Use of Drupal in NS

Posted by rockitdev on July 27, 2009 at 1:01pm

So, i've been working on a proof of concept for use of Drupal at Capital Health. We have a gigantic site to build, and Drupal would be a perfect fit.

Traditionally, at Capital Health we're a Microsoft Shop with most of our applications being of the .NET/SQL Server flavour with a sprinkle of Oracle/Java in some cases. Many who come from this area, think I'm crazy for wanting to use LAMP + Drupal for our web presence or that anything open source in general is sub par. As we all know, that is a crock but regardless, it is someting barrier i have to overcome.

So besides that, the fact i want to use open source vs. commerical product is another issue to overcome. Part of my business case will be demonstrating there is an active community/resource pool locally that we could leverage if need be, something that the larger vendor solutions such as fatwire or ektron may not have.

Here's what information i'm looking for:

Shops/Freelancers/Developers/Themers/Designers in NS (or maritimes) using Drupal
Local Sites built in Drupal (big plus to Gov. sites). Its easy enough to grab high profile sites from Dries blog

Cheers.

Comments

Local Drupal Sites & Developers

Posted by hypnokayte on July 28, 2009 at 6:37pm

Hey there,

This should help - here are two examples of current NS Government websites that are built on Drupal:

Nova Scotia Life: www.novascotialife.com
Opportunities NS: www.opportunitiesns.ca

Some other local Drupal sites I worked on during my time with MM are: Bedford Place Mall, Empire Theatres, Ascenta Health, Progress Magazine and Chiropractic Nova Scotia.

Shoreline Consulting and Chalk also do Drupal websites, I'm not aware of any other agencies that do - although I'm sure there are others.

There are also quite a few Drupal developers/themers that work on a freelance basis (like me!) around Halifax.

Hey Ryan, We ( Shoreline

Posted by nimzie-gdo on July 29, 2009 at 12:27pm

Hey Ryan,

We ( Shoreline Consulting ) are pretty much a Drupal focused shop.

For government sites, we've only done one : www.gov.ns.ca/employeeorientation . This was originally done in Moodle which was terrible and redone in Drupal. Some other sites we've done include www.killamproperties.com, www.dalmba.ca, www.ecologyaction.ca, www.atlanticjazzfestival.ca and more that you can see at www.shorelineconsutling.ca/portfolio.

We've had 'some' success with the drupal group, but scheduling has been a tricky one.

If you are looking to build a team for any projects or bolster your resources with some reputable development - drop me a line and I'd be happy to figure out how we can help.

Cheers,
adam

Thanks Guys. Here are some

Posted by rockitdev on July 29, 2009 at 12:45pm

Thanks Guys. Here are some more i got from a contact at Communications Nova Scotia.

http://healthtransformation.gov.ns.ca/
http://novascotiaimmigration.com/
http://nsacpc.com/
http://nsrp.gov.ns.ca/
http://secondnature.gov.ns.ca/
http://vp.gov.ns.ca/

There are a number of Drupal sites in use in the NS government. Currently the most common use is in running intranets for various departments, agencies, or other groups within the government. There are about 10 Drupal intranets in production use, and another the 5 or so are in development, is what they are saying at Communications Nova Scotia.

My prototype that i've built to this point is quite solid. Made use of CCK, Views, Location, GMap, and some other core items such as Pathauto etc. Biggest issue will be migrating data from our existing CMS. We'd be looking at migrating around 2,500 nodes to begin and the data model behind our current CMS is f'ugly.

I'll keep posting updates on the progress of the project.

Good to hear!

Posted by mgifford on August 7, 2009 at 3:27pm

Nice to see these implementations in NS.

You might be interested in this Facebook Group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=106648013724

Also, this best practices list is quite useful and there are a few other Drupal installs listed there:
http://government20bestpractices.pbworks.com/Canada

I also added some of those sites here:
http://delicious.com/mgifford/government+drupal

A ways from NS, but later in the month we're also organizing this event:
http://www.thecodefactory.ca/blog/2009/08/04/drupal-in-government-meetup...

Good luck with your efforts and great to hear the news from the east coast!