TO: All employees
FR: Barbara Moore, Director, IT Web Services and Sandy Destiny, Director of Creative Services, Strategic Communications
This summer, the remainder of department websites on web.sonoma.edu moved to the SSU Drupal content management system, thereby completing the multi-year Drupal Migration Project. The Drupal Team extends congratulations and heartfelt thanks to all the division, school, department, and program employees and stakeholders who participated in this project.
Drupal migration benefits to SSU
- Improved navigation and user experience
- Responsive layout that adapts to the device the site is viewed on
- Brand consistency and a fresh, modern design
- Improved accessibility
- Web-based editing
- HTML and CSS knowledge not required for most content updates
- Improved security
- Updated web content management system
The Project
Completing a project of this scale required close collaboration between departments and the SSU Drupal Team and followed a process to help stakeholders identify the needs for each site. While based on a shared SSU Drupal codebase, each site migration included the opportunity to add custom functionality and styles.
This last wave of sites that were migrated from the web.sonoma.edu platform to SSU Drupal offered the opportunity to eliminate pages that were no longer needed and reorganize existing pages to improve the content presentation and simplify navigation for the visitors to our website.
Rebranding
This summer, the website was given a new look featuring SSU’s new logo and brand elements. The Drupal Team worked with each department individually to implement the new design theme on their pages.
Next Steps for SSU Drupal
We will be moving the site to the Cloud
Information Technology has contracted with Acquia to host our Drupal sites on the Cloud– making department websites faster and more reliable. Transferring sites to Acquia Cloud will begin soon. Communication will go out to department web content owners and editors prior to this move. The transition to the Acquia Cloud will not impact visitors’ access to our sites.
Update to Drupal 9
Once all SSU Drupal sites have been moved to Acquia Cloud, the Drupal Team will begin upgrading from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9, the most recent version. This upgrade will bring several improvements in functionality and usability for employees who edit Drupal sites and site visitors. The Drupal Team will be working on the Drupal 9 site design and upgrade path beginning in January 2022 with a goal of completing it in 2023.
The Drupal Team wishes to thank the University Web Team, which is made up of the Drupal Team and campus content leads who represent each division and school, and which meets monthly to stay informed about changes and improvements to SSU websites. The University Web Team members were the early testers and provided valuable input in the development of SSU’s Drupal platform.
Thanks also to each department’s web experts and content owners. Their partnership in these projects has been essential to the University’s web presence.