Drupal Global Contribution Weekend (DGCW) is an initiative of the Drupal Association which represents the global Drupal community to encourage people to contribute to Drupal. This year, ICFOSS (an autonomous institution under Government of Kerala mandated with propagation, promotion and development of Free and Open Source Software) in partnership with Zyxware Technologies is organising the Drupal Global Contribution Weekend 2020 in MP Hall, Thapasya Building, Infopark, Kochi on 25th January 2020 from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm. We invite you to participate in this event and be an active part of the global Drupal Community. Anyone who is interested to contribute to Drupal can participate. Please note that the registration is limited to the first 25 participants and at free of cost. For more details and registration, please visit the link Last date of registration : 24th January 2020.   Agenda Date    : January 25, 2020, Saturday Time    : 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM Venue  : MP Hall, Thapasya Building, Infopark, KochiSession 1  (10:00 AM - 11:00 AM) Opening Remarks - Drupal Contribution Weekend 2020Introductory Workshop   How to contribute to Drupal? Advantages and fun of contributing How to identify an issue to fix? How to submit a patch? Session 2 (11:15 AM - 5:00 PM) Hands-on Contribution to Drupal - The output will be one or more contributions to Drupal. Prerequisite: Participants should be familiar with Drupal ecosystem. (The contribution can be on Quality Check, Issue queue clean up, bug fixes and documentation).  Participants should come with a Laptop installed with Drupal 8.8 (latest version of Drupal) Git and git-bash (for windows os) should be installed.   Leave a reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), an autonomous institution under Government of Kerala, India mandated with propagation, promotion and development of Free and Open Source Software has organised the Drupal Global Training Day (GTD) in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India on December 21, 2019, from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm. Zyxware Technologies provided the technical support for the GTD. The event set the momentum to form the Drupal Community in Kerala. The GTD witnessed some eminent personalities addressing the participants and sharing their experiences with them. Mr. Sampath Kumar, Technical Consultant, ICFOSS welcomed the participants. Mr. Sasi Pilacheri Meethal, Director, ICFOSS & CEO, IT Parks Kerala, gave the presidential address. Introduction to Drupal, Drupal Community, and Global Training Day was given by Mr. Thomas P. Thomas, CEO, Zyxware Technologies. The event was inaugurated by Mr. M. Sivasankar IAS, Secretary, E&IT Department, Government of Kerala. In the inaugural address, he stressed on the need to have more people to be trained in Free Software like Drupal to support the government IT initiatives. Dr. Rajeev R. R., Program Head, ICFOSS gave the vote of thanks.  Following the inauguration, an informative section on Why Drupal? And What is the best way to learn Drupal? was presented by Mr. Vimal Joseph, Senior Manager, Technology, Zyxware Technologies. The session was followed by a Question & Answer round. A case study on 'Drupal - as a tool for Citizen Engagement' was presented by Mr. Lipin P., Technical Lead, Zyxware Technologies. A brief introduction to DrupalTVM - groups.drupal.org/tvm was shared by Drupal Evangelists - Mr. Anto Jose, Mr. Binny K. Thomas, and Mr. Vimal Joseph. The participants could interact directly with the speakers and clear their doubts. After the presentations, it was time to get some real hands-on experience in Drupal. A Drupal workshop led by Mr. Sarath Kumar, Software Engineer, and Mr. Abhinand Gokhala, Technical Lead took the participants to the world of Drupal. The session started with Introduction to Drupal, installing the same and a practical session on how to build a simple Drupal 8 application. Mr. Jijo Joseph and Mr. Adharsh M., Software Engineers, supported the lead trainers. A team of Drupal developers provided individual attention to the participants. Mr. Sudheesh, Mr. Ashish Sajeev, Mr. Akhil Chandran, Ms. Simi from Zyxware Technologies volunteered at the event. About 50 participants representing diverse sections, including the government officials, software professionals, and student community from various Engineering colleges, attended the GTD. During the concluding session, the participants shared their feedback. To the majority, it was a new experience to learn the widely accepted technology of Drupal in detail. The participants were awarded Certificates of Participation. Leave a reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

