Annertech

Annertech started working with NALA in 2012 to redevelop their site in Drupal 7. The initial phase of the project focused on a major site re-architecture to make it easier to navigate and find information quickly and easily. The outcome of this phase was a detailed site map and wireframes which we used as the basis for mapping out the rest of the project.

NALA had an existing Drupal 6 site along with a CiviCRM installation. As most of the website was being overhauled and content rewritten, we opted to migrate a limited number of content items and users, rather than doing a straight Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 upgrade. This allowed us to start with a clean site, empty of legacy configuration and content, thereby making it easier to implement the changes we required.

While NALA had an existing installation of CiviCRM, it wasn't being fully utilized. Part of the project focused on more closely integrating the two systems so membership, donations, events, shop purchases and the mailing list are all managed through CiviCRM. In addition, all of the organisation's contacts and its interactions with those contacts are managed in CiviCRM. Members are automatically given user accounts on the website and are accorded certain privileges for the duration of their membership. CiviCRM contact records provide a complete, holistic view of the contact, which means that staff members can access the information to speak intelligently with any caller.

The main features of the new site are:

• New design implemented to better represent NALA on the web while still incorporating their existing branding. An emphasis was placed on clarity, usability and ensuring the content is always clearly accessible.
• Fully responsive site with a navigation implementation that is easy to use on either mobile, tablet or desktop.
• New layout and design system in place allowing NALA to create a variety of custom page layouts. This allows them to publish their text, image and video content in a variety of ways, always communicating in the most effective manner on mobile, tablet or desktop.
• Ability to join NALA online and have membership details automatically enter CiviCRM, complete with renewal reminders and grace periods.
• Donation form for once-off donations, again fully integrated with CiviCRM.
• Easy browsable and searchable resources section for both shippable books and free downloadable documents.
• All resources purchases in the online shop are tracked in CiviCRM.
• Directory of course providers complete with searchable Google Map.
• Ability to create free and paid-for events and allow users to register multiple people online, specify dietary requirements and receive reminder emails. Again this is all managed through CiviCRM.

Contributions to the Drupal Community

This project saw the creation of a number of new modules some of which we were able to contribute back to the larger Drupal community.

• Commerce CiviCRM - this module provides integration between a Drupal Commerce online store and CiviCRM. When a customer purchases something online, this module creates a CiviCRM contact record (if none exists), adds the customer to a specified CiviCRM contact group and adds a contribution history entry to their contact record.
• Commerce Donate - Again another Drupal Commerce related module. It provides a "donation" type product where the user can enter in the amount they wish to donate when adding the product to their cart. It also provides a donation pane on the checkout page so you can encourage users to give a little extra as part of the checkout process.

We were also able to provide additional features for existing modules:

• Added support for migration of ISBN [#1668282] and Physical Address [#1671108] fields to the Migrate Extras module
• Integrated the CiviCRM Reference Fields module with Views [#1690262] This has already been committed to the module and will be included as part of its next release.
• Added the ability to the CiviCRM Reference Fields module to embed CiviCRM contribution and event pages in a node display [#1690118]