Situation:
- Subscription site (annual subscriptions)
- User gets access to graphs showing their performance over time (time series data)
- Graphs need to be pretty, modern
- Site needs to be usable on mobile handsets
- Back-end processes receive data and add them to a common database every night

Use cases:
- User subscribes, gets instant access to performance over 12 months prior, able to view graphs
- User checks latest graphs from iPhone
- User gets email indicating there is a new performance measure on the site

I stopped developing anything more than "brochureware" sites on Drupal in 2009 after a client sucked me dry with changes. Great platform, but so complex to manage: it can do anything; I, however, can only manage so much.

So with that, is Drupal 7 viable for this? With what modules? Graphing modules? Modules that make time series graphs easy / pretty?

What beyond Drupal is worth a look?

Thanks much,

TC

Comments

paulhudson’s picture

This is achievable with Drupal, it's not going to be a small task but here's some starting points:

- Subscription site (annual subscriptions)
Modules: https://drupal.org/project/commerce, https://drupal.org/project/ubercart

- User gets access to graphs showing their performance over time (time series data)
Modules with views integration: https://drupal.org/project/charts, https://drupal.org/project/views_dataviz, among others

- Graphs need to be pretty, modern
Probably https://drupal.org/project/charts is the one I'd plump for without too much thought

- Site needs to be usable on mobile handsets
There's lots of responsive Drupal base themes to choose from.

- Back-end processes receive data and add them to a common database every night
Maybe https://drupal.org/project/feeds or https://drupal.org/project/datasources

- User subscribes, gets instant access to performance over 12 months prior, able to view graphs
- User gets email indicating there is a new performance measure on the site
You could configure this with https://drupal.org/project/rules

So you can definitely get something configured with minimal coding. However, as you found in 2009 the devil is in the detail so while 90% of this project may come to you fairly quickly. Those hooks and few lines in a custom module to get the exact functionality you desire might make you need a sabbatical after ;-)

Hope that helped, sounds like a fun project!