Although Lullabot is often best known for its public workshops, its development and guidance of some of Drupal's top sites, its popular Drupal podcasts, and its training video series, the company has also been teaching private on-site training for companies, universities, and organizations for over 4 years. Our team of experienced Drupal teachers are the best in the business and we've taught Drupal to thousands of aspiring Drupal site builders and developers. We've brought our training to AAA, Turner Broadcasting, Lifetime Television, Best Buy, Stanford University, Penn State, Arizona State University, the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, and many many more.

Save money by bringing Lullabot training right to you. Whether your team simply needs to learn the basics of how to enter content, create sites, or get deep into development and Drupal performance optimization, we've got what you need. We can help your team gain a better understanding of Drupal, learning its advantages and difficulties and how to accommodate both. We will help your team to understand Drupal's best practices to assure that your project will be future-proof and sustainable. Additionally, our training includes a holistic look at Drupal as a platform, a web application framework, and as a thriving community ready to supply you with the resources you'll need to create a successful project. Your team will come away with a feeling of context and, hopefully, an excitement for the expansive possibilities which Drupal can bring.

Why Lullabot?

Simply put, because we are the best at what we do. We know our stuff and we know how to teach it to you. We've been hosting public and private workshops around the world since 2006. That means we have years of experience in not only Drupal's intricacies but in effectively teaching Drupal to developers and non-developers alike.

Experience

We've taught Drupal to users from a wide variety of backgrounds and experience levels. And let's be honest, talking about database optimization, or PHP procedural vs. object-oriented methods can be pretty dry stuff. But we try to make it as fun, interesting, and as streamlined as possible. And Lullabot's experience and anecdotes from real-world situations building sites like Grammy.com, FastCompany.com, and sites for Sony Music really keep things engaging.

Our Teaching Staff

The accolades of the Lullabot instructors are many. Angie Byron is the Drupal 7 lead and co-maintainer. Karen Stevenson is the co-maintainer of Drupal's most popular module, CCK, and she authored the Date and Calendar modules. Addison Berry travels the world coaching on Open Source documentation and has been involved in mentoring and speaking on behalf of Drupal on 5 continents. Jeff Eaton co-authored the best-selling O'Reilly book Using Drupal, authored several of Drupal's most popular modules, and is a well known core contributor. Nate Haug, also co-author of Using Drupal, is known for his contributions to the Webform module, his user-interface and media handling improvements to Drupal core and is well-known as one of Drupal's foremost theming experts. This is just a sampling of the Drupal talent that is a part of the Lullabot Training team. Our staff includes other full-time Lullabot employees and select experts from the Drupal community.

Drupal Versions

All of our trainers have an intimate knowledge of Drupal going back to version 5. We tend to teach our classes based on the latest full release version which is currently Drupal 6. However, we will usually temper our training with acknowledgment of changes in the development version of Drupal currently Drupal 7. If your team is in the process of building a Drupal 7 site, we can quickly and easily convert any class to a Drupal 7-only curriculum. Please just let us know ahead of time so that we can come with the appropriate materials.

Courses Available

The following workshops are broken up into 1/2 day training units. In addition to the workshops listed below, we can work with you to mix-and-match these training units into customized workshops. We are also able to create new training units to meet your specific needs, though additional costs may be incurred.

• Drupal Site Building
• Hands-on Theming and jQuery
• Advanced jQuery for Drupal
• API and Module Development
• Drupal for System Administrators
• Other

Drupal Site Building - 3 or 4 days

A crash course in installing, configuring, and building content-driven web sites in Drupal. You'll learn the essentials of Drupal site setup and administration; content management and customization using the Content Construction Kit (CCK); and how to create tailored displays of site content using the Views module.