California Consumer Privacy Act became effective on January 1, 2019. 2 years before, Europe implemented GDPR. Even though both are personal data protection laws, they are ideologically different. Through this article, we are exploring the factors that differentiate CCPA from GDPR.     GDPR CCPA Effective From 25-May-2018 Effective From 01-January-2020 Personal data protection law applicable for EU States. Personal data protection law passed by the State Of California. Only protects natural persons (individuals) and does not cover legal persons. Only protects natural persons (individuals) and does not cover legal persons. Applies to the “processing” of personal data. Applies to “collecting” personal information and “selling” or “sharing” it. Does not exclude specific categories of personal data from its scope of application Specifically excludes from its scope of application collecting and sharing of some categories of personal information like Medical data, publicly available personal information, etc Does not apply to “anonymised” data, where the data can no longer identify the data subject. Does not apply to “de-identified” information or “aggregate” consumer information. Creates a door for the EU users to lock data prior to any data processing. Creates a window for the Californian consumer to open and find out what personal data has already been obtained by a business or sold to a third party. The GDPR does not define “child,” although it recognizes children as “vulnerable natural persons” that merit specific protection with regard to their personal data. The CCPA does not define “child.” The CCPA, however, ensures opt-in rights for minors under the age of 16 Like to dive deep into the subject, reach to your consultants to take advice on how to implement CCPA in your website/mobile application. Reference Data Guidance, Comparing privacy laws: GDPR v. CCPA, Accessed on December 2019 Leave a reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The year 2018 marked the implementation of one of the most popular data protection laws in the world, ie GDPR. It's been a year and a half since its implementation. Any organization in Europe or who delivers a digital service to European Public and uses their personal information now complies GDPR. Now it’s time for CCPA, California Consumer Privacy Act. What is CCPA? In the Year 2018, the State of California passed a data protection law, known as CCPA. ie California Consumer Privacy Act 2018. It empowers consumers with the right to request business to disclose or delete the storage and usage of data collected about them. Additionally, it also gives freedom for users to opt-out completely from third party data transfer and sales. In order to ensure adherence, the state has also decided to give penalties for defaulters. This ranges from $2500 to $7500 per violation. CCPA also grants a number of rights to the consumer, which includes Right to Request Information (Section # 1798.100, 1798.115) Right to Portability (Section # 1798.130(2)) Right of Deletion of Personal Information(Section # 1798.105) Right to Opt-Out (Section # 1798.120 1798.135) What are the eligibility criteria for CCPA? Businesses who serve/work for Californian residents and meet at least one or more of the following criteria are eligible for CCPA Having a Gross Annual Revenue of more than $25M Processing information of more than 50,000 households, consumers, or devices Deriving 50% or more of their annual revenue from selling California consumers’ personal information Who all are Excluded from CCPA? Nonprofits that do not operate for “profit or financial benefit” Financial institutions that are regulated under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act Consumer reporting agencies that are regulated under the Fair Credit Reporting Act Health care providers that are regulated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Key Focus of CCPA Control of personal data Protection of personal data Insight into information acquired by companies CCPA Implementation Timeline California Consumer Privacy  Act 2018 becomes effective on 01-January-2020. How To Prepare for CCPA Conduct an internal audit to identify the different kinds of personal information is being collected at various stages Cleaning out personal information that is no more relevant or not being actively used Equip digital platforms to adhere to CCPA guidelines Train employees on CCPA and clearly define the additional responsibilities they will have Develop different kinds of documents required for delivering responses related to CCPA Zyxware has helped many clients in implementing privacy guidelines as per GDPR in the past. We are taking CCPA also in the same sense. Stay tuned for article series on CCPA implementation in your website and mobile apps. Alternatively, you can reach to your consultants to take advice on how to implement CCPA in your website/mobile application. Reference Californians for Consumer Privacy, Accessed on December 2019 Bryan Cave Leighton, Paisner, California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)Practical Guide, Accessed on December 2019 Leave a reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a state law created to enhance the privacy rights and consumer protection of California residents. The bill for CCPA was passed by the State Legislature and signed into law by Jerry Brown, Governor of California, on June 28, 2018. Here are some fact you need to know about CCPA CCPA is a personal data protection law passed by the State Of California. CCPA stands for California Consumer Privacy Act and gets effective on 1st Jan 2020. CCPA movement was initiated by  Alastair Mactaggart, an activist, and San Francisco real estate developer. CCPA mainly impacts large businesses that serve/work for Californian residents. CCPA compliance failure leads to penalties ranging from $2500 to $7500 per violation. CCPA is fundamentally different from GDPR. CCPA is not applicable for Not-For-Profit Organizations. Like to dive deep into the subject, reach to your consultants to take advice on how to implement CCPA in your website/mobile application. Reference Bryan Cave Leighton, Paisner, California Consumer Privacy Act (Ccpa)Practical Guide, Accessed on December 2019 Data Guidance, Comparing privacy laws: GDPR v. CCPA, Accessed on December 2019 Leave a reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

