Last modified 3 years ago
Last modified on 07/17/13 16:01:26
Highlights
- This work is the beginning of phase 3 of TN.org
- Drupal 7 (still a bit early for 8)
- Requires a vision of how TN sees the international picture
- New roles and responsibilities for people outside tech/support/staff team - in other countries
- Opportunity - and decision point- to see this as a really international web project for different countries sharing services
- If we go down a federated route, we will be introducing a new technical and financial decision making body with national hubs
- Each language will require people to take responsibility for the roles
- We think that doing one language first is do-able for September
Immediate things to do
- Describe options and issues succinctly: Jim and Ed
- Get decision about strategic options from TN: Ed
- Explain TN's strategic goals for International project for options elucidation: Ed/TN
- Create working plan in excel: Ed
- Create working budget in excel: Ed
Money
- £7,000 set aside for this work
- £6,000 at £40 p/h is 18.75 days
- £250 for 1 day theming
- £750 for another developer to 'on ramp'
- Jim at £40 p/h
- Ben at £31.25 p/h
Dates
- First meet: 15/7
- Outline proposal to Ben for sharing with hubs: 19/7
- Outline documentation: week commencing 22/7
- Jim holiday: 24/7 - 28/7
- Second meet: 31/7 or 01/8
- Build begin: week commencing 5/8
- Option 2/3 decision point: mid-August
- Build to product before hub meet: August/September?
- Hubs meeting: mid-September
People
- Lead developer: Jim
- Design/theme: Ben?
- Learning developer/EC friendly: another
Jim availability and meeting days
- July: Monday and Friday
- August: Monday, Tuesday, Friday
- Monday or Tuesday meetings
- NB: Ed not work on Fridays
- NB: Jim will do occasional hours at evenings and weekends
IIRS walkthrough
Registration service for initiatives in local language:
- Local language user and initiative registration functionality on TN.org
- #1 as embeddable 'widget' functionality on National Hub website
Also discussed:
- CRM features for 'National Hub Profile Administrator'?
Roles required per country
- Administrator
- to provide user support and manage the service and data per country
- exists currently as the 'National Hub profile administrator' - might be an extension of that role
- Translator
- a dedicated service administrator per country to translate content that drupal doesn't do automatically
Issues
- Need clear boundaries around what is translated - e.g. having the main navigation in English (non-negotiable) will confuse
- Translating core functionality (user acct and initiative profile) vital - no point making them register user acct in English
- BIG question: Is this a small section of a UK hub site, or the beginning of a range of international sites sharing a service?
Options
1: Multi-lingual capable widget-friendly service on existing drupal 6 platform
- Will meet basic requirement in existing framework
- Most easily achievable but not future proofed
- Exists in current 'UK as centre' model
- No integration required (i.e. less backend work)
- Drupal 6 weak on international/translation/location
- Is extending a BIG website on a platform at the end of its life (Drupal 6)
2: Build new initiative feature in new Drupal 7 platform
- Will meet basic requirement on new framework
- Assumes existing 'model' - i.e. monolithic UK site is the centre, Int'l as subsections
- Starts from a clean base, but bringing the best of what we have already done.
- Integration required (ie. more backend work to port new platform back to old platform with existing directories)
- Could be some overlaps in language (e.g. between menus) and administration (e.g. country admin sends msg to other country initiative ppocs)
- Could well lead to an international landing page pointing to different country areas with related features
3: Build new initiative feature in new Drupal 7 platform with new 'distributed' international architecture
- Will meet basic requirement on new framework
- Assumes new 'distributed' model - i.e. de-centralised approach enabling separate country-specific features using a shared services platform - and UK is not the 'centre' site
- Assumes a view where hubs can and will take responsibility for their own inter-dependent country service which shares the core data and services but not necessarily any/all of the features
- Shares much of the earlier development work of option #2 - there will be a fork in the development path when we reach user administration
- Could well lead to an international landing page pointing to different country areas with related features
- Allows the Transition Network platform to be worked on by more interested parties.
- Gives a choice of hosted by TN or self-hosted whilst still keeping the network connected and synced.
First draft of tech tasks
- NB: this doesn't cover management time for meetings, documentation etc.
- Core stuff:
- New site - Panopoly and D7: 1 day
- Add initiatives and views: 1 day
- Rebuild widget in D7: 2 days
- Sync for 2 way services: 5 days
- New service theme: 2 days
- Editorial and other workflow: 1 day
- Import data into D7: 2 days
- User authentication/SSO: 2 days
- Internationalised stuff:
- 1nternationalisation and views work etc.: 3 days
- Build country home pages etc.: 1 day