SiteFarm update of 700+ campus websites will roll out the weekend of July 10

What would previously have taken years to accomplish will happen over a weekend in July.

The update will launch the new campus branding and other functionality to all campus websites on SiteFarm, the UC Davis created web content management system (CMS).

IET worked in close collaboration with Strategic Communications, and with SiteFarm users, to prepare for the update. Site owners had the opportunity to see what the update would look like on their dev sites, and provide feedback via a survey.

“Users have been active partners in the process and we’ve received a lot of valuable feedback from them that we’ve used to make adjustments and prepare for the update,” said Shawn DeArmond, SiteFarm web architect.

In addition to the new branding design elements and color scheme, the update will include:

• New fields for the Article content type for an enhanced journalistic presentation
• New fields for the Person content types, including personal pronouns and a Unit field for including one person in multiple groups
• Column layout widget tool for improved in-page content arrangement
• New configuration options for hero banners and feature boxes
• Improvements to media handling

SiteFarm was developed by IET’s web dev team using Drupal, an open-source web development platform. It has since become widely used across the University of California. In fact, the idea for SiteFarm began in May 2015 at a Drupal conference where web developers from UC Davis, UCSF, and UCLA met to discuss how they could establish a UC Drupal collaboration group.

For more information about SiteFarm and the July 10 update, visit sitefarm.ucdavis.edu.