drupal.com.au

Get help with your Drupal website project

As at July 2009, I specialise in helping-out Drupal projects when the understanding of how Drupal works is beyond the limits or reach of in-house PHP programmers &/or external website developer consultants.

Contact me on 03 5968 1541 if you have identified such a need in your project.

I bring my experience as a Unix System Administrator, GIS Programmer and Website Developer to my work as a Drupal Consultant and Developer. I am based in Melbourne.

If you would like to find out more about Drupal then visit drupal.org.

If you decide you would like a Drupal website I can perhaps help you.

I can develop a new Drupal web site; convert an existing site to Drupal; or maintain an existing Drupal installation. 

2008 and prior

My work in 2008 and prior involved managing and maintaining and extending sites for my on-going clients such as:  NewWOW |SPACE | Mary Porter AM MLA | English Mastery | Fawcett Cottage | ALARA

New client sites in 2008 included:

• VAADA Comorbidity - I developed this site from scratch under the guidance of VAADA from their concept, and collaborated with a graphic designer (Alyssa at Artifact Design Group) on the 'look-and-feel'.
•  ANHLC  - I take over continuing responsibility from the initial developer for management, maintenance and further development.

I continued providing support and troubleshooting on the Shire of Busselton site which runs on Drupal.

As well, I took up the challenge of working with some of Melbourne's best project management teams supporting them in their Drupal development for some of Australia's largest corporations including CSR, John Holland PTY LTD, and TruEnergy. The sites for J.H. and TruEnergy are internal intranets largely facilitating e-learning within those organisations.

The site I engineered on behalf of CSR, under the project management of Publicity Works - Ethanol Facts - has the purpose of promoting their Ethanol blended fuels, and is online.

2009

As I continue my work in 2009, I am excited to continue to be retained as the webmaster for the AFL Player's Association.

I am also kept occupied by BOAB Interactive to assist in troubleshooting in the 'final 5%' of their excellent Drupal site development work.

I am kept constantly busy with these and other projects. Drupal is an exciting and satisfying area to work in. In my work for my clients I am challenged to draw on the depths of the approaches to software engineering I learnt under the guidance of the Computer Science department at Murdoch University a long time ago. I graduated top of my computer science class as a mature age student in 1990. My ability to focus within complex systems that is referenced by that result is in fact my primary offering.

 

Services provided

• Drupal Pre-Consultations
• Drupal Requirements Analysis
• Drupal Planning and Design
• Drupal Hosting
• Drupal Installations
• Drupal Maintenance
• Drupal Content Management Direction
• Drupal Content Management Supervision
• Drupal Content Updates
• Drupal Revamps

By no means will all clients require each of those services once the decision to migrate to Drupal has been proposed.

Pre-Consultation

Most clients would begin with a pre-consultation where the benefits, scope and potential of Drupal are communicated clearly. For some clients it would be feasible to move straight from the pre-consultation into some relatively short planning and design and then straight into installation.

Requirements Analysis, Planning and Design

For clients with more exacting specifications or compliance constraints an initial engagement for Requirements Analysis, Planning and Design would be an appropriate outcome of the pre-consultation.

After installation it is feasible for some organisations to completely manage the system in-house. Studio Also of course would be happy to provide consulting services as required after installation. For other clients Studio Also can take responsibility for the ongoing maintenance &/or fine tuning of the look-and-feel.

Hosting

We can arrange hosting of Drupal sites at very competitive rates. Servers could be in Australia or USA depending on individual requirements.

Installation

Whether we provide access to a hosting service or use one that your organisation already has in place we can work from our office here in the Dandenong Ranges, outside Melbourne, to install the Drupal configuration that the planning stages have defined for you.

It is entirely possible for us to perform installations for organisations across Australia and internationally without ever coming to your premises.

If your business or organisation is in Melbourne or close by, our preference is to have at least one or two meetings at your place before we begin work at ours. If called for we are more than happy to come to your site during the process when details need arranging and also on completion . In-house installations where we work on your premises will also be considered.

Content

The actual content (the documents, the words and images, the discussions and the taxonomy) can be managed by anybody willing to go through a not large learning curve. Anybody who can navigate through Microsoft Word, or through a Database or Spreadsheet application has the potential of learning to be a "Pilot" of Drupal.

