| Lauren: Word around the aimClear water cooler is this will be your first time at a DrupalCon event. Truth?

Joe:  Truth. This will be my first time at a DrupalCon event, but I’ve been working with Drupal as a Content Management platform for the past two and a half years. It will be cool to be surrounded by the Drupal community, especially with the recent launch of Drupal 7. I’m excited to see what’s up with the platform. Hopefully I’ll walk away with a good feeling, and continue to use it as my platform of choice for CMS.

| L: The conf agenda features a variety of sessions stemming from six diverse tracks: Implementation and Config, Coder, Business and Strategy, Drupal Community, Design and UX, and Theming. What tracks are jumping out at you as ones you’ll most likely hit up?

J: The Business and Strategy track is definitely one of interest. Sessions like ”Getting Early Estimates Right” and “Lessons Learned from the Agile Process Applied” are definitely on my radar. ”Resourcing for Drupal – Insight into Building a Stellar Team” seems like it will be a useful session, as we continue to build out our in-house development team here at aimClear. ”Teaching Drupal: Creating Effective Drupal Training Materials for Clients, Employees, and the Public” will also be an important one. Sometimes I forget not everyone I interface with professionally is a geek .

The dedicated Theming track looks promising, too. Mobile is very hot right now, so I’ll be checking out ”Drupal on the go with jQuery Mobile” as well as “Building awesome user interfaces with Drupal 7′s Form, AJAX, and Theme systems”.

| L: What about Drupal makes it the CMS platform of your developer-dreams?

J: What I dig most about Drupal is the way it’s set up, the architecture; it makes sense, it’s easy to work with, and it’s extremely flexible.

| L: Have you tinkered around with Drupal 7 much yet? What about the new version has got you stoked?

J: I haven’t even installed 7 yet. I aim to play around with it this weekend as a primer before the event, to whet my appetite in a way. Drupal 7 isn’t a total platform redesign or anything. What seems to be the best perk about 7 is the fact that there’s now a whole bunch of useful modules and extensions built-in to the platform. Previously, those modules had to be coded and added separately, but now they’re wrapped into the core with that sweet Drupal architecture. So overall, Drupal 7 isn’t revolutionary, but it’s sweet from my perspective– one I’m sure is shared by many developers.

| L: What are the biggest takeaways you’re hoping to return to Duluth with, after DrupalCon?

J: I’m hoping the conference will provide me with the insight and comfort level to start adopting Drupal 7 as the new preferred CMS solution. I want to be inspired by the technology, discover new reasons to use it, new ways to employ it. I have a feeling the presenters and crowd at DrupalCon Chicago will serve up the right mix of information and inspiration.

| L: Right on. Thanks & safe travels, Joe! Looking forward to learning about all you learn about next week.

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Hungry for more? Check out a from-the-source deep-dive on features new to Drupal 7.

Over time we’ve learned the importance of gaining proper understanding and access credentials, before evaluating sites and/or taking on new clients.

There are many different content management systems (CMS), server models, database programs, maintenance utilities, analytics packages, scheduled reports, programming languages and other variables.

This questionnaire includes an explanation of the technical integration checklist aimClear uses when welcoming new clients to our system.  While we don’t always need all the access credentials listed below, this guide is intended to explain the various types of services-access a company like ours might need, and for what purpose.

FTP

__________________ FTP Username

__________________ FTP Password

__________________ FTP Directory, if applicable

FTP is the “original” content management system (CMS). Dating back to the Web’s foundation, it stands for “File Transfer Protocol,” which means modifying files and synchronizing them between developer/designers’ computers and a web host. This level of access is usually needed to tag sites for analytics, make content modifications, hack CMS back ends, change graphic themes and other.

__________________ Server Model
(Common answers are Linux/Apache/MYSQL, Windows/Apache/MYSQL, Windows, IIS, MSSQL, etc…) This is important information for an your PPC, SEO, social media, company to understand. In addition to a range of available (free and pay) content management systems, plug ins, tools, etc …available for individual server models, the type programmer working on the project is usually defined by the languages, operating systems, databases software, etc… in play.

Many Open Source CMS programs, like WordPress, just don’t play well with IIS–though they can be successfully hacked. On the other hand, there is nobody @ Linux Inc or WordPress.org to take your support call when it all goes to crap. Windows rocks and Windows sucks, depending on the day, and the application. It sure costs a boatload. (Ask me about Google App’s’ in person ).

__________________ Programming Languages
What languages, frameworks or other codes are employed in addition to HTML & Javascript (common answers are .php, .asp, server side Javascript, .jsp,, Flash/Action Script, CGI). Like the server model, this is a crucial branch on the integration tree. Understanding how various server and client-side languages are utilized, entwined and hacked from the BEGINNING, can save hours of heartache and teeth gnashing grind.

Pages That Employ Scripts Hosted On Third Party Domains

One way a programmer can work on a site which uses 1 or more foreign coding languages is to use third party/domain scripts to process forms, write to a database, serve up dynamic content or other usages. We’ve come across sites that were absolute mazes of intertwined host pages and processing domains. In addition to taking time to unravel, we’ve seen effectual (and unintentional) link farms created, that seemed to have caused Google smackdowns.

