[META] service provider / contractor listing

[jenlampton]

It would be helpful for people who are interested in Backdrop to be able to find service providers and contractors on backdropcms.org.

TODO:

• service providers: add sector #225 | Add sectors
• service providers, add filters for services offered #221 | Add filters or facets for services offered
• service providers: add filters for location #222 | Add filters or facets for location
• contractors: add filter for timezone #223 | Add filters or facets for timezone
• service providers: build a special hosting page #224 | Build a special hosting page
• Random sort for contractors list block #1016 | Set random sort order for "Contractors for hire" block on the resources page
• Link support/services/contractors from somewhere so that people can find it #500 | Link support/services/contractors from somewhere so that people can find it
• Add a contractor checkbox on user profiles
• Build a view of contractors
• Create a content type for companies / organizations
• Create a taxonomy (vocab) for Services offered
• Build the main service-providers listing page view

[jenlampton]

For the contractor listing, I have added an Available for hire checkbox onto the user profile. We can use this to generate a list of people.

[jenlampton]

Well, let's soft-launch this thing!

Everyone with an account on backdropcms.org should be able to create a company / organization (https://backdropcms.org/node/add/organization) and list themselves in the service provider directory, should they choose: https://backdropcms.org/service-providers

I wanted to use taxonomy for the list of services offered since those could link to a page showing other companies that provide that service, but unfortunately I hit a road-block real fast since we don't yet have a term context in Layouts. :/ Going to add a TODO list in the first issue here.

[serundeputy]

Hi @jenlampton
Here are a few observations from gitter:

@jenlampton https://backdropcms.org/service-providers/common-media
can we scale that image; or do I have to do it on my side before uploading?
for anonymous users the description and website fields are not showing up

• I think image styles will solve this

@jenlampton can you add a UX or UX Design to the services list?

• this one is up to you but someone at my company asked if we could add that.

from @dougvann

also... looks like common media is floating? https://backdropcms.org/service-providers/

• I think image styles for the view will solve this

thanks,
Coming along nicely!
~Geoff

[jenlampton]

yes yes, thank you! all great feedback :)

[goldmantx]

@jenlampton How do you want to sort the main page? Last in, first on list or alpha? Just a thought.
Also, image size as mentioned above will be an issue....

[jenlampton]

@goldmantx I'm open to suggestions. Alpha might be good.

[goldmantx]

@jenlampton I would think Alpha would be way to go, easier to search/scan list if needed.

[goldmantx]

@jenlampton Some additional observations -
When we go to provider page, there is no way back to list except for using browser back button.
Do we want an email field in case someone just wants to contact a company directly? I know we list web site.
Do we want to link the Author's (provided it's their company) bio as well? (Drupal.org lists all associated with the company)
Sectors might be nice, although, I am not 100% convinced about that yet as we serve small constituents (possibly) but it could be a good add.
Location - that would be important to me, sometimes I like to work with people in same time zone, sometimes I might not care.

[klonos]

I would think Alpha would be way to go, easier to search/scan list if needed.

👍

Also...

• contact email 👍
• sectors (as tags) 👍
• country/location 👍

...plus some way to be able to filter by sector and location/proximity.

[jenlampton]

👍 Thank you all for the excellent feedback, I will try to take care of as many of these as possible before the next newsletter goes out :)

[jenlampton]

Here's a start: https://backdropcms.org/services

• fixed CSS
• added friendly text
• added contractors listing
• alpha sorted companies
• add location (both people & orgs)

todo:

• add filters
• add sector?

I don't think we should add a contact email for companies since a lot prefer to have forms filled out via their own websites. d.o for example does not have a contact email.

I'm on the fence with sector. I looked at the list d.o was using and wasn't completely sold. Could someone provide a use-case or two where that's super valuable, and perhaps a list of good ones to use as a starting point?

[klonos]

Looking good. The "Contractors for Hire" sidebar could use the same flexbox solution that we used for the "We support Backdrop CMS" section when we hit the mobile breakpoint. It would save people a bit of scrolling as now the sidebar gets wrapped as a single column.

[klonos]

I'm on the fence with sector. I looked at the list d.o was using and wasn't completely sold. Could someone provide a use-case or two where that's super valuable, and perhaps a list of good ones to use as a starting point?

I know for a fact that Mustardseed Media for example specialize in Affordable Custom Websites For Churches and Ministries.

[biolithic]

I think sectors or something like that play a part:

• specialize in migrations
• specialize in headless Backdrop for applications
• specialize in domain-specific knowledge (ie...small government, churches,
  rights groups, etc...)
• specialize in publishing/workflow knowledge (training etc...)
• specialize in design/marketing

No one is good at everything, but everyone has knowledge about a specific
industry, sector or location.

On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 10:01 AM, Gregory Netsas [email protected]
wrote:

I'm on the fence with sector. I looked at the list d.o was using and
wasn't completely sold. Could someone provide a use-case or two where
that's super valuable, and perhaps a list of good ones to use as a starting
point?

I know for a fact that Mustardseed Media http://mustardseedmedia.com/
specialize in Affordable Custom Websites For Churches and Ministries.

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#194 (comment)

[jenlampton]

Okay. So, how about a starting list?

[jenlampton]

I put a list of sectors over in #225. @klonos @goldmantx Have a look?

Keep in mind we already have a list of "services provided" for the things @biolithic mentioned in the previous comment :)

[docwilmot]

Not sure if this is the right issue, but I dont think the top-level menu link should be "Support"; that is a bit deceptive. I just saw it and thought: great! help docs and forums and stuff! But alas no.

[jenlampton]

@docwilmot But the plan is to put help-docs and forums and stuff in there too once they are ready. What do you think? Should we change the label until we have all the other things there?

[robertgarrigos]

Couldn't we have this list shown as random? It would be more fair for all the users.

[jenlampton]

@robertgarrigos The problem with random sorts is that it is a bad user experience. If you find a vendor you want to work with, then repeat the steps you used to find them the first time, you'll never be able to find them again.

If we had a "featured" block or something at the top, that showed 3 at random, those could be selected randomly every time. But you don't want the actual listings to be impossible to navigate.

[robertgarrigos]

Sorry, I meant the "Contractors for hire" block on the resources page. The problem with the actual block is that it always shows the same contractors, no chance for other contractors to show at first sight.

[jenlampton]

@robertgarrigos that's a reasonable request. Can you create a dedicated issue for it?

[robertgarrigos]

Thanks, @jenlampton. Done: #1016