Knowledge Management with Drupal at the Office of Naval Research. Presentation to the MIL-OSS WG4

Transcription

1 Knowledge Management with Drupal at the Office of Naval Research Presentation to the MIL-OSS WG4 October 15, 2012

2 Stockdale Slide: Who Am I? Why Am I Here? Tim Cullen 7 years experience with Drupal U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, private sector, freelance Technical Manager of the IT Services Division at Greystones Group ONR KM+ Army Cyber Command CBA MCCoE IT / [email protected] Greystones Group Founded in 2000 Proven track record with Fortune 500 companies and Federal Agencies Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area Seaport-e Prime, 8a STARS II, GSA IT 70 (anticipated 4Q/2012) 8(a), 8(m) (WOSB) certified SECRET Facility Clearance 2

3 The Office of Naval Research (ONR) coordinates, executes, and promotes the science and technology programs of the United States Navy and Marine Corps. 6 Departments AKA Codes Code 35 - Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Code 34 - Warfighter Performance Department Code 33 - Sea Warfare and Weapons Code 32 - Ocean Battlespace Sensing Code 31 - Command, Control Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Code 30 - Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare & Combating Terrorism Department 3

4 Code 30: Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare & Combating Terrorism Science & Technology Thrusts Command, Control, Computers & Communication (C4) Fires Force Protection Human Social, Cultural and Behavioral Sciences Human Performance Training & Education Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Logistics Maneuver Each Thrust has TIAs (Technology Investment Areas) Each TIA has several Projects 500+ organizational entities in Code 30 alone! 4

5 The State of Knowledge Code 30 in

6 ONR Business Processes: The Program Review Catch-all for data Each thrust would produce up to 1300 slide presentations Slides contained data and knowledge Financial spreadsheets Canonical textual snippets Gantt charts (and gantt-like charts) Program images & diagrams 6

7 ONR Business Processes: PowerPoint Husbandry 7

8 Problems? What Problems? Programmatic data is a living breathing entity requiring care and feeding. It can: Change Grow Become obsolete How did they deal with this? Edit their PowerPoints, of course! The problem is Which one? Which version? Which slide? Which text box? Which digits?* * Try to find-and-replace 25 for 24 on a 1300 slide PowerPoint deck and see how that works out for you. 8

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10 Problems? What Problems? The program review preparation process often resulted in multiple printed versions of each thrust s presentation. Thrust Managers often deviated from the canonical slide templates, frustrating management Thrust Managers often created hundreds of extra slides to address potential questions during the program review process Both of these prolonged the review process significantly 10

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12 ONR KM

13 KM+ 1.0 Overview Drupal 6 Key contributed modules: Views, ViewsPHP, Views Bonus Ctools/Panels CCK, Path Auto, Modal Frames API (lots of others!) Key custom modules: PowerViews, HTML2PPT (lots of others too!) Integrated Libraries: FusionCharts, JPGraph, PHPPowerPoint LAMP Stack (hosted external to NMCI firewall) Developed using a combination waterfall & agile

14 Key Features I Not Rocket Science (but ONR does that though!) Centralized data management (no more need to worry about which PowerPoint deck, Excel sheet or Word doc has the most up-to-date data) Data version control (Drupal s built-in revision log + diff module) Shared situational awareness: better insight for management; crossprogram visibility Dashboards customized by system user roles Management sees aggregated data; can quickly drill down to assess and address potential problems

15 Key Features II Simple data management: WYSIWYG UI, never more than two clicks from data Navigation reflects Code 30 s org structure: users know how to find everything And if they can t? Search! (Drupal s native search + custom module to save search queries) Cost, Schedule, Performance status for each project**

16 Key Features III PowerViews: Collaborative presentation-builder workspace Generate Program Reviews automatically with one click (as opposed to one month) Slideshow view mode PowerPoint Export: For audiences without access to KM+, send them a fully editable PowerPoint deck

17 Demo Time! (While I have made the appropriate sacrifices and incantations to the dei demonstrandi, you know how these things go )

18 Key Wins for ONR Program Review Process was reduced by 2600 person-hours. Program Review Process was paperless Program Reviews were dramatically reduced in size Program Reviews were standardized across Thrusts

19 Lessons Learned Be strict about ETL! (It will aid in client self-knowledge) No application ever survives its first encounter with real data. Dawn Meyerriecks Tune before deployment (devel, webgrind) Tune after deployment Exportables everywhere Drush, drush & more drush Reduce payloads Waterfall is good for initial design Must understand client s business processes Agile is good for micro-features & bug fixes Build trust with your user base when they see new features and bug fixes deployed quickly

20 KM+ 2.0 Want an ATO? Migrate platforms! (LAMP->WISP) Want an ATO? Build to DISA STIGs What s in the box? Windows 2008 R2, IIS 7, MSSQL 2008 R2, PHP Also: Git Bash, drush Also, it s not a box we re now developing on a virtualized OS (VMWare & VirtualBox) Drupal 7, but sqlsrv makes it all possible

21 KM+ 2.0 Heavier use of Javascript: JQuery, Highcharts, ExtJS & ExtGantt (let the client do the work, reduce data transfers) Edit in place: editable fields module FTW! Gadgets: every data element is a Drupal block and has its own URL SharePoint compatibility: Gadgets as web parts, SharePoint can be a Drupal services client Custom PowerPoint Export (written in C#)

22 KM+ 2.0 Reduced reliance on views (more intelligent querying) PhantomJS for static image rendering where needed (older browsers & PPT Export) Improved Program Review workflow with commenting & To Dos Homebox module for dashboarding Sheetnode module for financial data ExtGantt for display and realtime data manipulation.

23 Cross-Platform Drupal Migration Tips We develop on Mac/Unix Start with a clean D7 install on WISP Drush portabledb for data interchange* Git Bash is your friend Only MS-specific issue so far? MSSQL s arbitrary (and capricious?) query parameter limit of 2100 (MySQL s is 65536).

24 Questions? Tim Cullen / [email protected] Demos & Screenshots available upon request. 24