Consulting

Our Expertise

DrupalEasy has been providing consulting specific to Drupal for almost a decade, with special expertise in migration, discovery, development, project management and training. We specialize in short-term strategic consulting where we can give our clients the most bang for their buck. Our services include: 

  • Web site development
  • Content migration
  • Staff training
  • On-call assistance and project coaching

Building Web Sites; Our Approach

DrupalEasy cost-effectively guides you through planning, implementing and tweaking your Drupal project. We have experience in building large, content-driven sites like FieldAndStream.com, Renco Electronics, and the Alachua County Library District web site as well as smaller, more targeted sites such as Monergism.com.  Large or small; our goal is to always make sure your project is done right.

We rely heavily on discovery, communication and continuous testing to ensure we are effective and efficient. By working closely with clients during all stages of the project, we minimize common miscommunication, programming bugs, and navigation issues. 

Discovery: Measure Twice, Cut Once

The best way to save time, money and effort on Drupal projects is to be clear about what your site needs to deliver and to whom.  Discovery includes a review of requirements, all background materials and ongoing communications to ensure everyone has a complete understanding of the project and the same expectations. The result depends on the complexity of the project, and may include wireframe diagrams, sketches, information architecture details, and additional documentation. It may also include recommendations to improve aspects of the site such as search engine optimization, performance, or administrative functions.

User Stories: The Who, What and How

A comprehensive idea of who, and why they are visiting your site, as well as a common language for stakeholders to use means we can more easily define complex functionality. As we develop a set of scenarios, the team ensures that all of the desired functionality is represented. This process generally dictates the functional design, and to a lesser degree, the interface design.

Functional Design

The developers will determine exactly how each detail of functionality from the user stories will be implemented in Drupal. During this stage, the list of contributed modules to be used is generated and how much (if any) custom code will need to be written.

Production

During the initial part of the production phase, DrupalEasy uses a shared development environment that is accessible by the client at all times. It is used by developers as the location where the latest changes are pushed and tested. Once the developers are satisfied with a change, the client is asked to test and verify that the change is correct. This continuous testing of the site ensures that the project remains on track and provides the client with first-hand knowledge of the progress of the site at their convenience. DrupalEasy provides a dedicated project tracker for each project where developers and client staff can track development, bugs, and documentation throughout the project.

Testing and Delivery

As the project nears completion, a staging server can be set up to provide a middle-ground between the sometimes dynamic dev server and pristine production server. The purpose of the staging server is to provide client staff with a stable testing environment. This allows client staff a place to test site administration procedures as well as to train site administration staff as necessary without interfering with ongoing development, and prevents ongoing development from impacting administrative activities. Once the client is satisfied with the site, it can be migrated to the production server where final configuration and checkouts are made.