Moving from Joomla to Drupal with Opigno | Opigno LMS | Learning Management System based on Drupal

jhviljoen

Thu, 09/17/2015 - 12:17

Forums

I would like to request some advice please. We currently run a Joomla site where we sell E-Learning content (digital products) and books (physical products). The site incorporates an E-Commerce store which is integrated with a Learning Management System (LMS). The courses that are provided access to via the LMS are in SCORM, AICC, HTML5 and video format. The whole Joomla system is set-up as a multi-tenant environment where (in a nutshell) - it is not a very complex environment: The primary Joomla system distributes functionality and modules to secondary Joomla sites (i.e. different products are displayed on different Joomla sites). This is done using a multi-site extension and virtual domains. The secondary sites are managed, administered and controlled centrally from the primary Joomla site. All information pubslished to the secondary Joomla sites are managed from the primary Joomla site/back-end. The E-Commerce store (together with the LMS) provides marketplace functionality where vendors/suppliers can create and upload courses/products. These products are then curated (by us) and displayed for purchase in the secondary Joomla sites as per the point above. Customers are then able to login from the secondory Joomla site and access their purchased courses/products. Based on predefined parameters, secondary site "owners" are able to login as administrators where they have access to a dashboard with basic reporting information (sales figures, course user statistics etc.). We are currently planning a major upgrade to our system (including migrating to a new LMS - therefor considering Opigno) but, for a number of reasons, we would also like to consider a complete system rebuild on Drupal with Opigno instead of Joomla. In principle and without detailing all the nitty-gritty, is the above reasonably (without an enormous amount of complexity and customization) doable using Drupal, Opigno and other extensions/modules? In our experience, the e-commerce systems built-in to LMS modules/extensions do not have sufficient functionality for our requirements. Which Drupal (powerful) E-Commerce system - with multi-vendor/marketplace as well as affiliate tracking functionality - can you recommend that will work well with Opigno? Thanks! Jan

James Aparicio

Thu, 09/17/2015 - 12:47

Hi jhviljoen,

Not knowing the details of the project, im sure it is not just a matter of intalling some modules, but yes, it is a perfectly viable solution to use Drupal/Opigno.

Best regards

steve795

Mon, 03/21/2016 - 01:18

e-commerce

Jan Not being an expert, but I believe the Drupal Commerce system would provide the flexibility and resources to fulfil your e-commerce needs -- it runs the Royal Mail online shop, among other high-profile sites. That said, it does require knowledge of Drupal Rules, and how to add actions to ensure proper handshaking with the relevant payment gateway (at least that's my experience). As well as understanding the backend ("warehouse") is component-level, whereas the front-end display (shop front, so to speak) is a "fitting together" of various back-end/warenhouse items, into one display/purchasable product. Hence its amazing flexibility (takes a bit of getting used to, at least it did for me) As to whether Opigno will do as you need, like Drupal Commerce it has (from my initial analysis) the flexibility to achieve whatever is needed. I think, when all is said and done, the Drupal platform is far more robust and flexible than Joomla, and is therefore suitable for spending the time, effort and money to build on it. And, I sense, Drupal Opigno is more flexible and robust than, say, Moodle -- I'm in the process of looking to convert a client's Moodle site to Drupal Opigno, basically because of the flexibility that Drupal provides. But then I'm biased, insofar as I'm already familiar with Drupal, whereas with Moodle ... well, not nearly as much (nor do I wish to invest the time to become as familiar).