Overview

This robust curriculum is designed to enable a new Drupal Content Author to be self-sufficient in page, and module basic wayfinder tool building after being trained using the ZenSource Lotus Administration interface, our foundational open source Drupal authoring environment.  Each instructor is ZenSource Trainer Certified with advanced Drupal knowledge as well as the communication skills to effectively train content authors of all skill levels.  

Training is conducted through a combination of instructor lead training as well as workshops specific to your environment and site implementation.  The three days are an immersion into Drupal and the enhanced Lotus Drupal admin which is designed to provide an optimized and very easy-to-use authoring experience. These are very hands-on workshops conducted in small groups and one-on-one sessions that cover the full spectrum of content authoring responsibilities for each piece of website CMS functionality. 

Upon completion of the course, each attendee will receive a ZenSource Authoring Drupal Author Training certificate and will be able to apply their skills to train other authors.

 

Prerequisites:

  • This training is designed for a non-technical person but one should understand basic website concepts like hyperlinks, media assets, menus and page layout structure.  
  • Previous Content Management System (CMS) experience is helpful but not required.
  • Authors should come with real content examples as it is most effective when using real-world scenarios to learn each Drupal component.
  • A separate training demo web site will be setup with a ZenSource Lotus instance where users can practice outside of their website environment.

Day 1 – Drupal 101

This session will train core team authors on high value templates, modules, navigation and other base features using the Drupal standards that will be applied to your specific site implementation.

Where to log into the Drupal environment, how to change your login password, and a tour of the admin and its features.

How to use the Content Dashboard to find & edit existing pages.

How to upload images, manage and organize the media library. 

Explanation of page types and creation of a basic/tier page along with basic content modules (accordions, link lists, etc.).

How to use the visual page builder interface - add modules to pages, add additional sections and blocks to customize your page layout.

Editing the navigation – adding pages to navigation, editing global nav vs. in page or rail navigation. 

Editing and adding taxonomy to a page or module.

Day 2 – Basic Page & Module Building

This workshop will focus on basic page editing and building for your specific implementation and will come with accompanying how-to documentation.

Create each type of base page layout and populate with real page content. This includes tier wide pages, tier with navigation and utility pages.

Walk through and create each type of content module (such as callouts, video, accordions, etc.) using at least one instance of real site content for each item. Step through creating page modules, global modules and how to add to pages and use Layout Manager to drag and make edits.

How to manage the library and organize site assets based on your necessary and available types (e.g. images, files and video assets).

How to edit the main navigation built using your site map and configure display of in page navigation.

Day 3 – Advanced Page & Module Building

This workshop will step through creating more advanced modules such as taxonomy driven feeds as well as webforms, taxonomy and also provide the accompanying how-to documentation for each feature. It will also cover how workflow and permissions work as well as how to use the multi-site management features within the admin.

Walk through and create each type of more complex content module (such as sliders and taxonomy driven feeds, etc.) using website content.  Step through creating page modules, global modules and how to add to pages and use Layout Manager to drag and make edits.

How to use your taxonomy tags to interrelate page content with dynamic content modules.

How to setup news and blog pages how to interrelate with dynamic modules.

How to create a basic contact us webform and add to a page. How to configure where it stores, or pass to CRM.

How to use permissions and workflow setup for each type of author as defined by site requirements.

Walk through site Domain Access and Groups features. Step through admin access vs. user access and the differences for how to access each website domain and its content.

Day 4 – Wayfinding Tools & Taxonomy Driven Directories

How to create content specific to classes and events including one time sessions and ongoing/recurring sessions.  This also includes managing registration data and communication as well as setting up registration forms.

Step through updating content specific to directory tools such as people finder or service line directories and their specific detail page content. This will also cover what is managed in Drupal vs. what may be imported from a third party database. 

Step through how search logic works, how each result is faceted and how to weight and prioritize results.

Day 5 – Open Agenda

The final workshop is tailored toward topics that users would like to spend more time understanding.  Users should come prepared to jump back into anything that they feel needs more time or a second walkthrough. The agenda is open based on the needs of users and their content.

This time can also be used to have follow up sessions with users that may only need to edit certain pieces of the sites vs. attending all of the previous sessions. For example, training a media relations user on how to create an article or press release.

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