Obviously, working with the Drupal Association, their developer of choice needed to be intimately familiar with the CMS and how to get the most out of the platform. With a project of this significance, Cheeky Monkey Media’s experience with Drupal came to the fore. Before commencing the build, the development team engaged in an intensive planning and strategy phase to ensure that all user types, personas and behaviors could be taken into account. With a wealth of information provided by the Drupal Association, the Cheeky Monkey Media team was able to craft a plan for development that tackled numerous content types, roles, permissions, reports and user experience, all while ensuring the entire platform allowed for easy registration and payment services.

With development under way, the team needed to be adept at integrating new functionality with existing systems, melding aesthetics with current themes, and ensuring that the final product didn’t end up looking (or operating) like Frankenstein’s monster. With savvy and skill, the Cheeky Monkey team was able to provide the required applications in a manner that exceeded the Drupal Association’s expectations for turnaround and ease of use. With the new Job Board, the Drupal Association will be able to enhance the services offered to the community, while opening an additional revenue stream to fund more programs.

Drupal Job Board homepage
Why Drupal was chosen: 

Choosing Drupal was an easy decision, as we were working with the Drupal Association. We used Drupal 7, as Drupal 8 was still a long way from production.

Describe the project (goals, requirements and outcome): 

Project Goal - To become the primary place for employers and developers to connect on Drupal to related jobs, and to provide new ways for the Association to generate revenue.

Requirements - The Drupal Association wanted to show employers the value of their job posting by presenting stats on how many times their jobs showed up in the search results, as well as the views of the full display. A custom renewal system was needed for the products you can purchase on the Job Board. The Drupal Association wanted the users to be able to sign up to get a list of the latest job postings within a specific timeline.

Challenges - With the requirements came unique challenges to overcome. Presenting employers statistical information regarding their postings was a challenge, as we couldn't only rely on the views of content, as there is a lot of caching that goes on with the system. To get around the issue of counting the two types of views properly, we created an AJAX script which would get fired for each teaser and full view of a job. The custom renewal system presented to be a challenge, as there was no good off-the-shelf solutions which allowed for tracking of expiry date, multiple email notification options, and renewal workflow with discounts. To come up with a way to track individual user job searches, we simply tracked the last date and time of the email sent. Then, using that date as the criteria when querying for the latest jobs to email out to the users.

Outcome - Since this was a new product, it has continued to to be a new source of revenue for the Drupal Association. Based on discussions, the project paid for itself within the first year. Providing multiple options on the Job Board has provided the Drupal Association with a steady stream of income from month to month since the launch.

Technical specifications

Drupal version: 
Drupal 7.x
Why these modules/theme/distribution were chosen: 

We used these modules because they provided a consistent environment for the site. Integrating heavily with Rules and Commerce provided us the ability to bridge the feature gap with very little customized work. As with most Drupal projects, we needed to be able to easily deploy. Using features and install scripts allowed for "the make files" to be run on all environments. Using ZURB Foundation and Display Suite allowed for our team to quickly iterate through displaying the content. This allowed for client feedback and user testing to be completed in a timely manner.

Organizations involved: 
Project team: 

The project team was made up of:
Gene Bernier - Project Manager and Business Analyst
Ryan Smylski - Senior Developer
Chris Arlidge - Creative Director
John Lutz - Senior Developer
Yan Yong - Developer
Justin Avdich - Developer

Drupal Job Board About page
Drupal Job Board Store page
Sectors: 
Technology