Integrations with other systems

You don't need a new website. You need to make your current website more effective! How can you do that? There is no single answer -- websites are part of a larger system, and you need to consider many different aspects to make your site effective. We've been making websites since the start of the web, and know what makes them work -- as well as not work. Take what we have learned to make your site better!

Settings interface with automation type and prompt options.

Parse out names, addresses, complex fields using AI

We've had several clients working with memberships, who have a single name field with the full name of a person. And then they ask us to build a directory that is sorted by last name. This is a bit hard to do if there's a first name in front of it!

Names don't follow rules very well. Some have apostrophes in them, some have multiple words -- you can't just take the last word of a name and assume that's the last name, because often it just isn't.

Flowchart for Salesforce Case ECA Model, showing various process steps and connections.

Make integrations with other services more resilient using a Queue

One downside of automating things is dealing with outages. Sometimes services go down, and are not available for some period of time. When this happens, how does it impact your automation?

If you don't design your automation carefully, you might lose the data entirely. Or get spammed by hundreds of submissions when it comes back up. Handling this correctly does end up needing some understanding of how the automation works, as well as any quirks of the remote system.

Flowchart with nodes and process steps in a software interface.

Automatically post to Mastodon or other remote APIs

The ECA Helper module provides an action to make an arbitrary HTTP post to any URL. That's all that's necessary to post to Mastodon from Drupal, if you have a Mastodon account. I've been using this functionality to automatically post these advent calendar posts for the past week.

Flowchart with labeled process boxes connected by arrows.

Create a deep redirect in a headless site

One of our clients has a custom surveying application built with a Drupal back end, and a VueJS/headless front end. They use this application to record observations in various buildings and sites that don't meet accessibility requirements.

They give their clients access to the front end. This application organizes observations into particular sites, in particular projects, grouped by the requirement. Each observation can have photos attached, along with notes and recommended solutions.

Picture of someone moving blocks from one pile to another

Deploying blocks and content to other site environments

If you have a current Drupal site (built in Drupal 8 or later) you no longer need to entirely rebuild your site -- ever again. That doesn't mean it couldn't use a freshening up now and then.

Dev Corner

Delivery

When you’re running a business, especially a small business, there are a lot of moving parts to pay attention to. Filling orders, staffing, budgeting, sales projections, ordering supplies... all of these are parts that help the business move forward. At Freelock, we are very familiar with the parts surrounding your website. Part of our job is to get that website relevant, sleek, and converting. Once that crucial step is reached, the next step is to engage in successful business with your customers. This is the step where your website starts speaking to your bottom line.

New Year, New Website!

It's only taken two years since the release of Drupal 8 for us to get our own site updated... Cobbler's children and all. But finally, we are proud to unveil our shiny new site!