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Organizations Involved

Salsa Digital worked with the Department of Social Services to migrate the Family Relationships Online website from Drupal 7 to GovCMS SaaS (Drupal 10). This essential migration to a secure, standardised government platform reduces maintenance overheads and ensures this vital information service remains accessible. 

Describe the project (goals, requirements and outcome)
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Department of Social Services' challenge

The Department of Social Services (DSS) needed to migrate its Family Relationships Online website from Drupal 7 before its End-of-Life date. The site contained essential information about family relationship services and support, making it crucial to ensure a smooth transition without disrupting public access to these resources.

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Department of Social Services’ transformation — migration to GovCMS SaaS

Salsa Digital executed a focused technical migration of the Family Relationships Online website to GovCMS SaaS, the Australian Government's secure web hosting and content management service. This platform choice provided DSS with a fully managed solution where security updates, patches and infrastructure maintenance are all handled by the GovCMS team.

The migration was completed with careful attention to maintaining all existing content and functionality. By choosing GovCMS SaaS, DSS gained access to a standardised government platform that reduces the technical overhead of website management while ensuring adherence to government security standards.

One limitation of the GovCMS SaaS platform is a limited pool of modules to use. The previous website had used a number of contrib modules to provide an interactive map for users to find their closest facility. However due to the limitations of the platform this had to be manually redeveloped from scratch using the Leaflet Javascript library and Views, rather than any plug-and-play Drupal modules.

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The outcomes

The migration to GovCMS SaaS ensured that the Family Relationships Online website continues to provide reliable access to vital information while meeting modern security standards. The website now benefits from GovCMS's managed security updates and infrastructure maintenance, reducing the technical overhead for DSS.

With standardised hosting, automated security patches, and continuous platform support, the website is well-positioned to serve Australian families seeking information about relationship services well into the future. The successful migration before Drupal 7's End-of-Life deadline means DSS can focus on delivering content rather than managing technical infrastructure.

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Why Drupal was chosen

Drupal was chosen as the preferred CMS for Australia’s Federal Government through the creation of the GovCMS platform, which was launched in 2015. GovCMS is designed to make it easier for government agencies to create modern, affordable, responsive websites. Importantly, GovCMS provides a whole-of-government platform to help consolidation across government departments. The fact that Drupal is open source means there are no expensive lock-in contracts, and GovCMS can build a Drupal/GovCMS community.

Technical Specifications

Drupal version:

Key modules/theme/distribution used:

Why these modules/theme/distribution were chosen

GovCMS SaaS was chosen for the Drupal distribution because it provides a secure, stable and cost-effective hosting environment with automatic updates and compliance built in.

Leaflet.js was chosen because it was already used on the existing site and could be seamlessly integrated into the GovCMS SaaS theme layer, reducing redevelopment effort and costs.