First time poster also, so hopefully I've done this correctly :) I was at the last AA Drupal meeting, and had asked for input on designing a Drupal site for a customer. I am still having some challenges getting into the "Drupal state", and thus would greatly appreciate some hand holding while I am still learning the basics. I am relatively new to web development, although I have been a desktop developer for over a decade.
The project in brief: Customer is an HR firm that will have a drupal site to manage all of their clients (i.e. "employers"). Each employer will have a list of users (i.e. "employees") that are responsible for filling out various HR-related documents. Currently, the customer is using a ton of data monkey power to hand enter in the paper forms that the employees are filling out and faxing/mailing in.
The Drupal solution must have each employer invisible from each other, except for the customer users (who would be a notch below the admins). I am planning on using organic groups for permissions, and use CCK to create the various forms as content types that the employees would need to create, and have the employees publish them under their user ids. It is essential that an employer can only see the information for its own users.
Let me summarize the roles below:
Role - Restrictions
Admin - pretty much no restrictions. for developers only.
for users in their own organic group:
employer - can create new user accounts (manager or employee role), edit all content, "founder" of organic group
manager - can create new user accounts (employee role only) and edit employee content and content marked "management only"
employee - can publish/edit own content types.
I have successfully created a CCK content type that represents one form (I am focusing on getting the functionality working before I deal with CSS). Now, here is where I am challenged. I can't seem to get the organics groups module set up correctly. With all the options enabled, I am still unable to create a new organic group. Also, how do I build a node that will allow the user to see the list of content types he has already completed, and another node for the "manager" that will see the "teaser" info for each employee. The views module is confusing me, but I believe this is the right module to use, I just don't know how.
Comments
Drupal ACL and Organic Groups
Off the shelf Organic Groups can provide roles admin, employer and employee. But the manager role breaks the bank.
No problem giving the Manager role 'user create' permissions. The trouble comes when you want one role to be able to edit another roles content but not be able to edit content in another group. Except for the group owner, editing content is an all or nothing proposition.
Organic Groups permissions and Drupals permissions don't work together. They are unaware of each other.
Organic groups provides no way to allow one role to edit another roles content.
Drupal ACL provides no way to stop a role with edit permission from editing content in a group to which they are not a member.
One potential solution:
Depending on how many managers there are per group - you may be able to eliminate the Manager role all together. You can have more than one administrator per group. You could make all managers administrators of the group.
Maybe better solution:
You should look at the workflow and actions module. Together they are very powerful and it sounds like you have a workflow problem not a group management problem. Maybe you end-up with Organic groups, workflow and actions. Maybe drop Organic groups.
Make sure you nail down these permissions issues before getting invested in anyone method.
Regards,
Michael Hofmockel
Open Source || Open Access || Open Mind
OG + OG User Roles may be solution
You should check out OG User Roles module - http://drupal.org/project/og_user_roles
I have not tried it but it might help you get the manager role you have been looking for.
Regards,
Michael Hofmockel
Open Source || Open Access || Open Mind