AI-based chatbots have become an essential tool for any business. Even though the AI-based chatbots are being swiftly adopted by the private sector, the public sector adoption rate was a bit slow. Now the thing has started to change, the public sector departments have also realized the potential chatbots have and some of the departments have even developed their own chatbots to make their service delivery more efficient.   Benefits that AI-based chatbots create For citizens: Quick access to public data Round the clock availability Multiple access points (Website/Facebook/Alexa/ Google Home) Multiple Communication Formats - Text, Voice Improved user experience Time savings Converse in the native language For departments: 24*7*365 Service Delivery Improved efficiency Reduced workload Automation and easy integration with IT systems Omnichannel support delivery No additional efforts required to maintain the content   Some of the AI Chatbots used by Governments CHIP, City of Los Angeles Multilingual and Launched in Microsoft Azure Bot Platform Intended to help vendors to find and address queries on business opportunities. Helped to reduce email queries by 50% and support staff by 40%.   RAMMAS, Government of Dubai Multilingual(English & Arabic) Available in the website, mobile phones, smart TV, smartwatches, Facebook Etc Addressed 1,900,000 + enquiries since launch, which helps in saving AED 31.3 Million   ALEX, Government of Australia Intended to help citizens in having information on Intellectual Property Handles about 40% of organizations active customer interactions Reduced customer support calls to 5000/month from 12,000/month   EMMA, US Citizenship and Immigration Services Handles 1 Million monthly Interactions Multilingual(English & Spanish) intended to help the people on requests pertaining to immigration services, green cards, passports and any service offered by this department.   MISSI, Government of Mississippi State Available in Website and Alexa Intended to help residents in information on taxation, health services, public transport, family services, job opportunity.   PAIGE, Government of San Francisco Intended to help internal users in the IT procurement process. Speaks British Accent   Drupal with its advanced capability to model data makes it a suitable platform to create a content repository that can act as the primary data source for a government AI Chatbot. Zyxware can create a Drupal-based government website that can also be used as the primary data source for an AI Chatbot. Get in touch with us to explore all the possibilities that can help to increase citizen service delivery efficiency. Leave a reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The following is the list of holidays at Zyxware for the year 2020.   January 01 - Wednesday - New Year Day February 21 - Friday - Sivarathri April 10 - Friday - Good Friday April 14 - Tuesday - Vishu May 01 - Friday - May Day May 25 - Monday - Id-ul-Fitr (Ramzan) July 31 - Friday - Id-ul-Ad'ha (Bakrid) August 31 - Monday - Thiruvonam September 01 - Tuesday - Third Onam October 02 - Friday - Gandhi Jayanti October 26 - Monday - Vijayadasmi October 29 - Thursday - Milad-i-Sherif December 25 - Friday - Christmas Leave a reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

AI-based conversational interfaces are disrupting the customer service industry by providing options for end-users to get information in real-time without human assistance. The adoption rate of AI chatbots is swiftly increasing and the accuracy levels of handling natural language conversations are improving drastically. Here are the numbers that say “AI chatbots are not an add-on any more but an essential tool for any businesses.” 15% of American adults have used a chatbot. 16% own a smart speaker like Amazon Alexa.  