[support] Organic Groups - Subgroups

[Sohodojo Jim]

Daniel see in-line below...
> 
> Sohodojo Jim wrote:
> > 	I don't know your specific business/organization requirements,
> > however it sounds like you might be at the wrong level of "modeling
> > granularity" when mapping your customer-schools to Organic Groups.
> Perhaps a
> > multi-site configuration would be more appropriate, each school with its
> own
> > site.
> 
> I'm open to alternatives, but I would be surprised if multi-site was the
> right solution. We are not making school websites, and most of the
> content of our website is independent of any given school.
> 
> For a multi-site solution to work, the first thing I'd need is a really
> easy way to add sites which inherit all the modules and configuration
> from the main site. I don't know enough about multi-site to have an
> opinion on this.
> 

That's a pretty good description of what multi-site does and why it is a
great feature of Drupal.
 
> > 	As to OG/subgroups as a mapping for school/class, you've boxed
> > yourself into an OG-based solution (which is a constraint as much as it
> is a
> > potential solution).
> 
> Why do you say that I've boxed myself? I haven't even installed the OG
> module. I am investigating OG, that is all.
> 

I'm not saying you have boxed yourself in. Rather that every system/domain
modeling decision you make is a combination of pluses/minuses,
strengths/weaknesses, etc. There are always many ways to achieve a desired
goal. As long as you get where you want, one can be as good as another. The
challenge with an applied real world system is that you rarely have a full
and unchanging set of requirements at the beginning. Design choices that you
make early on will determine if you have the flexibility to evolve a system
or have to face wholesale redesign and development later on. Again, all
these things are trade-off and decisions to weigh given time, resources,
budget, etc.

> 
> > There are MANY ways that you can model/map a
> > part-subpart system in Drupal. OG-subgroups is just one somewhat obvious
> > one. But I am sure that folks on this list will contribute many other
> ideas.
> 
> Can you name one?
> 

I don't know your requirements enough to be too specific... But in general
the CCK, Chaos Toolkit, Views, Panels, one or another of the
Profile/User-account enhancing modules, Taxonomy module, the various flavors
of access control modules, etc. all provide a huge number of ways to
implement a system that meets your requirements. Also, I am in no way ruling
out OG. Rather, if multi-site is figured into your platform, then Schools
are Sites, and Classes are Organic Groups, thereby avoiding the OG/subgroups
issue while also giving each school its own site-level world to evolve.

My original point was more to suggest that you consider multi-site as an
aspect of your solution design rather than jump right to OG/subgroups as an
implementation. I don't know enough about your actual requirements to be
more specific than this.

--Sohodojo Jim--