drupal for school district intranet?
Hello Drupal community,
I am wondering if it would be possible to use Drupal as an internal network for teachers and administrators of a school district.
It would need to have a multi-user edited calendar (with distinctive permission policies) and be able to send forms for authorization.
User would login only when using a school district computer (ip discrimination). Remote access, if possible would also be nice.
The internal CMS would have no bearing on the district site or any outside publication, simply for employees.
A commercial version of this sort of software is located here: http://schools.powercom.net/whydistrict.cfm
Is this possible with Drupal?
Would it require extensive development (professional?) or are their modules available for these uses?
Thanks
Yes it's possible. From the
Yes it's possible. From the limited info you provide above, I don't think it would require extensive custom programming, but drupal does have a bit of a learning curve. More than likely you won't be able to install a couple of modules, check a few boxes, and have what you want. It will require effort-- how much varies from person to person depending on experience and skills.
For calendar functionality you have two options: http://drupal.org/project/calendar with http://drupal.org/project/date and http://drupal.org/project/event. For moderation, see http://drupal.org/project/modr8 and http://drupal.org/project/revision_moderation.
Login & remote access have nothing to do with drupal (though the http://drupal.org/project/restrict_by_ip and/or http://drupal.org/project/ip_login modules may be useful)-- that will be a function of where and how you install the webserver.
Also see http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-education.
===
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Thanks
After posting I found this thread (http://drupal.org/node/1197) that was helpful.
However, no one has brought up authorization routing of documents. Is this an implied functionality?
Any other modules that would be of use?
It was an old thread, but LDAP authentication was mentioned, that would be great (Contrib/modules/authentication/ldap_integration)
I'm not sure exactly what
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'authorization routing' of documents-- but you can do workflows with the http://drupal.org/project/rules and/or http://drupal.org/project/workflow modules.
Also, i use ldap_integration and it works great.
===
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." - Lao Tzu
"God helps those who help themselves." - Ben Franklin
"Search is your best friend." - Worldfallz
approval routing
It might be another version of a workflow.
The process would entail a teacher downloading a document from a database, editing it, sending to an official that approves it, edits it again, then sends it to another official who signs off, effectively validating the document for use.
Secure sending and passwords would not be necessary, but a streamlined system that is easy-to-use for employees would be ideal.
Drupal doesn't really do
Drupal doesn't really do formal document management (in the tradition of sharepoint or alfresco), but you can get pretty close to it. I did something similar with a content type of "document" and the rules module. The only drawback is that the human being is responsible for removing and reattaching the updated document to the node. It works well enough though.
===
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." - Lao Tzu
"God helps those who help themselves." - Ben Franklin
"Search is your best friend." - Worldfallz
I will try it
I'll give it a shot.
it's been a while now, but in
it's been a while now, but in case you get this:
how exactly did you make use of the rules module and cck? and how are the documents sent? I've been looking around and Drupal doesn't really have any simple file transfer solutions. perhaps this isn't actually needed.
specifically, I need teachers download a word document (done, used webfm), edit it (possible online?), then send it to another drupal user who does the same thing and sends it back.
maybe it's possible to eliminate the process' dependence on Word. maybe, like you said, a content type can be created. however, i don't know how rules is related, or how the user could edit the document online.
thanks for any help
_
I used cck to add meta data like approvers, status, etc. I used rules to create notifications and automate state changes (basically just changing the value of the status field)-- the type of workflow tasks that are typical in a document management system.
If you're word based users can't edit the document online like they can with sharepoint-- that's the main problem and why drupal doesn't provide true document management. My ideal would be to completely remove the idea of "document" and simply implement documents as a content type or book. Using the print module, one can almost get good quality PDFs whenever it's necessary to email an actual 'document' somewhere. The problem there is that image handling in the HTML->PDF conversion process is still a bit ugly and rough around the edges.
Besides, no matter what I try to do, I can't pry users away from their dependence on word-- even when I use fckeditor to give them as close to a word UI as is possible with a web app. We have sharepoint here and people want document editing to work that way, period. =/
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yeah, people like word. I
yeah, people like word. I tried alfresco integration with drupal. which is now a module, http://drupal.org/project/alfresco,
but we were not able to install alfresco on our server.
however, I think I can get my users away from word for this cause. If the document is html (made to look as much like a word doc as possible), and they can edit it with the wysiwyg module, it's doable.
how is the actual sending of the documents accomplished? as you can probably tell, I'm a complete drupal novice. if you have the time, could you quickly outline the process involved in implementing this system you speak of?
you've been so helpful and prompt, thanks again.
