(NB you need to log in as admin of the G:up site to successfully follow the links in this section. Furthermore some are accessible only to user admins and some to site admins).

This should be read in conjunction with information to users

revised user roles

Roles allow you to fine tune the security and administration of Drupal. A role defines a group of users that have certain privileges as defined in user permissions.

At this area you can define the role names of the various roles. To delete a role choose "edit".

By default G:up has the following user roles defined, in ascending order from least privileged to most privileged:

Any user may be granted one or more roles if required. The site manager has virtually unlimited access rights and can do everything that can be managed through a web interface. There is only one single site manager account. Access of this account should be carefully controlled for obvious reasons.

'site admins' - once a new module is enabled or added, a 'user admin' will need to alter the access controls, or you will need to arrange temporary 'user admin' status and work with the Management Group around any necessary data protection issues arising.

user profiles

general information

A new user profile (which also forms the registration for for the site) has been developed. This has been designed to support the project and its activities. In particular it takes into account forthcoming developments - the new 'events module' that will allow online bookings through the site, and the 'consultation module' that will enable active engagement in consultation through avariety of means. It is also designed to support G:up in its monitoring and evaluation of engagement in the project. The extension of teh consultation module being carried out, will make the user profiles very powerful as it will be possible to quickly and easily email people by combination of elements of their user profile - e.g people from organisations working with under fives in Warwickshire.

NCVCCO and WMVYSF are shown in a 'networks' category for people interested in being kept in touch with their news.

On the down side, this does mean a lot of information is being asked for,and some users may question this.

data and data protection

Further consideration will need to be given as to what information young people are asked to submit when they register (including how we validate that they are actually young people) and how a joint database across project websites might be managed. At the very least it is planned that a single user login will give access to G:up and the consultation and support (virtual G:up) sites.Gerbrand at Engage Tactical Media is working on the joint database.

Clear thought must be given in due course to data protection and the use of information. Once a policy is in force then the necessary adjustments should be made to each field in the user profile (in particular the explanation to users about each field, and whether or not each field is compulsory for completion). The user profile fields can be edited here.

futher development

The different elements of the profile currently appear in alphabetical order (by default). Once it has been agreed finally what should be retained in the profile and how it should appear to the user, it would be recommended to assign a number to each profile category, so thet they appeared in the desired order on the registration form.

All current users need to be encouraged to update their own user profiles.

searching

Currently it is possbile to search the following categories (if the user has the right permissions - again it needs consideration which users should be able to see which information about other users):

• people from organisations working with under 5s
• people from organisations working with 5-12 year olds
• people from organisations working with 13-19 year olds
• people from organisations working with 20-25 year olds
• people from BME organisations
• people from disability organisations people
• from faith-based organisations
• people from rural organisations
• people from community-based organisations people from social enterprises
• people from organisations working across the West Midlands region or beyond
• people from organisations working in Stoke-on-Trent
• people from organisations working inStaffordshire
• people from organisations working in Telford and Wrekin
• people from organisations working in Shropshire
• people from organisations working in Wolverhampton
• people from organisations working in Walsall
• people from organisations working in Sandwell
• people from organisations working in Dudley
• people from organisations working in Birmingham
• people from organisations working in Solihull
• people from organisations working in Coventry
• people from organisations working in Warwickshire
• people from organisations working in Worcestershire
• people from organisations working in Herefordshire

The final example is shown as a link - all the above examples can be linked to by a similar pattern in the URL. This could potentially be a powerful tool for access to information (excluding personal info) about users and their organisations. Of course it is only as good as the data in the database!

Initially it may be worth updating this info rather than relying on users to do so, NB Gerbrand should be contacted before attempts to alter profile information on individual users (other than on the user settings page) as a current bug that appeered with Drupal 4.7 means this results in errrors thet could potentially crash the system.

G:up language

A new gup language has been created. This means that any text written on the main Drupal-defined bits of the site can now be changed into a more friendly kind of English (where appropriate).

Many adaptatations have been made to introduce greater clarity or to make the instructions site specific or sector specific. As new modules are added the language 'strings' will continue to grow and new translations can be added at any point.

