Sector(s)

Visit the site

Visit the site

Organizations Involved

Community contributions

A number of contributions over the course of this project were made to the Entity Reference with Layout module. Entity Reference with Layout combines structured content (a la Paragraphs) with expressive layout control (a la Layout Discovery in core). 

Raleigh, North Carolina, is one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States. With top educational institutions, a vibrant economy, and a booming tech scene, the city maintains a strong focus on developing public services that empower sustainable growth. This distinction is made clear in its stated mission: To build a stable platform of evolving services for our community through which we champion positive and sustainable growth and realize visionary ideas for all.

We worked with the City of Raleigh to build a “services-first” digital platform that effectively connects its citizens to the broad suite of public services it provides. The website delivers a distinctly user-centered experience, organizing content around services rather than departments. Built in Drupal 8, the platform is open source and sustainable, with tiered authoring permissions, publishing workflows, and interconnected content that supports a broad range of user journeys.

About the project

Key Challenges:

  • Create a services-first digital platform that is intuitive and flexible, supporting a broad range of user journeys.
  • Migrate XML source content from a proprietary document management system into Drupal.
  • Provide authoring workflows that empower the city to publish content effectively.

Key Solutions

  • Informed by analytics and the results of in-person UX workshops like card sorting and core model, we developed an intuitive approach for promoting public services throughout the RaleighNC.gov.
  • We built an automated migration process using Drupal’s migration framework for moving content from the old, legacy system into Drupal 8.
  • We developed custom workflows with four distinct permissions levels that empower Raleigh’s editorial team to effectively publish content.

Why Drupal was chosen

After years of feeling limited by a proprietary document management system that wasn’t fully meeting the city’s needs, Raleigh sought to implement a technology solution that was both open source and powerful. After evaluating several options, Drupal 8 became the clear choice. Drupal 8 offered robust content management capabilities, broad support for third party integrations, and a vibrant open source community for supporting the core product. 

Technical Specifications

Drupal version:

Why these modules/theme/distribution were chosen
  • Config Pages: Allowed City of Raleigh to create a custom fieldable homepage
  • simpleSAMLphp Authentication: Allows City of Raleigh staff to use their existing Microsoft accounts to log into Drupal
  • Entity Reference with Layout: Allows content editors to create flexible page layouts
  • Migrate: Critical to move existing content and files from Alfresco to Drupal