the dawson way of doing things: a study of our path using wordpress

The Way of Doing ThingsA STUDY OF OUR PATH USING WORDPRESS

D AW S O N C O L L E G E

@ M Y D AW S O N C O L L E G E

W W W. D AW S O N C O L L E G E . Q C .C A

J O N AT H A N P E R L M A N

@ J P U R P L E M A N

W W W. J P U R P L E M A N .C A

Jonathan Perlman

• Canadian, eh! Montreal, Quebec

• Senior web developer at Dawson College

• Teacher at Dawson College’s CTD ( non-credit )

• WordCamp speaker

• Member of WPCampus

@jpurpleman | jpurpleman.ca

Dawson College at a glance


15,000+ 10,000+ 1,000+

• Technical / vocational institution

• Centralized IT & Communications departments forstudents, faculty and staff

The Early Years


2002 – Unified website branding


2006 – New home page and header


2006 - Department / program websites


2006 - CMS based sites


2008 Redesign


2008 – Unified website branding


2010 – Blogs & Writing in Disciplines


2013 Redesign


2013 – Long Overdue Redesign

• Editing content wasn't easy for the non-tech

• Multi-lingual support was non-existant

• Technical support was slow to respond / not reliable

• Support for CMS was dropped


2013 – Identify Platform


2008


2014 – Phase 1


2014 – 7 Month Migration

ImportAudit & Identify

Import Selection

Build a theme

Release Same Design

Reformat In WP


Migrating…

• PHP + Curl + Simple Dom

• http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net

• Created posts with wp_insert_post()

• Set meta value with ID of old page

• Categories

• Keep

• Revise

• Trash

• Wtf?!?


Looking back

• Successes:

• Multi-site

• We moved quickly

• Community didn't realize we were on a brand new platform

• Downsides:

• Redirect, redirect, redirect – 1900+

• Edit two sites in parallel


2015 – Mobile & Responsive


Tips

• Create new ( unused ) menus in production and replicate it in development

• Don’t revise content in development and wait to release it• Leads to editing dev site and production site in parallel

• Beta periods may invite too much feedback• Keep them short!

• Produce documentation about the overhaul

• Highlight new features and explain choices


Current Status


Web staff

IT

3

Communications

1

Staff & Faculty

200+


Web sites

• www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca

• Computer Science

• Nursing

• Human Resources

• Registrar's Office

• Student Fees

• athletics.dawsoncollege.qc.ca

• library.dawsoncollege.qc.ca

• maps.dawsoncollege.qc.ca


150

25+

Page views as per Google Analytics

300,000

400,000

500,000

600,000

700,000

800,000

Jun-15 Jul-15 Aug-15 Sep-15 Oct-15 Nov-15 Dec-15 Jan-16 Feb-16 Mar-16 Apr-16 May-16 Jun-16


WordPress infrastructure


Main website visitors

Web server environment

• Virtualized web servers• 16G of ram

• 4 cores

• Nginx & PHP-FPM


Security Posture

• Fortinet WAF controlling the network

• Nginx rules to block common attacks

• Direct access to files within WordPress core

• xmlrpc.php

• SQL Injection

• Unwanted user-agents

• Login page restricted to Dawson College network


Database server environment

• Virtualized database servers

• 16G of ram

• 4 cores

• MariaDB

• Every WordPress install has a unique username and password in wp-config.php


Backups

• Virtual machine backups via Veem

• MySQL Auto Backup

• https://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/

• Daily

• Weekly

• Monthly

• Send data off-site


https://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/

WordPress updates

• Auto-update disabled

• Everything is version controlled

• We never push out X.X

• We always wait for X.X.1

• Reasons for waiting

• Stability

• Bug fixes for the major release


Project Build


Project environments

• Every project has minimum two copies

• Every developer has their own install

• Example: www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca

• Chris, Elisabeth, Jonathan

• Staging

• Production

• Push and pull database content via command line


Tools

• PHPStorm

• WP Awesome Config

• Git

• WP-CLI

• WP Migrate DB Pro

• Custom bash scripts

• https://github.com/jpurpleman/WordPress-Stuff


https://github.com/jpurpleman/WordPress-Stuff

WP Awesome Config

• https://gist.github.com/ashfame/1923821


https://gist.github.com/ashfame/1923821

Git• We track

• Core• Must-use Plugins• Plugins• Themes

• We don't track• local-config.php• dev-config.php• staging-config.php• production-config.php• .DS_STORE• *.log• .htaccess• sitemap.xml• sitemap.xml.gz• wc-logs/*• wp-content/blogs.dir/• wp-content/cache/• wp-content/upgrade/• wp-content/uploads/


Committing plugins

123438b Adding plugin: WordPress Importer at version 0.6.2

449e092 Updating plugin: Print Friendly and PDF to version 3.4.6

8d2d7e3 Updating plugin: WP Migrate DB Pro Media Files to version 1.4.4

ce0181e Updating plugin: WP Migrate DB Pro to version 1.6

3a37bd6 Updating plugin: Gravity Forms + Custom Post Types to version 3.1.3

91e2560 Updating plugin: jQuery Responsive Select Menu to version 1.5.0

83af679 Updating plugin: Gravity Forms to version 1.9.19


git-wp-commit-object()https://github.com/jpurpleman/WordPress-Stuff/blob/master/.bashrc

Themes and Plugins


Themes

• Underscores

• Canvas by WooCommerce

• Twenty Seventeen

• Twenty Sixteen

• Twenty Fifteen

• https://www.wordpress.org/themes


https://www.wordpress.org/themes

Tips

• In a multi-site setup

• Create your own parent themes

• Go with as little theme options as possible

• In a single site install

• Child theme as much as possible


Plugins

• Admin Columns

• Advanced Custom Fields

• CMB2

• Disable Emoji's

• Gravity Forms

• Mapplic

• Next Active Directory Integration

• Responsive Menu

• SportsPress Pro

• The Events Calendar

• TinyMCE Advanced

• User Switching


Tips

• Find plugins with reputable histories

• Use plugins that are supported and up-to-date

• Most are multi-site friendly but some are not

• Plugins like Advanced Custom Fields are heavy on the database and hard to maintain


We use WordPress for…


Primary website


Conference sites


Specialty sites


Research grant projects


Web-based applications


Blogs


Show and tell!


Custom Backend Login


Custom dashboard widgets


Custom dashboard widgets

Admin Additions

• Editor level roles for most users

• Custom post types for content

• Ability to create forms

• Allowed the use of Customizer


Admin Additions

• Added User Guides to the pull down help


Contact blocks with Shortcode UI


SharePoint Management


Looking Forward


Looking forward

• Iterative improvements pushed more frequently

• More web application development on WordPress

• Connecting sites and sharing data withREST API


Thank you!Questions?

D AW S O N C O L L E G E

@ M Y D AW S O N C O L L E G E

W W W. D AW S O N C O L L E G E . Q C .C A

J O N AT H A N P E R L M A N

@ J P U R P L E M A N

W W W. J P U R P L E M A N .C A

the dawson way of doing things: a study of our path using wordpress

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