Hey Drupal developers and site administrators! Ever spend your time handling things like block placement and microsite deployments at the request of your content editors?

Hey content editors and managers! Ever wish you could just do this stuff without relying on your developers and administrators--or becoming a de facto site administrator yourself?

This one's for you.

Three of our modules from 2011--co-sponsored by Energy.gov--empower content editors with greater independence and more effective execution tools.

BEAN

BEAN gives editors an easy way to plug blocks into any page on a website without the typical administrative wrangling.

On the technical side, the module creates blocks as entities. Fields are used to define block types (similar to node types). Just like nodes, instances of blocks can be created and placed into pages. More geekery in this Neil Hastings post on the BEAN module.

State Machine

State Machine provides content editors with additional options for non-disruptive content revisions via the State Flow base implementation. By creating a draft version of existing content, ongoing revisions can occur without interfering with site performance. When a revision is ready to publish, the published version (when applicable) is automatically archived and replaced with the latest approved copy.

Jump to slide #46 in Roger Lopez's Energy.gov Case Study for a step-by-step walkthrough.

Developers get a treat as well--the State Machine module is really an API. Through this API, State Machine extendable and exportable through plugins. Code-based workflows can be created for multiple sites and easily tested--without affecting existing content and functionality. Fredric Mitchell breaks it down (with extensive code samples) here.

OG Tasks

OG Tasks is an add-on for the Organics Group Module. OG Tasks automates many of the tasks associated with creating new groups--such as when launching a microsite. Instead of relying on developers or site administrators, content editors can manage pre-configured group creation with just a few mouse clicks.