The string describing use of email addresses needs to be updated, but the nature of the 'translation' into G:up speak is dependant on the data protection policy adopted by the project. THIS NEEDS URGENT ATTENTION. To edit this node the site manager or a site admin needs to login and go to this page.

content types

The use of different content types has been rationalised, to make the site simpler to use and contribute to for the average user, and to help ensure information added ends up where it should and with the right information attached to it for easy site searching.

blogs ahve been disabled as they are not in use and produce an unwanted and confusing link in the user menu. They can of course be re-enabled at any time it is felt appropriate.

the Drupal content type known as stories have become 'news items' on the G:up site. Where possible this change has been implemented throughout (it is integrated into the G:up language). However, some modules contain language strings that are not editable so the word 'stories' may appear to admministrators on occasion.

categories

A new system of categorisation has been applied. Users will automatically be asked to apply category terms from three drop vocabulary menus (location, sector, info type)when they submit events or news items.

The rationale for not applying this to other content types is that most of the other content will be better searched for through key word search or through the site structure. It might be hard to categorise posts about minutes of a meeting or an update on the funding the project has got or info on its ethos etc, and it might add to confusions. Of course this can be applied across the content types if desired.

Categories can be applied retrospectively to content (by editing the appropriate 'nodes' (events, news items). It may be something worth considering, to assist searching of past information. The problem there might be with this is that info that would now bestbe categorised as a news item may previously have been submitted as a page or book page (and couldn't therefore be categorised. Also there may be limited value in categorising past events...

blocks

The theme does allow blocks to be placed in any of the usual places on the site, for reasons of style and ease of use we have adopted a convention of only enabling blocks in the left sidebar. We recommend this is followed.

There are currently no links in blocks to discussion forums. This is because there is currently no activity there. This may be something to promote in future, when it may be desirable to enable the latest forum postings block for example on the engage page.

tinyMCE and tinyMCE profiles

two tinyMCE profiles have been generated. for most users it is enabled as default for easy editing and formatting of text. The default for site admins is to have it disabled, as it can interfer with settings iin more complex admin functions where html is used. individual users can over-ride these through adjusting settings in their own user account.

front page module

The front page is generated by the php code accessible through the front page settings. This depends on the front page module being enabled!

G:up themes

We have created a theme G:up_blue for use on the main G:up website. We recommend that users are not given a choice over the theme they use to view the site, without good reason. The theme is custom built to the site and its structure, and some other themes may not support structural features that the site relies upon for navigation, including the front page. Also key elements like our logo and title are embedded in the theme.

We have created two derivate themes. G:up_green is for use on the the virtual G:up (support)site, and G:up_red has been developed for the consultation site. As the consultation site if for both organisatins and young people we felt it would be appropriate to adopt the colours of the young people's theme (developed by Engage tactical media) and the style of the G:up theme.
We do not even recommend use of these derivative thems for the main site as other features will not fit so well (for example the navigation logos on the front page).
Now we have an established template, further derivatives (with appropriate new three colour, colour schemes)could be made with relative ease by somebody with Drupal theme development experience or knowledge of css.

Tests with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Camino all showed our theme to work well. To accommodate Internet Explorer (which is now quite outdated)we have had to make a number of choices we would have preferred not to. The title bar text "growing up in the west midlands" has been generated as part of the logo image, which means changes need to be made to the page template filr to reinstate the title text for use of the template on other sites.

The management may like to decide if it makes a theme available for use by partner sites, derived from the G:up tehme which we feel offers many user-friendly features.

upgrade to Drupal 4.7

The theme (and derivatives) have been designed to work with Drupal 4.7 and were developed using the release candidates 2,3 and 4.The final release of this software came out on the day of submission of this work, so there may be a number of new bugs arising that will need addressing in the future.

There are a number of differences that admins may notice with 4.7 and it is well worth becoming familiar with these. More information can be found here.

further information

Additional support and information can be found through this site and its discussion forums, also through G:up training events - email the G:up project administrator for further information about dates and locations of training.

More information and support for administering Drupal sites in general can be found here .