_
If documents live as pages, they don't actually get 'sent' anywhere. All I do is use the rules module to send email when new pages are posted or updated. I also have a cck field for document status (New, Draft, Approved, Updated, Obsolete) and I use cck field permissions to only allow approvers to change the status. I also have rules to send out email when the status changes. That's pretty much it.
Take the rules module for a test drive-- it's pretty self-explanatory. If you run into any issues post back.
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ok, sounds good. do you know
ok, sounds good.
do you know of anyway to pre-populate a content type, in this case, "document"?
I would like users to create a "weekly time card" content type, that already has an html template ready to edit.
thanks as always
EDIT: scratch that, i think content templates module takes care of that
_
Contemplate works great-- i use it all the time. You also may want to look at the http://drupal.org/project/prepopulate module.
_
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If you find my assistance useful, please pay it forward to your fellow drupalers.
been making progress. did you
been making progress.
did you use the rules effect: "custom php code" to send a notification email?
if so, would you mind listing it?
EDIT: Nevermind, I am blind.
_
So did you get it working? i can export my rule if you need it.
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thanks for reply, actually I
thanks for reply,
actually I haven't got it working, right now, when the "send to arbitrary email" rule is triggered, I get either a blank page, or this error:
warning: require_once(modules/smtp/phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /srv/www/internal/modules/smtp/smtp.module on line 246.
I'm thinking this is due to incompatibilities with the smtp module. If you could, I'd like to see your ruleset. Perhaps that is the problem.
Thanks as always, you're a saint
_
I doubt that error has anything to do with the rule. You need to get the smtp issue squared away before you can test your email rule. Another option to test the rule is use a message instead of an email-- then you'll at least the know the rule works.
I have quite a few, but here's an example:
array (
'rules' =>
array (
'rules_19' =>
array (
'#type' => 'rule',
'#set' => 'event_node_update',
'#label' => 'Email on Document Update',
'#active' => 1,
'#weight' => '0',
'#status' => 'custom',
'#conditions' =>
array (
0 =>
array (
'#weight' => 0,
'#info' =>
array (
'label' => 'Updated content is Document',
'arguments' =>
array (
'node' =>
array (
'type' => 'node',
'label' => 'Content',
),
),
'module' => 'Node',
),
'#name' => 'rules_condition_content_is_type',
'#settings' =>
array (
'type' =>
array (
'document' => 'document',
),
'#argument map' =>
array (
'node' => 'node',
),
),
'#type' => 'condition',
),
),
'#actions' =>
array (
0 =>
array (
'#weight' => 0,
'#type' => 'action',
'#settings' =>
array (
'recipients' =>
array (
0 => 4,
),
'from' => '',
'subject' => 'Updated Document',
'message' => 'Updated Document Notification:
Document [node:nid]: "[node:title]" with status = [node:field_status-formatted] has been updated.
Please review: http://example.com/node/[node:nid]
',
'#eval input' =>
array (
'token_rules_input_evaluator' =>
array (
'message' =>
array (
0 => 'node',
),
),
),
),
'#name' => 'rules_action_mail_to_users_of_role',
'#info' =>
array (
'label' => 'Send a mail to all users of a role',
'module' => 'System',
'eval input' =>
array (
0 => 'subject',
1 => 'message',
2 => 'from',
),
),
),
),
),
),
'rule_sets' =>
array (
),
)
_
Don't be a Help Vampire - read and abide the forum guidelines.
If you find my assistance useful, please pay it forward to your fellow drupalers.
hey thanks again for all the
hey thanks again for all the help
After a temporary hiatus, I'm back at it again. I was able to fix the smtp issue (had properly install the module with extra stuff)
However, the emails being sent (due to the rule) show unevaluated (unparsed?) php. For example, the email reads:
Subject: Authorization Reqeust <? $author ?>'s Teacher Absence Form
Content: Please authorize this form:<? $node?>
What could be the problem? Why isn't the rule sending the php already evaluated?