Building a secure, authenticated federal agency Drupal platform
Time: Thursday 20th October 15:10-15:45
Room: Ballroom 2
Track: Showcases & Project Management
The federal agency (who would like to be unidentified) was on an old version of MS SharePoint, which was used by authenticated users. The portal had a high cost of ownership, many functional gaps, was slow to respond, and was visually unappealing to the user. It was no longer fit for purpose. The federal agency engaged Salsa to:
1 - Replace the old portal and migrate all of the existing data
2 - Ingest reports from another portal
3 - Integrate with an internal publishing system
4 - Create analytical reports.
The portal’s purpose is to publish and distribute information to other government agencies. As of June 2022 the new, Salsa-built Drupal portal has replaced the old MS SharePoint solution. In this short presentation, we would like to address:
- Ways of working together that ensured we could react to changes in scope.
- Using the Salsa-built CivicTheme design system as the foundation for the build.
- The outcomes for the content editors: a publishing workflow easily followed via a customised workbench, an editing experience that meets their expectations, and custom tools that allow them to import data from other sources and create compilations for their users in minutes.
- Email alerts and subscription: Salsa custom built a subscription and alert functionality for the federal agency as out-of-the-box solutions (like Mailchimp) were not in question for security reasons.
- The approach to migrating 1.2TB of data and dealing with a rapidly growing amount of data.
- Searching through vast quantities of data using Solr and Elastic Search.
Drupal is very capable of providing functionality far beyond a classic brochure website. This federal agency project showcases what can be achieved, even with a large range of security restrictions.
1 - Replace the old portal and migrate all of the existing data
2 - Ingest reports from another portal
3 - Integrate with an internal publishing system
4 - Create analytical reports.
The portal’s purpose is to publish and distribute information to other government agencies. As of June 2022 the new, Salsa-built Drupal portal has replaced the old MS SharePoint solution. In this short presentation, we would like to address:
- Ways of working together that ensured we could react to changes in scope.
- Using the Salsa-built CivicTheme design system as the foundation for the build.
- The outcomes for the content editors: a publishing workflow easily followed via a customised workbench, an editing experience that meets their expectations, and custom tools that allow them to import data from other sources and create compilations for their users in minutes.
- Email alerts and subscription: Salsa custom built a subscription and alert functionality for the federal agency as out-of-the-box solutions (like Mailchimp) were not in question for security reasons.
- The approach to migrating 1.2TB of data and dealing with a rapidly growing amount of data.
- Searching through vast quantities of data using Solr and Elastic Search.
Drupal is very capable of providing functionality far beyond a classic brochure website. This federal agency project showcases what can be achieved, even with a large range of security restrictions.
Juliane Erben
I was born and bred in Germany, however I have spent many years living overseas in various countries before settling in Australia in 2012. I have been working in the IT industry initially in sales and then in project management for 15 years and have managed Drupal projects for the past 5 years. I enjoy business analysis; I love how a project can feel like a puzzle and with every client discovery, every design, every JIRA ticket groomed, the puzzle evolves and finally the build will bring it all to life. My work satisfaction comes from delivering what the client needs, feeling like I have really done all I can to maximise the business benefit and ultimately seeing the outcomes for the end user. And I love the collaborative aspect of my role; bringing teams together to work towards a common goal.
Additional speakersThe second speaker is Alex Skrypnyk.
Based in Melbourne, Alex works with Salsa and Salsa’s clients to design and build Drupal solutions, providing high level technology strategy and oversight.
As a solution architect, Alex oversees the technical direction at a strategic level. His continuous integration expertise ensures all projects merge development code into the pipeline early and often. This helps to reduce costs and risks in projects.
Alex also works on Salsa projects as a technical lead, working closely with developers, business analysts and clients to provide a technical direction that meets our clients’ business needs.
Based in Melbourne, Alex works with Salsa and Salsa’s clients to design and build Drupal solutions, providing high level technology strategy and oversight.
As a solution architect, Alex oversees the technical direction at a strategic level. His continuous integration expertise ensures all projects merge development code into the pipeline early and often. This helps to reduce costs and risks in projects.
Alex also works on Salsa projects as a technical lead, working closely with developers, business analysts and clients to provide a technical direction that meets our clients’ business needs.