• What is Drupal?: Covers project history, core functionality, position in the Web CMS market, and basic overview of the volunteer & commercial Drupal ecosystem.
• Installation & Set Up: Walks users through the basic requirements for running Drupal, the process of setting up a new Drupal site, and basic administrative tasks. Also covers creating and publishing simple content; managing users, roles, and permissions; adding and configuring simple plugin modules.
• Introduction to Views: Basic Views principles, dissecting and changing the frontpage view, creating a fresh table view, adding page, feed, and block displays.
• Basic Content Building: Drupal groups content into different "types" like blog posts, articles, news, and so on. This module focuses on creating and customizing new content types in Drupal's administration interface, and introduces users to the core concepts of the 'CCK' plugin and its custom data fields.
• Advanced Views: Using arguments to build context-sensitive and hierarchical views, understanding and using Views Relationships, using exposed fields to design simple search pages, and understanding add-on enhancements like Views Attach.
• Advanced Content Building: Building complex content models using advanced CCK plugins like 'node reference' fields, custom widgets, custom formatters, and more. Creating multiple content types that interact with each other, modeling relationships with content types, and mapping traditional web publishing problems with Drupal's tools.

Optional add-on day 4:

• Content Workflow: Covers the Workflow and Views Bulk Operations modules. Focuses on the creation of custom review, approval and publishing systems; simple access control solutions; and the creation of custom administration panels for specific tasks.
• Community Management: Tools for keeping order in large online communities. Anti-spam and CAPTCHA systems, tools for self-policing communities like Flag and VotingAPI, and staff/moderator solutions like Views Bulk Operations, modr8, and more. When no single module fits your needs, we'll explain what it takes to build the right solution with the tools that are already available.

Hands-on Theming & jQuery - 3 days

This workshop offers everything you need to turn your web design into a working Drupal theme. Covers essential Drupal concepts, the HTML templating engine used to customize its appearance, and how to go from mockup to reality in record time.

• Theming Drupal: Learn the basics of Drupal's template-based HTML theming system, and tour the CMS from a designer's perspective. Learn what building blocks Drupal provides to designers, and dissect existing sites to discover how familiar designs translate into Drupalese.
• From HTML to TPL: Turn a simple HTML/CSS design into a working Drupal theme! Covers the use of info files to define new themes, creating and modifying page and content templates, using dynamic variables in Drupal templates, and adding new layout regions for maximum flexibility.
• Behind the Templates: Using the template.php file and preprocess hooks to manipulate template variables, add new ones, and exercise greater control over presentation. Implement custom template override rules, use the Theme Developer module to explore Drupal's internals, and use Drupal helper functions to prevent security holes.
• Theming With PHP: Leave the comfortable world of templates and control logic-heavy output like usernames, navigation menus, and breadcrumb trails in pure PHP. Learn the basics of theming Drupal forms, and discover how to pass dynamic data from other modules and your own code to existing Drupal templates.
• jQuery Boot Camp: Learn how to use jQuery to enhance your designs, and eliminate the grunt work of complex JavaScript development. We'll cover the basics of jQuery, how to use FireBug and other development tools while you're testing, and discover what helpful JavaScript tools come with Drupal out of the box.
• Theming With jQuery: Description coming. Interface enhancements with jQuery. How to get it into your theme.

Advanced jQuery for Drupal - 1 day

NOTE: This class has a STRONG prerequisite of jQuery Boot Camp and Theming With jQuery. These units can be combined together with those units to create a 2-day Drupal jQuery class.

• jQuery & JavaScript in Drupal: Weave your custom jQuery scripts into Drupal! Work smoothly with other Drupal JavaScript code using the Behaviors system, allow module developers to pass data to your client-side code using the Settings system, and learn what PHP code you'll need to implement rich AJAX and AHAH functionality.
• Advanced jQuery: Event based jquery, inline functions, using and building jQuery plugins. Simple Drupal integration via .info files and the standard Drupal markup.

API & Module Development - 3 days

We'll work from an example site, and extend the functionality by adding additional features via a custom module we'll write over two days. We'll talk about how Drupal works under the hood and how to approach writing a Drupal module, providing best practices from our experience.

