LocalGov Drupal: The new features that we’re really excited about
There’s been so much happening in the world of LocalGov Drupal, with some incredible additions to this Drupal-based CMS, tailor-made for councils. Have a look at some of the latest developments.
The world of LocalGov Drupal is certainly not a static one. As councils develop new features these become available for any other council with a LocalGov Drupal website to use. So it’s important to stay abreast of what’s become available.
These are the new additions to the LocalGov Drupal CMS that have us really excited.
Events
Now councils can list the events they want to list, where and when they want to list them. The previous way of listing events allowed for just one view, which didn’t fit everyone’s needs. Councils wanted to separate out listings of council meetings or events at libraries, for example.
The new LocalGov Drupal Events module provides an event content type and view with search and mapping. Councils can split up event listings so they don’t get lost in everyday views. You can even write recurring events into the directory for a predefined period of time.
The new Events feature, funded by Essex County Council and Hammersmith & Fulham Council, is part of the LocalGov Drupal distribution that can be installed as a standalone, but also integrates into LocalGov Directories.
Subsites Extras
Towards the end of 2022 LocalGov Drupal saw the launch of subsites, but this was limited. So a more flexible subsites solution was designed, with different theming and support for LocalGov Drupal content types like directories.
This module – called Subsites Extras – lets you create menu-driven subsites in your LGD site. The menu defines the structure of the subsite, and also lets you use Drupal's standard menu blocks and tools to display the subsite's navigation and manage the hierarchy of the pages within it.
This development was funded by Essex County Council and Hammersmith & Fulham Council. And you can see a good example of Subsites Extras in use on Essex’s new fostering website, which Annertech are proud to have had a hand in developing.
The Essex County Council's Fostering website was built using the LocalGov Drupal Subsites Extras feature.
Elections
This is the most exciting feature to be developed recently. It was added just before the UK elections took place and will be used in many elections to come.
It includes some really cool capabilities, including automatic lookup of constituencies and parties. When users enter the name of their constituencies, the boundary data is pulled in automatically. It also allows users to enter candidate names and assign them a party. Details for the major parties are already included.
Plus there are some brilliant results features. Users can tweet results as they come in directly from LocalGov Drupal, and can also generate table, graph and map based views of the results.
The elections feature was funded by Cumberland Council and Westmorland & Furness Council, and you can see it in action on their websites too.
A huge shoutout to Rohallion, who drove the development of this exciting initiative.
Image: The new Elections feature displays all the election results, as they are confirmed, as seen in the election results page for the Carlisle constituency in Cumberland Council. It displays a lot of handy details, such as candidates names, a description, the number of votes received and whether or not they were elected.
Content access by path
We enjoyed working on a new module called Content Access by Path that is refining the way websites are managed.
This allows certain people to have access to different sections of the website. Say for example you would like specific people to have access to the content for a certain department. Or if you have a guest editor who will be given access to a limited number of pages. If so, then this is the module for you. Funded by Essex County Council, this will allow website managers to have so much more control over access and permissions.
Media item usage tab
This is a handy little addition that allows users to see where media items are used across the site. It was added to LocalGov Drupal after many people asked for it, especially at LocalGov Drupal Camp. This is going to be a big help, especially when wanting to change or delete a media item.
Preview link module
Wouldn’t it be handy, once you have edited a piece of content, to get a preview link that will allow you to test content out with other people or share it with others? The preview link module will soon be available on a number of different types of content, such as directory channels, guides, subsets and step by steps.
Conclusion
One of the reasons why so many councils are embracing LocalGov Drupal to use for their websites is because of the multitude of features available – all of which have been tried, tested and developed by other councils. As this Drupal distribution grows (there are 47 councils who’ve already used LocalGov Drupal) the user experience grows too, and feedback from councils has been excellent.
We’re thrilled to be a part of this exciting project, creating brilliant websites for local governments and ultimately helping them offer their constituents better public services in a modern way that is easy to access.
What can LocalGov Drupal do for you?
We’ve been working with LocalGov Drupal since its early stages and are really excited about what it can do for councils.
Anthony Lindsay Director of Managed Services
With decades of experience, Anthony leads the Annertech Managed Services Team, delivering top quality design, development, and, ultimately peace-of-mind services to all of Annertech's wonderful clients.
