What is Drupal?
Drupal CMS
Drupal is is the web content management platform of choice among organisations worldwide – from small businesses to corporate enterprises and government bodies. It is a PHP open source CMS with a suite of tools that powers your content supply chain. In fact, Drupal powers many of the websites and applications that we use every day. It is a highly flexible platform which is continually improving and adding new features, thanks to its large global open source community. This out-of-the-box software can be modified and developed into the structure you need, and can be easily integrated with social media platforms, marketing automation applications and CRMs.
Customisation
Drupal 8 includes over 200 new features an improvements which allow content publishers to build and configure superior digital experiences. Content can be customised, structured and continually updated without using a single line of code. With Drupal, themes are built for mobile first, making it completely responsive across all devices (mobile, tablet and laptop). This is essential to appeal to today’s consumer, when you consider that over a third of all Internet searches in Ireland take place via mobiles*. Equally, if issues are encountered while accessing websites via a smartphone, 25% will find another site that works better on a smartphone**.
Outside of core functionality, Drupal can be extended with custom modules. Its TWIG theming engine (PHP based but with simpler syntax), allows it to be fully scaleable as required.
Web Services
Drupal can easily be combined with other web services as it has HAL, HTTP Basic Auth, REST & Serialization built in. All of this makes for smoother integration with any existing systems that are in place, and that need to work alongside Drupal.
Simplicity for editors
A key benefit of Drupal is that it is simple for non-technical content creators to master. It is easy to publish and amend content across any website as Drupal has ‘Drag and Drop’ Image Uploads, a convenient WYSIWYG Editor and easy preview function so you can check as you go. It also offers in-context editing (Quick Edit).
Content Management
This is one of the most attractive features about Drupal – it allows you to completely customize the content to make it work for you.
Blocks are reusable widgets of content that you can place throughout various areas of your website. With Drupal 8, you can now create custom block types. This gives you greater control over different styles, fields, views and filters, allowing for precise content structures and blocks to be created as you want them on your website.
Drupal is best in class in terms of Enterprise Content Management.
At Monsoon Consulting, we have created Drupal content management solutions for the following brands in Ireland:
If you’d like any more information on Drupal 8, or want to explore building/improving your website using this technology, get in touch today
*Source: IAB report – Statcounter August 2015 ** Google Consumer Barometer 2015
