LocalGov Drupal is a set of modules and configuration applied to a core Drupal site that allows it to be used as a government website.
It is currently being used by a large number of councils around the UK, with some LocalGov installs also being used internationally.
With more than 50 councils now using LocalGov Drupal it is the leading platform for councils in the UK.
Enhanced by Code Enigma
Code Enigma have further enhanced the code of LocalGov Drupal by adding functionality provided by contributed modules and a collection of custom configuration items.
Some of these additional modules were created and maintained by Code Enigma and as such they are well understood by the team.
Drupal recipes are used to apply these enhancements to a site. Recipes are a collection of configuration and instructions that will update a Drupal site to install modules, add permissions, and update module configuration. As recipes work in a non-destructive way they can even be applied to existing LocalGov Drupal sites.
In addition to the changes provided by recipes we can also add additional enhancements provided by our expert provisioning tools. This means you can benefit from a single-click deploy process to a highly configurable environment that you have full oversight and control over.
Why Use LocalGov Drupal?
LocalGov Drupal is used by 50 (and counting) local councils across the UK and Ireland and there are a number of benefits to using LocalGov Drupal.
- LocalGov Drupal sites reduce the cost of rebuilds of proprietary CMS system by 30%-50%. There are no licence fees, which saves additional costs on top of building the site.
- Community is an integral part of this system and each LocalGov Drupal site is encouraged to be part of this community. This leads to collaboration, the sharing of ideas, and working together to solve a common goal.
- Using the sub-sites and microsites systems from LocalGov Drupal it is possible to create smaller sites based on the same architecture. Most councils have many sites outside of their main website for services, places, and tourism that are often built in a variety of technologies and with varying degrees of security and quality. The microsites system solves this by bringing all of that content into one system, giving councils control over their digital estate.
- Users benefit from the change as the base LocalGov Drupal theme is fully WCAG AA accessible and responsive.
Code Enigma have championed the use of LocalGov Drupal in other countries. We have participated in the work to make LocalGov Drupal fully translatable and have built sites for the French government using the DSFR design system.
LocalGov Drupal is such a success story that many other countries around the world are starting to take notice. LocalGov Drupal has been used for sites in France, the USA, Sweden, and Czechia.
Extra Features
Here are the enhancements we’ve added to LocalGov Drupal to elevate its functionality and user experience.
Accessibility
Drupal is one of the most accessible content management systems on the market. We enhance this accessibility with the following features.
- Automatic scanning of the site to test for accessibility standards in both templates and created content. Users are prompted to improve the accessibility of the site through the Editoria11y Accessibility Checker.
- Accessibility reports to show which pages have problems that need to be addressed.
- Automatic accessibility checking via 3rd party accessibility tools like Lighthouse CI.
- Required alt-text on images.
Search
LocalGov Drupal uses a database search solution out of the box. We augment the basic search by interfacing with different search technologies like Solr or Elasticsearch to include the following features.
- Stemming of words, so searching for “taxes” also searches for “tax”.
- Addition of synonyms to automatically widen the user's search terms.
- Search spellcheck, or a “did you mean” feature.
- Search autocomplete, showing the user their most likely results as they search.
- More filtering options, including facets and other filters.
- Promoting certain pages to the top of the results for certain terms, taking the guesswork out of search results ordering.
SEO
Drupal has strong search engine optimisation capabilities out of the box. We enhance this by adding the following features.
- Automatic sitemap.xml and robots.txt file creation and management tools.
- New content added to the sitemap will ping third party sites to ensure timely updates on search engines.
- HTML sitemap that provides signposts to important pages on the site.
- Clean URLs for all content with automatic path creation built in.
- Automated metatag and JSON schema additions for all content.
Directories
Councils have lots of services, attractions, and conveniences that users will want to know about.
- Create directories to show different local attractions and conveniences.
- Use OpenStreetMap to automatically geolocate addresses and pinpoint them on a map.
- Maps can show points or areas.
- Directories allow filtering of results in different ways, which can be updated to include any number of different filter.
Enhanced User Security
The security of your users is critically important. We therefore enhance the default user security with the following features
- Password policy system, with protections against insecure passwords.
- Protection against password guessing.
- An auto-logout system that will prevent user sessions from being compromised if they forget to sign out of the site.
- Limits on the number of sessions the user can create.
- A session inspector that gives the user control over the sessions they have open on the site.
- Prevent information disclosure by hiding user information from the external interface.
- Administrative users can masquerade as other users on the site to test user access controls.
