If you are in the publishing industry, you already know that Drupal 8 is by far the most useful CMS for publishers. It was great in Drupal 6 & 7 and with 8 it keeps getting better with each major release. Combined with the community contributed modules, Drupal 8 is the best platform for publishers yet. Here are five features in Drupal 8 that are essential to publishing.
1. Workflows
Moderation of content is crucial for quality when you have a lot of authors across multiple platforms. Drupal 8 has that solved out of the box with the core Workflow and Content Moderation modules. Check out this short post we did on Workflows in Drupal 8 core here for more info. Your CMS workflow should match your internal publishing workflow. Drupal 8 can automate most manual processes that you currently have. This is a prime example of getting your CMS to do some heavy lifting within your organization.
2. Integrations
Drupal is a fantastic framework for integrations. In the publishing business, you are going to require a decent amount of integrations. Google Tag Manager, Doubleclick for Publishers, HubSpot, and SalesForce just to name a few. Drupal’s object-oriented framework allows for integrations to be built quickly and efficiently. Plus, they can be custom tailored to your business needs. Many other popular CMS and site-builders are limited to the available integrations and options. Drupal is an open framework that can be custom built to do just about anything you need.
3. Content Management
Organizing, managing, and scheduling content is key to a successful publishing site. Drupal 8 builds on top of the fantastic content management system started in Drupal 7. Custom admin tools tailored to your business can be built on the fly using the core Views module. With custom tools you can build admin pages for any type of content you wish. You can even make an admin screen for niche needs. For example, if you want an admin screen for articles that were published in 2012 that were about cats, you can very easily make one. Content admin tools have the ability to be built around the permissions of the different roles in your organization. You can fine tune what access and permissions your editors, authors, admins, or others can have. This is all out of the box functionality in Drupal 8 and requires no custom code.
4. Asset Management
Like content management, asset management is fantastic in Drupal 8. Assets are treated much in the same way that content is. When I say assets I’m loosely defining them as any reusable element. Images, video, audio clips and other files are obvious assets, but you can also create some more obscure assets like tweets or Instagram posts. Assets are fieldable, so you can add additional data for display and categorization. Using the core Media module, you can manage all of your assets. Custom libraries can be created as well as custom selection widgets that are restricted to specific types of assets. This can be a huge timesaver for assets that are commonly used across many authors.
5. Web Services
Drupal 8 comes with a RESTful Web Services API in core. To put it simply, a RESTful web service can be a conduit to send your content from Drupal to another system like a native app. This can jump start a “publish once distribute everywhere” content model. For publishers this can be essential for content control and efficiency. There is an API first initiative actively going in Drupal 8 development which is pushing for new features in each version release. Besides the out of the box RESTful Web Services API, there are several contrib modules that include JSON API and GraphQL. These web services are also what gives Drupal the ability to go headless and communicate with a JavaScript front end such as React.
We will cover more on this in the near future, but these 5 things really prove why Drupal 8 is a first class CMS for the publishing industry. Drupal 8 combined with great content, is a killer recipe for a successful publishing site. The out of the box features of Drupal 8 will save you time and money. If you are a publisher who is constantly struggling and fighting with your website, it’s time to give Drupal 8 a look.
