The Productivity Suite is an application that was developed within our labs here at RD2. Productivity as it applies in our lives and in our work life has become more and more important, and the Productivity Suite is our attempt at finding a better way for people to become productive in their lives. The application centers around user-submitted blog posts, and also adds a collaborative element where users can submit kudos or offenses of their fellow teammates to encourage productive behavior. If you want to know more read our launch post.

When we started floating ideas around the office for the Productivity Suite there were quite a few people who were hesitant. As the application came together we realized that without a rule set, or some guiding principle that was easy to understand, the experience would be crippled by apprehension. As there will be many people submitting blog posts, and sending each other kudos and offenses, we wanted to be sure that these things were done in the most constructive way possible.

We decided to create a few simple rules that would allow people to get a better understanding of not just the functionality, but how the application was envisioned to be used. The content and atmosphere was key for this application to function, so by adding some helpful content we hope users will feel more comfortable using the site. These rules are located on the Productivity Suite site and are accompanied by helpful screencasts. I thought I should post them here for those interested.

If you have any suggestions for other parts of the site you feel need more explanation, let me know and I will create additional screencasts. Thanks, and enjoy!

Rules of the Productivity Suite:

1. Help spread knowledge
Help spread knowledge by making informative and interesting blog posts that deal with productivity

2. Support your team
Support your team by recognizing their efforts and good habits by giving them compliments (Kudos)

3. Discourage bad habits
Don’t let your friends and peers at work get away with bad habits. Help remind them of their mistakes by submitting an offense

4. Be balanced
If you think you can get away with only submitting offenses, beware. Helping people learn from their mistakes and complimenting others on their hard work is even more important. Keep a balance between offenses and kudos or your points might mysteriously reduce.

5. Don’t be a jerk
It’s a game but don’t abuse the system. Before you post a snarky article, write a sarcastic comment or give someone a ridiculous kudo / offense, ask yourself… is this good for the company?

RD2 recently worked with StoneGate Senior Care on a content management solution requiring many websites to be deployed within one master website. The challenge, all of them need to have autonomy while using the same system for publishing and maintaining content.

We’ve done this sort of thing before, but for very large companies, developing within “enterprise-class software” rather than leveraging the power of open source. StoneGate wanted to be able to scale beyond 50 websites with one content publishing system. Drupal is a perfect fit – except for one important thing – There was no available mechanism for deploying multiple sites within one system that is managed and maintained from one central source. So, we built one…

Now, StoneGate Senior Care is creating new websites quickly and easily using one system with “single sign-on.” New facility websites will be a popular thing for StoneGate. We received accolades from StoneGate’s marketing communications manager and the VP of StoneGate’s development arm for how easy it is to deploy and manage these websites.

Very soon we (StoneGate Senior Care and RD2, inc.) will be giving back to the Drupal community by making our Multi-Site Management module available for use with any Drupal 5.6 and 5.7 website. We’ve seen some great things happening in this community and very soon we can share more…

Today we are releasing a series of screencasts that introduce the Villages of Jackson Creek web site and the Multi-Site management module. We will be adding more screencasts each week to showcase the many features of Drupal that were implemented and customized for StoneGate.
Many thanks to StoneGate Senior Care for their support and many thanks to Ryan at Slant for a great user interface to make this come together.

With no further ado:

• Villages of Jackson Creek Tour
• Drupal Dashboard
• Introducing Multi-Site Management
• Single Site Setup
• Website Creation