Some organisations would prefer to outsource the management of content and Studio Also is happy to quote on that aspect. We can even do the actual content entry on a daily or weekly basis. Just send the content via email and we enter it into your organisation's Drupal Installation.

Maintenance

We can add modules to existing installations to expand functionality and we can tweak the look and feel.

Other changes can be made periodically to reflect changing needs of an organisation.

Studio Also Drupal Consulting

In summary, Studio Also can consult about Drupal, build a Drupal site or intranet, maintain it, update it, change it and even keep the content fresh on a regular basis.

Each client can choose the particular service that is needed at a particular time.

Rates

Rates are reasonable and straightforward.

An initial consultation might begin at $A100.

We can easily do the entire consultation via email &/or phone. In those circumstance we would expect to put in up to two hours of our time over a period of a day or two discussing the possibilities via email or phone.

Alternatively consultations at your premises can be arranged in Melbourne. Enquire about other locations.

The current standard rate for services can be negotiated depending on a number of factors such as length of commitment time, and - especially - sense of urgency and stress in the project management timeline.

Some consideration can be made of the financial basis of an organisation. We are open to giving special prices to selected NGO's and other non-profit organisations and clubs and associations.

Drupal Rescue

One last service we provide is rescuing folk who have begun to install Drupal and have come to see that there are some skills required that perhaps are not worth spending the time learning. In other words we can take over at an hourly rate, if an individual or organisation reaches a dead-end in the do-it-our-self scheme.

In fact, as it pans out, since I wrote the above paragraph a couple of years ago, a substantial part of my work is in the Drupal Rescue realm. I specialise in helping when sites reach the limits of inhouse programmers &/or external developer consultants.

More Details

Any organisation would benefit from a Drupal site. It is more than the display of information. It certainly is that, but it is a whole lot more. Basically it is an environment for people in an organisation to interact, collaborate, work on projects together and display those conversations and outcomes selectively.

In other words people inside an organisation can receive a different view of a Drupal site to the people outside an organisation.

It is possible - although currently challenging - to let the same installation perform the distinct roles that a website and an intranet would have performed up to now.

In short it is worth spending some time reading up on it, and then perhaps giving us a call, or sending an email to begin the process.

Contact Me

Phone: +61 (0)3 5968 1541

Mail: Studio Also, PO Box 533, Gembrook, Vic. 3783.

Where to From Here?

Perhaps you found this document easy to read, and well structured.

Perhaps by reading it you have gained specific knowledge of the steps necessary for us to work with you to implement a website or an intranet or a blog or a discussion environment utilising Drupal. Perhaps this document was clear and comprehensive enough for you to understand something of the nature of the work we put into communicating with our clients. If so, consider the possibility that the quality of this document is an indication of the care we take with the other components of our work.

On the other hand if this document did not convey to you enough information to help you decide about Drupal then do not hesitate to ring or email to seek clarification about any of the points raised.

Do not worry - we do not start the meter running for a pre-consultation on answering the phone. We are more than happy to answer quite a few of your questions before you decide whether it is appropriate for you to enter into a formal pre-consultation. We will endeavour to guide you along the way about if and when it is appropriate to begin the next phase of collaboration.

Studio Also Recommends Drupal

Drupal Builds Trust

It is considered likely that organisations that have a professional web presence are more trusted by the wider community than those that do not have a site at all, or have an obviously amateur one.

It is also probable that formal research would show that trust is induced more when a site is regularly displaying fresh and up to date content than a when a site is static once-and-for-all; however slick and glossy.

If you, as a responsible person in an NGO or club or business, see the implications of all that to your core business, you may be ready for Drupal.

Drupal is Sound

Drupal can be ready for you in less time than a Dreamweaver or Frontpage site would be. Less time means less investment up-front and yet a Drupal site is a quality site, not a patched together site.

The open source community that drives the development of Drupal ensures that.

As a professionally trained Software Engineer (B.Sc. Comp. Sci, Murdoch University, 1990), I have looked through the material documenting the Drupal Development Project and I can verify that there is a high adherence to recognised software development standards. The very fact of the transparency of process evident on the Drupal site is another indicator to me that the project is well-founded.