- Two factor authentication using a number of different services and methods.
Enhanced Editor Experience
We strive to make life easier for users editing content on the site. As such, we have a number of features that we include to assist users.
- Display a warning when closing the browser window or navigating away from a page of content so users don’t accidentally lose work.
- Content lock to prevent multiple users from editing the same piece of content at the same time.
- Content administration lists to show content in different ways. This can be which content is ready for review for publication, which users have been editing content recently, news items which only have one term, taxonomy terms that are not used on the site, and so on.
Editor Restrictions
Users with editor access have enough power to perform the tasks they need on the site.
- Role based access management system with a fine grained permission model that gives users access to only what they need.
- Ability to lock down the site so that editors can only edit content relevant to their department. For example, some users will only need access to edit content within the /parking section of the site.
Media
LocalGov Drupal makes use of the Drupal media system, which we adapt in a few key areas.
- Upload an image and set a focal point where it will be cropped to different resolutions.
- Link to the same file across multiple pages on the site.
- Addition of media asset management features to delete or replace files.
- Upload multiple files at the same time and use them in content immediately.
Publications
The LocalGov Drupal publications system allows pages of content to be created in a hierarchy.
- Use the publications importer to automatically convert PDF documents into pages of content. This can save hours of manual copy/pasting from the PDF document into the site.
- The PDF parser also understands images in PDF documents and will extract those as well.
- The publications importer has an AI plugin that allows PDF documents to be converted using AI agents. We can assist in the creation of secure AI agents to facilitate this mechanism.
Waste Collection
Every council has a section on waste collection and management. The waste collection system allows residents to find relevant information on their waste collection.
- Bin collection lookup that allows users to find their bin collections using their postcode.
- Data behind this system can be governed by API integration or CSV uploads.
- Results are detailed and cover bin collection days and types of bin available.
- Additional information can be provided to show what sort of waste goes into what kind of bin.
Cookie Control
Most sites use cookies in some way to track users or save user preferences.
The Klaro cookie consent module makes it easy for site owners to automatically manage cookies both for the site and third party systems, all of which is fully configurable and can be styled to closely match the brand guidelines. Users can then make informed decisions as to which cookies they want to accept from the site.
Klaro can also automatically block embedded content like YouTube videos, which means your site is fully compliant with the rules around cookie consent.
Secure Hosting
Our hosting environments feature automatic provisioning systems and a one click deploy mechanism to ensure sites are deployed in a consistent and repeatable fashion.
- Restrict administration interface user access via IP address, or via VPN, to prevent unwanted access to the administration of the site.
- Creation of different domains or subdomains (eg. cms.example.com) which can be restricted to IP address access and used to further enhance the security of the site.
Reusable Content
We work on a “write once, use many” methodology for content creation. This means that content created on the site can be reused in a number of different ways.
Updates to this content will be transferred to all places where it was used on the site.
Microsites
The LocalGov Drupal system has the ability to present small sections of content as microsites. Code Enigma set this up so all that’s needed is to create content and set up a domain name for the microsite.
Recipes
The new recipes system in Drupal allows modules to be installed and configuration created using just a few files. Code Enigma has a number of recipes that automatically apply the above features to any site, even if it’s an existing LocalGov Drupal install.
Dashboards
When a user logs into the site they are presented with a dashboard that shows relevant information for them. This includes a number of administration features for those users with permission to access them. Different dashboards can be created for different roles to present the most relevant information.
Drag And Drop Layout System
LocalGov Drupal makes use of sections of content that can be created using a drag and drop layout system. This system can also be applied to entire pages of content. Key to this system is using the front end theme in the back end so that the creation of content closely matches the outcome.
Single Sign On
The default mechanism of accessing a LocalGov Drupal site is via a username and password. Code Enigma has extensive experience in linking Drupal with different single sign on technologies, making your site user management part of your infrastructure.
This doesn't complicate the login in process. Your users will just see the normal username and password fields, but we will configure Drupal to authenticate with a number of authentication systems.
Multilingual
Drupal has excellent translation capabilities and we have worked to ensure that this system works well with LocalGov Drupal.
- Detect languages using multiple mechanisms and allows editors to use the interface in their language of choice.
- We can optionally install the Google Translate system, which can automatically translate the site into multiple languages.
Custom Development
Code Enigma have lots of experience in building and maintaining custom code in the form of custom modules and themes in Drupal sites. If you have a need that isn't covered by the above features then we can look at creating that for you.
Of course, we will look at the contributed module space to ensure that no solution exists to the problem before embarking on building a custom solution.
