Sector(s)
Project Team
FUF // Frank und Freunde, a Drupal agency in Stuttgart, created the concept and design and developed the site.
BKI was founded in 1996 by the 16 German state chambers of architects. It collects cost data from completed building projects and publishes it as books, software, web services and training for architects and everyone else involved in planning and building. Its previous website ran on Contao. FUF // Frank und Freunde relaunched it on Drupal 10 with a new design and a shop for physical and digital products. The site now runs on Drupal 11.
About the project
Goals. BKI wanted to sell physical and digital products and services directly on its website, which was not possible before. Licenses for the digital products had to be managed with tokens, so that access and usage rights are controlled in one place. The design was to build on BKI's existing corporate design, with a lean, airy layout that leads users clearly to products and services.
Content and editing. Product pages, news, seminars, webinars, project publications, the construction price index and a directory of planners are all part of the Drupal site. Editors build pages from Paragraphs, for example hero, text, image and text, tabs, FAQ, testimonials, product sliders, seminar and news teasers, newsletter sign-up and contact persons. The shop, the forms and the search are paragraph types as well, so editors can place them on any page.
Shop. The shop is a custom front-end layer on top of Drupal, built without Drupal Commerce. On a product page, customers choose the version, new purchase or update, and the medium (download or USB). Private customers see prices including VAT, business customers excluding VAT. Checkout works with a customer account or as a guest, and payment runs through PAYONE. Licensed software products receive token-based rights directly from the shop. Customer management and the ERP system are connected through a REST API, so customer and order data are available in real time without manual entry.
Performance. CSS and JavaScript are minimized. Pages are fully cached and served from Drupal's page cache, and dynamic parts are loaded afterwards. Meta tags, the XML sitemap, forms and lazy image loading come from FUF's in-house modules.
Outcome. The site launched on Drupal 10 and has since been upgraded to Drupal 11. FUF supports the site after launch with maintenance and feature development.
Why Drupal was chosen
The relaunch had to add a shop to the website. A second system next to the CMS would have meant extra cost for evaluation, setup and maintenance. Leading shop systems are large monolithic packages, and shop add-ons are limited in function and can affect performance, security and stability. Building the shop into Drupal keeps content, product pages and checkout in one system and avoids running and updating separate shop software.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
- Paragraphs: editors assemble pages from components, including the shop, form and search components.
- Entity Reference Revisions: required by Paragraphs, it keeps paragraphs in step with the revisions of their page.
- Redirect: system paths such as /node/2 and URLs with index.php redirect to the clean alias, so every page has one address.
