wiki:IIRS/firstTechReply

Version 2 (modified by jim, 3 years ago) (diff)

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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:

  1. Local language user and initiative registration functionality on TN.org
  2. #1 as embeddable 'widget' functionality on National Hub website

Also discussed:

  1. CRM features for 'National Hub Profile Administrator'?

Roles required per country

  • Administrator
  1. to provide user support and manage the service and data per country
  2. exists currently as the 'National Hub profile administrator' - might be an extension of that role
  • Translator
  1. 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