advice needed on Drupal CM System

[itboy 10]

Our company have recenly gone live with a new website, a re-design in fact from our previous site. The company we used to develop this have used the Drupal CM system and i have the usual end user access admin rights. As in i can upload products, images etc..

 

The problem is i want to lose this company who have developed the site because they don't reply to emails, and it can take a week or two to iron out any problems with the CM system (Assuming they reply!) I'm finding the admin side of Drupal quite messy to be honest and feel as thought these guys don't have much of a clue what they are doing. Maybe they've used the wrong modules - i dont know. However the site does look and feel nice.

 

My question to anybody reading this who knows. How easy or hard will it be for me to find another web developer out there to take over? Can they take over? Because Drupal is opensource I would imagine I'm well in my rights to ask them for the super admin to pass onto somebody else?

 

Thanks for reading.

[Avalon 10]

If you own the domain then you have overall rights to it, so it should be a simple task of just pointing the domain elsewhere. However before you do that you need to make sure that you have a site ready and available to publish once the move is complete.

[itboy 10]

I do own the Domain and the site is currently live! They also host it for us, or should i say they back it off to fasthosts.

[indizine 10]

Mod note:

If anyone wants to respond to the OPs request to offer their help can they send a PM and not post their offers here please so we keep to advice only here. Thanks.

[indizine 10]

It should be reasonably easy given the amount of web designers around, and yes, you should have full rights to your own website including the login details for super admin, which you should change the password for once you get hold of it so that they have no further access if you do not trust them. You should also make sure you have the Fasthosts control panel login for the hosting and doamin, and change those passwords too. Just as a precaution.

[itboy 10]

Indizine - Thanks. I'm waiting for them to reply to another problem at the moment so will run this by them!

[Akrasia 10]

This is a good example of why it's best to go with a widely used rather than a proprietary CMS, and to keep your domain name and hosting separate from your developer and from each other.

 

As you say, Drupal is open source and widely used, so you shouldn't have any problems finding another developer. You don't necessarily even need someone local, so you have a whole world of talent to choose from.

 

If your site is on your own hosting account (rather than your developer's server), then you should be able to just change the relevant passwords when you've found someone new.

 

If it's on your developer's server, then as Avalon says you'll need to duplicate the site on a new server, and then repoint your domain name.

 

If your domain name and your hosting are with your developer, then you'll need to duplicate your site on a new server, repoint your domain name, and then transfer your domain name away from your current developer.

 

And if you didn't keep things separate when you set up the current site, perhaps you should consider doing so this time.

 

Of course, you may be able to avoid all of this by telling your current developer that you'd like better communication and prompter updates and asking whether they're able to provide that (if you haven't already). The relationship may be reparable.

[itboy 10]

If your domain name and your hosting are with your developer, then you'll need to duplicate your site on a new server, repoint your domain name, and then transfer your domain name away from your current developer.

 

Well i have the domain name registered with a seperate company all together. My thinking is like indizine above says, i could ask them for the fasthosts control panel, the drupal admin and that way i dont have to transfer anything?

[indizine 10]

That is correct. Your hosting is with Fasthosts and you will have paid for that hosting (or you are paying someone (them or Fasthosts) a monthly fee) and so you should have the login details without question. As you have paid for the website to be designed, they should also give you the login details to Drupal Admin also without question - you own it after all and they cannot withold it from you. I'm not saying they will, but just so you know your rights. So long as you have paid them in full for any work done, you should have no bother getting what you need from them.

[Phanerothyme 12]

My question to anybody reading this who knows. How easy or hard will it be for me to find another web developer out there to take over? Can they take over? Because Drupal is opensource I would imagine I'm well in my rights to ask them for the super admin to pass onto somebody else?

You're well within your rights whether Drupal is open source or not - it's your website, you paid for it!

 

It should be quite easy to find a web developer to help you, I would check out drupal related UK forums, and look for a drupal expert who can help you. You could also try something like elancer.com.

 

How is your site hosted? Does your webdev company manage the hosting or is it hosted on a plan you pay for and control? That will probably make the most difference to you when dumping your existing webdev.

 

If it's their hosting plan, then it's likely they control all aspects of the domain like email, ftp and so on then you'll need to think about how you'll move these over. Any competent webdev will be able to plan and execute the move for you.

 

Things to watch out for when moving a website are disparities between the new and old hosting space in terms of software - are both servers using Apache? Are they the same version? Are PHP and MySQL both installed, and are they different versions? Are the same libraries installed extending PHP?

 

Again, any competent web dev will know the pitfalls and how to deal with them. Ideally if you need to move hosts, it makes sense to itemise the current hosting setup and try to finding a new hosting provider which matches or near matches the existing hosting setup.

[indizine 10]

Or just keep it with Fasthosts for now, but transfer it to your own account.

[szb100 10]

Agree with others - because Drupal is open source, you shouldn't have any issues finding another company to take on the development. Just do a google for "UK Drupal developer" brings up a list of firms as a starting point.

 

Just wanted to mention one point you made about the admin menu being messy. I agree, it is, but they have enhanced this in Version 7 and are also working on a backport of the admin menu module that you can install on your current site (assuming you are on version 6). That should hopefully improve things for you.

Sorry if this is slightly off-topic, but the OP did bring it up and I thought it would help.