Any Databases?
Of course, databases rule as one of the methods web applications use to achieve, what programmers call, “persistent state.” Whether tables are configured by programs like Drupal, built by your IT department, or set up by default we need to know about them and what they’re used for. Common types are MYSQL, MSSQL, Oracle and MS Access.

MYPHP ADMIN If Applicable

__________________ Location

__________________ UserName

__________________ Password

MYPHP Admin is a common tool for the Lamp Stack. If you’re running MYSQL, we’d like to have MYPHP admin access if we need it. Often times, DB software is the core of WYSIWYG CMS tools, so having access to the CMS on the DB level often makes it easier to diagnose and solve problems. Also, MYPHP Admin is an appropriate access level for moving sites, setting permissions, etc

Windows Remote Access Server Login

__________________ Location

__________________ UserName

__________________ Password

This type of access allows developers to log into a Windows server to perform administrative functions on the server itself. It’s particularly useful to have in the .asp/VbScript/.aspx/MSSQL environment. It’s great to have access at this level to, any Windows OS Server box.

Content Management Systems OTHER than FTP (Common answers are Drupal, Customer-Built Proprietary CMS (MUCH too common , If you can change content on your website from a web browser, you’ve got a CMS. Common types include WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Pligg, and a multitude of other rock ass (free or inexpensive) CMS app’s’. There’s also ridiculously expensive CMSs, specifically created to serve various niches. Sometimes sites have multiple/hybrid CMSs, such as WordPress hacked on top of traditional FTP.

If you think about it, social communities are actually souped up content management systems as are blogs, auction sites, ecommerce and just about anything else we can think of. Choosing a CMS in the first place is a HUGE decision, often undertaken much too lightly–or imposed on clients by previous SEM vendors without transparency. I could go on and on, ranting about nightmarish CMS systems we’ve run into.

__________________ CMS Login Location

__________________ CMS UserName

__________________ CMS Password

Existing Analytics Packages
These days it’s common to have multiple analytics accounts installed for various purposes. We need to know what baseline data, from activity previous to our involvement, is available for us to turn to for insight. Sometimes we can do forensic analysis on “log files.”

Common answers include Google Analytics, Google AdWords Conversion Tracking, ClickTracks, Enquisite, ClickPath, Index Tools, WebTrends etc …Often times web hosts offer free log analysis “stats” pages. These are most often Web1.0 packages that provide some insight. It’s important to note the difference between log analysis tools and Javascript page tagging analytics. Read more about the difference between page tagging and log file analytics here.

__________________ Directory where Web Log Files are kept (We may ask your server administrator to enable cookie tracking, if we need to analyze log files. The most common reasons we need access to log files is to run a robots report or historic prior to our involvement in a project with no or limited existing historical data.

Adwords, AdCenter, Facebook, Panama, Other PPC Accounts

Feedburner Login
Feedburner is a Google property that tens of millions of site owners use to track RSS feed subscriptions for free. While Feedburner provides a lot of valuable insight, it also gives Google yet another way to judge the importance of your website. If your company does not have an RSS feed and a plan to publish by feed, then strongly consider it. We want access to view your progress, diagnose trouble, view feed analytics, etc…

__________________ Feedburner Fees Address (feeds.feedburner.com/myFeed)

__________________ Password

__________________ User Name
Host Contact Information

Please contact your web host/server administrator and authorize aimClear to interact on behalf of your account. We may need this credential for any number of reasons. Trust me, you’ll be glad not to be called upon as an intermediary for routine stuff or when the shit hits the fan.

__________________ Host Company Name

__________________ Host Account Number

__________________ Host Phone Number

__________________ Host Website

__________________ Host Account Login URL

__________________ Host User Name

__________________ Host Password

__________________ Host Account Rep

__________________ Host Support Email

301 Redirects (Please provide as attached spreadsheet of any current 301s if applicable). 301 redirect are a method to let users and search engines know when/where pages change URLs within a website. It’s an essential function as it also “transfers” the authority of any inbound links.

In a mature site, it is common to have 301s (or even multiple layers) from previous CMS migrations or redirects of retired pages. We need to know about this.

Reports Your Receive Regularly
If you are used to receiving reports, set up yourself or emailed from previous/existing SEM vendors, please provide us copies of them . Much of the time they’re auto-generated from Google or other services. We need to know what you’re used to seeing so we can evaluate and provide seamless services. Please attach 1 example of each report.

In Conclusion
It’s true, we don’t need all of these access points for every account we deal with. That said, gathering the information ahead of time sure saves piles of time when bodies are flying. To our mind, organizing this information and having it at our fingertips as we move through exciting challenges associated with growing an SEM account, can be a serious time saver.

We need to understand how your site is wired, how things are measured and gain quick access as needed. We hope this list is useful to both SEM vendors and clients alike.