Drupal Commons is a pre-assembled Drupal distribution you can use to build a community site. Whether for internal collaboration or for an open community, Drupal Commons slashes the work required to stand your site up. In this webinar, find out what’s inside Commons, and how to use it – and extend it. Drupal Commons doesn’t limit you to the use cases that work out-of-the-box. You can still add modules, customize the theme, and extend Commons using normal Drupal practices to build a site that integrates Commons-style functions with your own unique needs. This webinar will cover the modules in use, the content types, views, contexts, features, theme elements and all the other components that are in Drupal Commons. In addition, it will cover how the Drupal Commons community itself is organized, and how you can contribute back enhancements to Commons that you create

1. Under the covers of Drupal Commons
Community Powered. Innovation.
Jay Batson Bryan House
Co-Founder Sr. Director Marketing
Acquia, Inc. Acquia Inc.
@batsonjay @bryanhouse

2. Introduction
Jay Batson
–Product owner, Drupal Commons
–Co-founder, Acquia

3. Organizations are Building Communities

4. Symantec

5. Data.gov.uk

6. Data.gov.uk - Ideas List

7. These organizations built
on Drupal subassemblies

8. But many really
just to choose
wheels, color, &
interior

9. Community Feature Sets Have Stabilized
content users
permissions
Intel blogs
& wikis
taxonomy
UK Gov Sony free
tagging
social
design networks
NY Senate Symantec
groups /
RSS
forums
social
analytics
ranking

10. Drupal Commons Combines These Elements
Intel
UK Gov Sony
Drupal Commons
NY Senate Symantec

11. Where Can You Get It?
Free sandbox
– http://commons.acquia.com
– Provides end-user experience
Free download
– http://acquia.com/drupal-commons
– Do this to explore admin interface, code, try more modules, etc.

12. Packaging
Drupal Install Pro le
– You start fresh
Lots of setup to be done
– Try it out using Acquia DAMP!
Creates two Features
– Commons Core
Not enabled by default.
– Commons Noti cation (Didn’t want to assume mailing capability)
Uses the Fusion theme
– From TopNotchThemes
– Uses skinr for theme controls
E.g. change default page widths
– Intentionally minimalist graphical design

13. Possible New Home, PageBG (6.x-1.2)
© Acquia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

14. Foundation
Drupal 6.x
– Not formally Acquia Drupal
Internal decision to NOT synchronize release timing
– But includes all the same modules
Including Acquia Network Connector
– Enhanced, one-click enabling via Feature
Drupal 7?
– Probably a ways out...
– Many module dependencies

15. Information Architecture
Four key functional areas
– Content and collaboration
– People and relationships
– Personalized user experience
– Community management & analytics

16. Content
Content creation tools Implementation notes
– Organic Groups – Content types provided:
– CCK, Views Group, blog, document,
discussion, wiki, notice, event,
– Imagecache
poll
– Shoutbox
– Image handling via image elds
– Tagadelic + imagecache presets
– WYSIWYG + Better Needs work
Formats (no lightbox, full-size, ...)
– Drupal Wiki – Input format clashes still exist
– Freelinking – Drupal Wiki mostly for tagging UI
Let’s look!

17. People & Relationships
Community user features Implementation notes
– User pro les – Drupal core pro les +
– User relationships additional elds
– Heartbeat – No user badges
– Userpoints
Let’s look!

18. Personalization & Page Layout
Customizable layouts Implementation Notes
– Panels used on most – Panels for:
pages Home, dashboard, group home,
– Selected via context pro le, and others
Some views pages
Subscriptions via
noti cations Changing default panel layouts
means paying attention when
Bookmarks via Flags
installing new releases
Let’s look!

19. Community Management, Analytics
Participation metrics
to track engagement
– Quant & Charting
modules
Also included:
– Google Analytics
module
Not enabled by
default
Also, “Featured”
content
Let’s look!

20. Acquia Network Connector
Adds functionality to your Commons site
– Faceted Search
– Content Recommendations
– Mollom spam protection
Let’s look!

21. Design Goal: Retain Drupal Normalcy
Keep it Drupal, keep it exible
Don’t make it hard to install / use other Drupal modules
– LDAP, Active Directory
– Marketing automation
– CRM
– Enterprise data sources

22. General Goodness
Admin menu Rules
Ctools Jquery UI
Date/Time, Calendar Vertical Tabs
Devel
Flags
Messaging
Noti cations
Password Policy
Skinr (for Fusion)
Strongarm
Token

23. What Didn’t We Get To?
Projects Community tagging
Groups enhancements Hundreds of other things
– Subgroups – Video
– Per-group custom – More email noti cation
homepage layout options
– Per-group content type – Popular content block
selection – Private messaging
Homebox (user- – Shoutbox enhancements,
con gurable Dashboard) Facebook-y UI
– But, it’s ready! – ...
More sophisticated Go community!
document management

24. Our roadmap? Community-driven.

25. How To Be A Community Contributor
Join the community conversation
– http://commons.acquia.com
– Questions, discussions, documentation, help
Bug reports / real issues at drupal.org
– http://drupal.org/project/issues/commons
Biggest needs:
– Disaggregate the one-big-feature
– Per-group customizability

26. Commons Is Open Source.
Acquia sells:
Commons as a “managed service”
– Use it; don’t manage it
– Private cloud space + Acquia Network + Remote Administration
– Remains fully-customizable
– Scales to support large communities
Or, for on-premises deployments
– Acquia Network (+ optional Remote Administration)
– 24x7 coverage with de ned SLAs
Implementation assistance
– 1-week, xed-cost implementation
24 hours theming, customization, training

27. Partners For More Help
Social Business
Global SI partners
Strategy partners
Drupal
Development
partners

28. Community Powered Innovation
Built for your community
by the Drupal community
Powering your community
using the power of our community
Driving your innovation
by leveraging Drupal’s innovation