When building custom modules we will talk with the LocalGov Drupal community to make sure we aren't duplicating work done by anyone else. Several projects for LocalGov Drupal have been borne out of multiple councils wanting a feature, so by collaborating together like this we can spread the cost and create a feature that many councils can utilise.
Workflow
Drupal allows for content workflows to be created and applied to content on the site. It might be that a page needs to pass through a review step before being published, for example. Each step of the workflow is permission restricted, meaning that only certain users can publish content.
We augment this system in the following ways.
- Additional workflow steps to assist in both publishing, and unpublishing of content.
- A notifications system will notify users when a piece of content is ready to be reviewed.
- A review confirmation system that records when a user has reviewed content in the workflow.
- A content recycle bin prevents your content from being accidentally deleted.
Migrations
LocalGov Drupal has a robust migration system with a number of contributed modules that provide extra features. This means that no matter what platform you are currently on there will be a way to migrate content from one site to another.
Code Enigma are experts in configuring and running migrations and have been involved with migrating content into LocalGov Drupal sites using the following technologies.
- Simple database to database migration.
- Connecting to a Dynamics API to pull data into the site.
- Extracting the data from a third party system as a CSV and using that as the migration source.
- Web scraping to gather content from another site to use in the migration.
We have even had occasions where a combination of the above migration technologies were used at the same time within the same project.
The typical migration process is to look over the existing data to see where it can be migrated to in the LocalGov Drupal content architecture. Once that analysis is done we have a model we can use to configure the migration.
Once the migration has been run we can easily "top up" the data by re-running the migration. This will update existing pages and add any new pages without having to delete the content and start again. This means that LocalGov Drupal sites can be edited and updated right up to the launch date with minimal disruption to the users.
What our clients have to say about us
We believe in honesty, transparency, and open communication. By empowering our clients at every level, we ensure they feel fully integrated and work together as one team whenever they choose.
East Suffolk - LocalGov Drupal
Code Enigma have been like part of the team, throughout the project to switch our main council website over to the LocalGov Drupal platform.
Their directors, developers, system administrators and support team have been outstanding and have never been phased by any requests we have thrown at them.
From our initial enquiry until the very successful launch of our new site, we have felt supported the whole way and we look forward to continuing a great relationship.
Graham Tungate - Web Development ManagerCanterbury Council
As a platform/solution for our needs my experience of working with Code Enigma has been excellent. Having moved our corporate website over to use the LGD distribution, Code Enigma have made the hosting and working on this extremely painless. When we require it support is very easily accessed, with questions and issues addressed in a timely manner. This has been great when we have come up against anything that needed to be dealt with rapidly. For context I must add that the issues we have came up against have been pretty far and few between and I don’t recall any downtime. This reliability is fantastic for peace of mind.
David Hersey - Fullstack Developer at Canterbury City CouncilOxford City Council
If I had to use a term to describe the success of our staff directory it would be ‘overwhelming’
Search times went from 45 seconds to 2. It can search across a much wider range of fields, also using faceted search to narrow down results. Even now, people thank me for making it so easy to find things on the intranet.
GLA/Busk in London
Reliable. Nice people. Good quality
Quality development. Getting something that works.
Code Enigma
We have experience of working with third party hosting providers from a range of sectors, from universities, local government, as well as commercial hosting providers.
We aim to stay tightly aligned with the competition on cost, and believe we deliver more value than most because of these points:
- Extremely experienced, senior team (everyone has over a decade of experience)
- Multi-discipline team (because we operate a Linux hosting specialist team as well as other development disciplines, we have expertise across a range of skills and technologies, and we routinely cross-pollinate knowledge during our working cycle)
- ISO 9001 certified project delivery processes, which embrace One Team methodology and total transparency
- Consultative approach, we prefer to work with our customers and find the most cost effective way of doing things, while being careful not to be short-termist either - as an experienced bunch of technology experts with a broad base of experience, we do our best work when we are included in wider conversations, not just treated as “the developers”
- One Team approach, we are razor sharp on collaboration and we ensure everything we do is completely transparent. We literally make our decisions with you, and your other suppliers, where applicable.
Free Trial
If you are interested in looking at LocalGov Drupal then the good news is that we have a free 30 day trial of the sytem to play with as much as you need to. We'll set things up and give you an introduction to the site so you can see how content types fit together to create the LocalGov Drupal structure.
If you set things up and like what you see then we can either start from scratch or use the demo site you have been editing to act as the seed of your new LocalGov Drupal site.
