CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I am relatively new to CiviCRM and have some experience developing Joomla 1.5 websites. I haven't worked with Drupal.

I have been tasked with implementing a new website presence and CiviCRM installation for a trade association (1000 organisations, 8000 employees). The organisation's employees are largely technophobic, it outsources all its IT requirements, and it requires a system that is relatively easy to learn and manage.

Given the recent spate of improvements in CiviCRM, Drupal and Joomla I am unsure whether to use Joomla or Drupal for the project, and also which version of CiviCRM is best suited.

The decision is complicated by some of the website requirements, such as: 

• Access controlled internet, extranet and intranet portals (the Association publishes a magazine and wants to deliver content online where visible content will be determined by membership status)
• Shared global product catalogue, where members can update information about their own products
• Ability to offer "member sites" - easily created mini websites that can be individually edited by members (content will include company logo and name, 'about us' information, contact data, selected products from the global product catalogue)
• Article submission management (author, editor, publisher controls, automated emails when new content is submitted etc.)
• Project collaboration between members, committees and staff e.g. like Joomla ProjectFork
• Advertisement management and delivery
• etc...

I recognise these are not CiviCRM issues, but having seen the depth of experience and ready advice in this Forum, I hoped someone might point me in the right direction. Any guidance would be appreciated!

Many thanks
Davy

In general I believe that some of your requirements require ACL. I believe that this is available in Joomla 1.6, but I am not sure. Drupal does support ACL, so I guess I would recommend Drupal. Having said that, I have no experience with Joomla.....I do not have a strong bias, but no knowledge :-)

Access controlled internet, extranet and intranet portals (the Association publishes a magazine and wants to deliver content online where visible content will be determined by membership status)
Shared global product catalogue, where members can update information about their own products

Agree with Petethat Organic Groups and Workflow would give you most of your requirements, although some of them seems like containers where lots of nice little surprise requirements pop up and you will have to customize.
Let us know how you get on!