• How Drupal Works: Overview of Drupal's internals: the page rendering workflow, where modules fit in, and how the event-driven Hook system drives everything. Dissect a simple "Hello world" module.
• Implementing Hooks: Explore Drupal's most common hooks, and how to use them together by building a simple module that responds to internal Drupal events. Learn how to use tools like the Devel module to troubleshoot your code and shed light on Drupal's internal data.
• Working with Databases: Covers Drupal's database abstraction layer and how to use it to save and retrieve data safely. Covers building .install files (including using hook_install to define custom tables, and update hooks to manage changes) and properly abstracting database access in your code using helper functions and drupal_write_record().
• Using FormAPI: Covers the essentials of Drupal's FormAPI: how it works, how custom forms are built by developers, and how to securely handle user-submitted data. Hands-on examples of defining forms, validating and processing user input, and altering existing forms.
• Theming for Developers: How to leverage Drupal's templating system in your custom modules. Learn to use the theme() function properly, convert existing hard-coded materials to proper theme functions, and expose custom HTML templates for designers to customize. Also covers module interactions with the theme system via preprocess hooks, and hijacking existing theme functions using hook_theme_registry_alter().
• Drupal Performance: Covers the basics of caching and page optimization, to hunting for bottlenecks with Views and Devel. We'll cover what you can do as a developer and an administrator to avoid common pitfalls and improve the performance of existing sites. Learn about advanced options like Memcache, Apache Solr, and CDN tools to make high-traffic sites fly.

Drupal for System Administrators - 2 days

Most Drupal resources focus on the building and development process -- tasks that build on top of Drupal's foundation. In this class, we focus on the other side: the essential server, configuration, and environmental issues that can make or break large sites. Whether you're an IT team preparing for a new project or an administrator who needs to support an existing Drupal site, we'll set you up for success.

• Drupal's Environment: Drupal's flexibility allows it to run on low-end hardware, but understanding its internals allows any team to tailor the server stack for better results. We'll cover Drupal's major software components, best practices for tailoring the LAMP stack, and call out common configuration mistakes that can set back a project in the early stages. In addition, we'll walk server administrators through the basics of Drupal's front end to ensure they can communicate effectively with their software team.
• Scaling and Performance: Like any software, Drupal has its own unique performance hotspots and scaling strategies. You'll learn how to best exploit Drupal's caching architecture, how to spot and fix database slowdowns, and how to plan multi-server configurations for smoother scaling. In addition, we'll cover how to use tools like Apache Solr, Memcached, Varnish, and more to take load off of your main Drupal site.
• Monitoring and Security: Keeping a Drupal site up and running requires more than speed! In this segment, we cover the essentials of securing a Drupal site against malicious intruders. Learn about points of vulnerability in badly configured sites, common attack vectors, and how to bridge the gap between a secure server and a securely configured Drupal site. In addition, we cover effective tools and strategies for monitoring your site to spot problems before they're emergencies.
• Deployment Strategies: No web site stands still, and Drupal's design can make the ongoing process of development, testing, and staging challenging for those who don't know its idiosyncrasies. We'll cover strategies for content migration and deployment, staging site rollouts, and effective testing.

Other/Optional Training Units:

• Advanced FormAPI: Covers complex FormAPI use cases including dynamic AHAH and AJAX driven forms, multiple-part forms that span several pages, defining custom form elements, and theming Drupal forms.
• Drupal for Content Managers: A crash course in Drupal geared towards in-house users who will be managing the content and day to day operations of the site. Learn to understand Drupal's unique terminology, publish and promote content, and review content submitted by others.
• Community Collaboration: Drupal is more than software; it's a vibrant online community with thousands of active developers and innumerable passionate users. Learn how to leverage that community to solve technical problems, evaluate new tools, and more. In addition, we'll demonstrate how you can accumulate "karma" and accelerate your own work by contributing back.

Custom training units can be created upon request.

Please contact us if you would like more information about bringing Lullabot's experts to you.