Sector(s)
Team Members
Project Team
eCity Interactive is a full service interactive production company with over 12 years experience serving the Philadelphia region. Our guiding principle and reputation is to consistently deliver a product that exceeds our clients’ expectations while making the production experience personally enjoyable for all involved.
Project Team Members: Louis Miller, Director, Projects & Accounts Strategy; Paul Curcio, Director of User Experience; Bob O’Mara, Interactive Designer; Hessam Shahriari, Web Developer; Pak Lee, Director of Technology; Evelyn Capistrano, Executive Creative Director
The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia seeks to enrich the lives of Philly’s multi-generational Jewish community. They work for social justice, educate about Jewish life and tradition, and have even strengthened the Jewish community living in Israel and around the world.
In order to better engage the community they were trying to help, the Federation needed a new website to effectively communicate their work and successes, both locally and abroad. eCity Interactive helped create and cultivate a brand identity via this website that clearly articulated the Federation’s impact on the community as well as convey the importance of getting involved, be it financially or through volunteer work.
About the project
The goals
eCity had the following strategic goals for the new website:
- Demonstrate concrete examples of how the Federation has helped individuals overcome hunger and loneliness, learn about their Jewish heritage, and experience Israel firsthand.
- Convey the importance of supporting the Federation financially, while reinforcing that gifts will be well-spent and are sound investments to improve the local and global Jewish community.
- Communicate how each visitor can benefit from involvement with the Federation – access to a local Jewish community, service information, educational opportunities, job listings, community calendar, etc.
- Create a sense of community among the Jewish community living within the Greater Philadelphia area that is manifested both online and in the living rooms and synagogues in the area.
- Use of Drupal’s taxonomy system to organize and manage hundreds of resources
Challenges
The old Jewish Federation of Philadelphia website had a large archive of all resource offices that needed to be migrated over to the new site. We looked into different ways of importing this database into our new site while reinventing the architecture and categorization of these resources. Drupal’s excellent Feeds module, with its flexible database structure, allowed us to most effectively map the old database to match the new site architecture. With such a content-heavy website, we wanted a CMS that thinks about that content and how users interact with it. The biggest challenge for us was how to display and organize thousands of pages. Drupal really helped us to break out of a page-based mindset with its powerful content structure kit. It helped our content strategy in order to shape the new site. Additionally, there are many contribute modules available within Drupal’s community with a focus on content presentation. The large number of pages on the site required a powerful framework to support a sophisticated menu system that controlled all of the pages and their deep-level subpages. We think Drupal’s menu system was an excellent tool to not just do the job, but do it right!
One of the other challenges that we faced was a robust mapping solution for hundreds of offices. After investigating several different platforms, Drupal’s Gmap and Location module proved themselves the answer to all the requirements. Drupal allowed us to generate maps on the fly as editors added new office to the site. End-users also benefit from this great feature as they can browse through offices more efficiently.
In addition, we had to implement Heartland’s Webconnect to connect their donation form and many other event registration forms to Heartland's Payment system for credit card processing. Heartland is a payment gateway that was chosen by our client. Drupal's Token system was the main key that allowed us to connect webforms to Heartland and to communicate with their API flawlessly. Webform's neat database structure allowed us to update submissions with payment information after receiving payment confirmation back from Heartland. I don't think this implementation could have been done without Drupal.
Lastly, this project was subject to many changes after its initial launch, and we needed a framework that is versatile, flexible, and expandable. We’re still developing and building new sections to the site by adding new APIs and frameworks. Drupal really pushes the limit in order to expand the site as new requirements arise. Drupal is the perfect platform to develop large sites such as Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia with a solid core CMS that offers unlimited flexibility. Drupal is designed to be heavily customizable, and it is able to handle large and complex websites through many add-ons.
Why Drupal was chosen
Accomplishing our goals meant surveying, organizing and presenting the original Federation site’s vast selection of content. Previously, Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia was built on a platform named FedNet, limiting our client’s ability to maintain the site’s content. After considering other content management systems, we chose Drupal for its focus on content management. It offered us a much wider range of modules capable of handling the complex requirements of the project as well as an intuitive interface for future site administrators to control and edit content on the new site.
Additionally, Drupal theming, specifically Zen Starter Kit, combined with modules controlling layout such as panel, and Display suite to allow us to change site’s layout dynamically. The Webform module also provided us with the means to create a customized submission form that is easy for submitters to use and stores all the information about submissions.
Drupal’s excellent Taxonomy System in particular proved to be a pivotal asset, allowing us and our client to manage and organize hundreds of resources. Combined with its Views module, it provided an easy and effective interface for visitors to find any necessary resource.
Additionally, Drupal’s Calendar System allowed us to use one event entity to manage events across multiple calendars for different groups, creating a robust community calendar specific to the new site’s content taxonomy.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
Zen
The ultimate starting theme, it saved a lot of time in setting up a custom theme, its markup and its functions.
Views
Combined with Panels, Views allowed us to control the content presentation throughout the site, including the layout and all dynamic listings on the site.
Panels
Panels helped us change the layout on the site as well as dynamically change the content for different parts of the site. It also allowed us to filter content based on various criteria.
Display Suite
This module enabled us to create complex layouts for different content types used on the site and add dynamic fields (that are fed by Views module) to control content presentation.
Media
This module enabled our client to manage images for image galleries as well as YouTube videos.
Feeds
We particularly loved this module! It saved time exporting content from an existing database and enabled us to map data to match the structure of the new site, importing hundreds of partner organizations.
Location Feeds
With the help of this module we were able to map location information with Location module.
Location
This module made it easier for us to calculate geographic locations to generate interactive maps for more than 800 partner organizations using Google Maps API 3.
GMAP
This module, along with Location module, made it easier for us to generate dynamic Google maps on the fly for hundreds of partner organizations.
BEAN
This module provided a better interface for blocks and allowed our client to generate different block types and manage them more efficiently.
Profile 2
This module added the power of CCK to user account pages, in order create a robust registration process for authenticated users.
Scheduler
This gave us ability to schedule content types, particularly event alerts.
Rules
This module allows us to send email notifications to site’s administrators when other users submit events or job postings to the site.
Search API
With this framework, we were able to build a custom search for the resource section of the site. Users are able to use this custom search to search through hundreds of partner organizations.
Taxonomy Menu
We were able to build a robust dynamic menu from taxonomy terms on the fly. As mentioned earlier, all partner organizations were categorized by taxonomy terms, and this module allowed us to create a system to navigate through offices efficiently.
Hierarchical Select
In order to build out the resource section, we had to use a hierarchical system to organize content based on project requirements. Additionally, we had to make sure that all entered content followed the same hierarchy in order for the system to work. This module provided an intuitive workflow for content editors to ensure content was tagged in the right order.
Calendar
This module, along with the Views Module, provided a framework for us to build multiple complex calendars on the site. Views Exposed filters enhanced the functionality of all calendars, and provided a better interface for end users to find the events.
Webform
This module allowed us to build and manage many donations and event registration forms, as well as connect them to Heartland's payment system for credit card processing. Webform's Token system allowed us to communicate with Heartland's API flawlessly. Additionally, the simple database structure allowed us to update submissions with payment information after receiving payment confirmations back from Heartland.
Webform Report
With the help of this module we were able to build detailed financial reports for finance team.
