Dansk Sygeplejeråd (DSR)

Preface

Building a new web platform for DSR was an interesting journey with many learnings and struggles.

Editors were used to Drupal, a new image management system is introduced, new member portal and backend, Tailwind and so on.

Visions for Umbraco on cloud infrastructure and the transition from .NET Framework to Core.

Initial struggles

The platform was initially designed for running on Azure Web Apps with Linux since the, then new, version 9 of Umbraco.

This release was monumental since it marked the move from .NET Framework to Core, allowing development and hosting on multiple platforms.

Moving forward we discovered that maybe our move to Linux was a bit too ambitious.

The Azure environment were plagued with various stability issues.

• Examine would randomly break

• NuCache would corrupt or be locked

• Containers would start too early leading to boot errors and weird load-balancing scenarios

• Bootup times would be too slow leading to Azure killing the containers

There are many more issues we were experience, most of which are now resolved in later versions.

However, at the time we built this platform it was a deal breaker looping us back to traditional hosting.

The whole Docker and multi platform workflow for developers stuck around and set the direction for most new projects.

Docker

The new Docker setup for local development allowed us to very easily onboard new developers of all skill levels.

We could also ensure that all develops would have their own scoped database where features could be built without worry.

This meant a lot since we used to have a complicated local SQL server and IIS setup which required a lot of documentation and knowledge.

Now we could just slim it down to one single line:

$ docker compose up -d

There still had to be special steps for frontend and backend development but this is nothing compared to the old setups.

Training

One of the steps in the project process I enjoy the most is holding training session for editors.

They have tendency to work with and use the platform in ways you never could have envisioned and feedback from these sessions are invaluable.

Granted a few things almost always breaks and gives you a bit of cold sweat, it's always met with understanding or even some laughs.

The sessions with the DSR editors were quite unique since they were used to working in a quite old Drupal system.

A few things bugged the editors since it wasn't like it used to be and some feedback was very valid and something we could do.

However, then overall impression were very positive and filled with excitement.

Conclusion

This project gave me the worst headaches and struggles but also gave me a solid knowledge base that propelled me forward.

Many of the technical assistance I now provide build on the foundation from this project and I am grateful to have played a key role in it's development.

The new platform officially launched June 2023 and we continue to have a very trusted and solid partnership to this day.