"Unique" designs with standardization

In many business scenarios, we find that our clients needs to develop multiple sites, balancing a unique look for each site with a relatively standardized layout that gives visitors the feel that they are visiting a site that is part of the entire family of sites.

For some implementations, like Harrison School District, each school's site needed to have completely separate logins and content databases. Monarch worked closely with the Harrison IT staff to develop a Drupal theme and content database that would serve as a basis for all other schools sites. Monarch identified changeable features of the theme, like background colors and graphics, which could be changed with a relatively simple CSS modification. The content database included all common logins (system administrator, content administrator, etc.), standard menu structure, basic graphics, all the standard pages for the site and most of the superstructure for all schools. Since all sites are basically the same, training and support can also be standardized.

The downside of this type of muti-site implementation is that each site is completely standalone. All Drupal upgrades must be implemented separately (hopefully using Drush). Although multi-site upgrades could be accomplished using Aegir, we find that many organizations are put off by the sheer power of an upgrade across potentially hundreds of sites.

Alternative implementations.  For the Mercedes-Benz Club of America, Monarch has been charged with providing 80+ local clubs (or sections) regional websites with the same look and feel as the primary club web site, mbca.org. Monarch developed three different comps (graphic mockups), one for small sections, one for medium-sized sections and one for large sections.

Originally, Monarch planned to use the Drupal multi-domain modules to completely share the entire content database of the club. Sections wanted to have the same login as the primary site and potentially share news and event listings from mbca.org. As the requirements were further defined, Monarch recognized that we needed to sandbox each section in its own technical environment; we realized that we did not want to open up any possibility of a section webmaster accidentally bringing down the entire family of sites.

Instead, Monarch will provide a completely separate web site and database for each of the local MBCA sections. A single login will be shared across the entire club - across all section websites. When a local member logs in to a local section site, the local site will query the primary mbca.org website for the login. In addition, local section websites will be able to get direct feeds of news items and events from the mbca.org database.