a mixed service there. (We should encourage all maintainers who currently have their pages hosted elsewhere to move them to Mythic Beasts.)
• Cooperate with Colin in providing means whereby his stored content (e.g. the Yorkshire pages) can be imported into Drupal.
• Ensure all existing web pages have been moved into Drupal. The gazetteer and the church database however will be treated as a separate project once the other pages have been converted.
• Review the sucess of the conversion plan. No doubt a few subsequent tasks will have been identified during the conversion. Suggest a timetable for their implementation.
• During the conversion process Drupal's Support Ticket facility will be used to record problems encountered, and to track progress on resolving them.