Support for Drupal 7 is ending on 5 January 2025—it’s time to migrate to Drupal 10! Learn about the many benefits of Drupal 10 and find migration tools in our resource center.
By Bret Peters on
The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) protects America’s natural resources and heritage, honors our cultures and tribal communities, and supplies the energy to power our future. DOI had the goal to consolidate nine Content Management Systems into a single common platform based on the Drupal CMS platform. The Fig Leaf Software / Phase2 Technology team was selected from a large field of vendors to be a part of a multi-company BPA dedicated to support the Drupal platform at DOI and their CMS consolidation efforts.
Why Drupal was chosen:
Fig Leaf Software had a strong track record with DOI, having previous experience implementing CommonSpot, a ColdFusion-based CMS for DOI and providing a responsive design to their previous site on-time and on-budget. For this project, the team successfully migrated and launched the new www.doi.gov website onto the Department of Interior’s new Drupal CMS platform, the OpenPublic on the SoftLayer cloud platform created by Phase2 and IBM. The transformation marks the first time a federal agency has implemented the Drupal distribution OpenPublic for its CMS platform base.
With more than 70,000 employees across nine bureaus, the www.doi.gov website acts as main point of entry for public information related to DOI’s services. Incorporated in the new site are a collection of some of the agency’s vast digital photographs. Users can control their font size and are provided with a font option that is designed to combat dyslexia. According to NextGov, “The designers also switched the new website to the more secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, according to the General Services Administration’s digital startup arm 18F, which tracks agencies’ HTTPS implementation via a public dashboard. The White House has ordered all public federal websites to make the transition to HTTPS, but many individual Interior bureau websites have not yet made the switch.”
Since 2009 Fig Leaf Software has provided full time supplemental staffing and support for the main DOI website. Beginning in 2014 Fig Leaf was awarded a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) to assist DOI and it’s Bureaus in moving to a new Drupal Platform as a Service (PaaS) model. The BPA covers a wide range of areas allowing any Bureau within DOI to purchase projects and services from Fig Leaf Software or other BPA holders. Generally, the services include system/infrastructure architecture and design, database design and administration, Web design and usability, programming and development, CMS implementation and customization, training, and both general IT and content management support. All contract management is done via a team effort with a dedicated PMP certified Project Manager and Technical Manager assigned to individual task orders.
Describe the project (goals, requirements and outcome):
Since being awarded the BPA Fig Leaf’s team has developed and launched new responsive sites for DOI (www.doi.gov) and the DOI Office of the Inspector General (www.doioig.gov). Currently in development, are new websites for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (www.bsee.gov) and the Bureau of Land Management (www.blm.gov).
The Department of the Interior environment, with the support of dedicated Fig Leaf Software support personnel, maintains a 99.999% uptime year in a year out. Fig Leaf Software has integrated a Content Delivery Network (CDN) integration package that allows for non-transactional data to move into the cloud leaving only transactional data down at the home network. Fig Leaf employed numerous monitoring solutions at the server infrastructure level. Email and SMS notifications go out to all team members in the event of an emergency via Microsoft SCCM integration.
Fig Leaf Software provides 24/7 support to the Department of the Interior and works closely with the Department of the Interior’s infrastructure team. Fig Leaf Software coordinates all absences with DOI and ensures coverage and support is maintained at the expected levels at all times. Fig Leaf Software ensures that the personnel working on the contract have a wide range of skill sets with as much cross-over as possible. This allows for any additional team member to assist should the primary contact be unavailable.
Fig Leaf Software adheres to the documentation standards and policies in place at the Department of the Interior. Policies and procedures govern many of the day-to-day activities at DOI and Fig Leaf continuously updates various pieces of documentation: systems architecture Visio diagrams, workflow diagrams, storyboards, best practices documents, custom code , and manuals used by the field users as well as other IT staff that Fig Leaf works with on a daily basis.
Technical specifications
Why these modules/theme/distribution were chosen:
Fig Leaf had a strong track record with DOI, having previous experience implementing CommonSpot, a ColdFusion-based CMS for DOI and providing a responsive design to their previous site on-time and on-budget. For this project, the team successfully migrated and launched the new www.doi.gov website onto the Department of Interior’s new Drupal CMS platform, the OpenPublic on the SoftLayer cloud platform created by Phase2 and IBM. The transformation marks the first time a federal agency has implemented the Drupal distribution OpenPublic for its CMS platform base.
Team members:
Project team:
Paul Tsao
Sectors:
Government
