Drupal is a content management system that has been around since 2000, founded by Dires Buytaert and Hans Snijder, merely two years after the internet became widely used. After being one of the first inventors of an online bulletin board, this network of users started realizing the full potential of their pet project to the wider internet community.

Now, Drupal is a world-class content management system that is user friendly and does not require any prior knowledge of coding languages to use. It is commonly used to make the management and daily update of websites simple for non-programmers, and is perfect for a site that requires multiple editors or changing content requirements.

As Drupal developers, we can take the powerful Drupal framework and expertly mold it to your needs.

How Do I Know That Drupal Is Right for Me and My Site?

To understand whether Drupal may be right for your site we suggest looking at your long term plans of the site. What usage are you looking for? What support do you need from your system to make your company really stand out and wow your consumers? Do multiple people need to be able to access and modify content without technical knowledge?

A good sign that Drupal may be good for you is if your company starting, for example, a simple blog but there is a strong possibility that the company will be adding a wiki, ecommerce, multiple content types, or forums that allow communities to form. Drupal excels at being the glue behind multiple parts of a site.

On the other hand, there are some times that Drupal may not be right for your project. As an ethical company we advise that if your long term goals are just to write a personal blog, create a wiki, or host a discussion forum on their own we encourage you to look at other great models and platforms that can be used for your own needs. Drupal is a powerful system that can do all of these things, so is the best choice when you may have expansion plans in the future.

Drupal for Website Content Management

An internet or intranet site often need multiple people changing the content, users that often have little to no technical knowledge. Drupal is a program that allows anyone without programming knowledge to edit the content on the site. Multiple levels of authorization can be set up, so you can have authors who are only allowed to edit basic content on a few pages whereas other administrators are able to make more sweeping changes across the site.

Design changes are easy to make, with multiple themes to work from. Connecting to other websites and services is a cinch. Adding the ability for users to interact through your site and make comments is easy. For help with any of this functionality, just get in touch with our Drupal development experts.

Drupal for Customer Relationship Management

As you look through different ways of aiding customer relationship management for your company you may be wondering why you would purchase Drupal when Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access is available and capable of creating simple databases.

Firstly, Drupal offers both a back-end and a front-end, meaning a website can be built on Drupal and run on it with ease. Building a website with a database like Access is a complex thing, and will require programming knowledge.

Even if you don't need a front-end and just need to store data like customer information, Drupal is a much more versatile offering than something like Excel or Access. By compiling all the information into one database, such as when using Microsoft Access, although the information is available at your fingertips so is the frustration of not being able to customize the tools and needs for each experience and core concept of your brand and vision. As your business needs change, your Excel spreadsheet or Access database becomes woefully inadequate.

Drupal Offers More

To really imagine what the benefits of Drupal are imagine that your Microsoft Access database is more of a library, a catalogue, of your contacts and something that can be used to show demographics of your users. Drupal instead takes data management to another level; a program that has been created with data interactivity in mind, and easier to use then investing countless hours learning how to create macros on Microsoft Access.

You don't just need to use Drupal as a contact manager; it enables you, your site and your employees to use powerful tools and functionality to track intricate details on your clients and consumers without requiring programming knowledge. It makes it easy to manipulate data whenever a new need arises for your data usage — often requirements that you never thought would be required. Drupal is flexible enough that it can interact with many existing technologies and web applications based on other parties APIs. Drupal is designed and build to work with complex forms and workflows, while also allowing users and administrators to create their own content including customized fields.

A simple use case for Drupal would be to track your website's consumer contacts along with their relationships and activities. You are in control of what fields you add to the database. The unique setup of Drupal's databases allows easier merging of contacts into households, and also allows a company to cut down on duplicates and a flexible framework when it comes to identification of your users.

Once those basics are nailed down the program can then be used by your different staff in different ways. Views can be setup for the sales team that only shows enquiries relevant to them, for example. Your warehouse team can see the shipments which must go out. Every screen on Drupal can be manipulated and modified, allowing individual users to decide how they want to see the information that is being presented. The information can be programmatically manipulated, and the interface can be personalized to control the look and feel when accessing information on consumers. Instead of being “tied down” by the system an administrator can control how the CRM looks like through an admin menu.

How Do I Get Started?

The only thing that you need to have to get started is a website host and to install Drupal. It is really that simple! In fact that may be the only cost you will have connected to your use of Drupal.

If you've gotten this far you are seriously considering using Drupal as your system platform but now there are some questions about which system you should get. In general there are two versions available to the public that we give support on. When Drupal release a new version they have three versions that they give support on for three months as they phrase out support for the oldest version on the market. Presently Drupal is in version 7 and 6 and version 8 is still in its research phase.

The Best Thing about Using Open Source Software? It Is Completely Free!

In addition to having a system that is completely free for your company there are other ways, beyond the tools that Drupal already provides you with the regular package, to customize your CRM by using the ‘modules’. These are essentially extensions to the Drupal system that allow you to make your CRM act differently, or add new functionality. Drupal itself hosts over 16,000 modules that their developers and Drupal users have created.

With over 51 module categories there is just about any module that you may think that you will ever need for your website. We can not only provide these modules but offer creative design and innovation to figure out what is best for your website. We provide the most personalized experience for our users and hope that this is taken full advantage of as we just love seeing what users create!

I'm Worried about Security and Making Sure My Site Is Secure.

We have all heard the horror stories about information and data being hacked and used in numerous, unimaginable, ways. At the same time as a user we are often worried about how much information is out on the internet about us. Frequent analysis and scanning of Drupal and its various systems identify weaknesses that would make your system a possible target for hacking.

In fact, open source is known to be more secure than traditional software because of the visibility of code. In traditional systems code is often protected, meaning the average user can't check for security holes, but hackers can find them. With open source, in the spirit of transparency and encouraging growth, users are welcomed and invited to share experiences and fixes with us and Drupal staff.

As a reminder to stay safe and secure with Drupal we suggest following official releases and downloads from the Drupal website. We are of course on hand to ensure this is the case for your Drupal installation. We make sure your security is up-to-date and we follow industry standards, security and offering a secure environment is all of our responsibilities.

Drupal Development

Drupal is a fantastic system that enables website owners to control their own website without outside assistance. Should you require help setting it up, or a custom module, or help with maintenance, we are the Drupal development experts to get in touch with. We're able to take Drupal from its basic state and turn it into the driving force for sales in your business. With many years' experience of creating exceptional Drupal website solutions, we have the knowledge and expertise to make Drupal fly.