64% of internet users say 24-hour service is the best chatbot feature they love. 35% of users predict they would use a chatbot for a complaint, a problem, or to get detailed answers or explanations  55% of users say they would most enjoy getting an instant response and answers to simple questions from a chatbot 75% of users expect to receive an instant response from chatbots The infographic outlines how a drupal website is a can be used as a data source for an AI Chatbot Drupal with its advanced capability to model data makes it a suitable platform to create a content repository that can act as the primary data source for an AI Chatbot. Zyxware can create a Drupal website that can also be used as the primary data source for an AI Chatbot. Get in touch with us to know more. Leave a reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Drupal is one of the most secure Web Content Management systems available today and the credit for this goes to the simple fact that there is a dedicated security team which constantly checks the codebase for any vulnerabilities and provides fixes for any vulnerabilities identified. As per the Drupal Security team, security release "windows" are every Wednesday for Drupal contributed projects, and one Wednesday a month (usually the third Wednesday) for Drupal core. As a site owner, it is really important to monitor the security releases regularly and apply the relevant security patches same day itself or schedule for it based on the criticality of the update. Latest secure Drupal versions Drupal Core 7.x:     7.69 released on December 18th 2019 Drupal Core 8.8.x:     8.8.1 released on December 18th 2019 Drupal Core 8.7.x:     8.7.11 released on December 18th 2019 Any 8.x versions older than 8.7 should be updated to latest 8.8.x or 8.7.x If you are not using the latest versions, it is recommended to update the core to the latest release as soon as possible to avoid possible security breaches.Security alert If you are not using the latest versions, it is recommended to update the core to the latest release as soon as possible to avoid possible security breaches. There are few security alerts published by the Drupal security team on 18th December, 2019, which include some critical and moderately critical security updates. It is really important to act on this immediately Here are the reported vulnerabilities. SA-CORE-2019-009 - Denial of Service Affected versions : 8.8.x, 8.7.x Security risk: Moderately critical A visit to install.php can cause cached data to become corrupted. This could cause a site to be impaired until caches are rebuilt. SA-CORE-2019-010 - Multiple vulnerabilities Affected versions : 8.8.x, 8.7.x Security risk: Moderately critical Drupal 8 core's file_save_upload() function does not strip the leading and trailing dot ('.') from filenames, like Drupal 7 did. Users with the ability to upload files with any extension in conjunction with contributed modules may be able to use this to upload system files such as .htaccess in order to bypass protections afforded by Drupal's default .htaccess file. After this fix, file_save_upload() now trims leading and trailing dots from filenames. SA-CORE-2019-011 - Access bypass Affected versions : 8.8.x, 8.7.x Security risk: Moderately critical The Media Library module has a security vulnerability whereby it doesn't sufficiently restrict access to media items in certain configurations. SA-CORE-2019-012 - Multiple vulnerabilities Affected versions : 8.8.x, 8.7.x, 7.x Security risk: Critical The Drupal project uses the third-party library Archive_Tar, which has released a security-related feature that impacts some Drupal configurations. Multiple vulnerabilities are possible if Drupal is configured to allow .tar, .tar.gz, .bz2 or .tlz file uploads and processes them. The latest versions of Drupal update Archive_Tar to 1.4.9 to mitigate the file processing vulnerabilities. Solution: Install the latest version of Drupal If you are using Drupal 8.7.x, upgrade to Drupal 8.7.11. If you are using Drupal 8.8.x, upgrade to Drupal 8.8.1. If you are using Drupal 7.x, upgrade to Drupal 7.69.Checklist for site owners who need to update immediately Is your install.php accessible for external users? Are you allowing users to upload files? Are you using media library? Is your Drupal installation configured to  allow .tar, .tar.gz, .bz2 or .tlz file uploads and processes them? If the answer to any of these questions is “Yes” you have to update to the latest version immediately. Even if the answer is ‘no’, the security best practices says it is always good to update to the latest security releases to avoid risks.   End of Life plans for Drupal 7.x and 8.x Drupal 7.x will reach end of life on November 2021. What this means for your Drupal 7 sites is, as of November 2021: Drupal 7 will no longer be supported by the community at large. The community at large will no longer create new projects, fix bugs in existing projects, write documentation, etc. around Drupal 7.  There will be no more core commits to Drupal 7. The Drupal Security Team will no longer provide support or Security Advisories for Drupal 7 core or contributed modules, themes, or other projects. Reports about Drupal 7 vulnerabilities might become public creating 0 day exploits. All Drupal 7 releases on all project pages will be flagged as not supported. Maintainers can change that flag if they desire to. On Drupal 7 sites with the update status module, Drupal Core will show up as unsupported. After November 2021, using Drupal 7 may be flagged as insecure in 3rd party scans as it no longer gets support. Best practice is to not use unsupported software, it would not be advisable to continue to build new Drupal 7 sites.  Now is the time to start planning your migration to Drupal 8. Drupal 8 will reach end of life on November 2021 Drupal 8 will reach EOL the same day of Drupal 7 EOL. If you are already using Drupal 8, you don’t have to worry about anything. Drupal has adopted to a continuous innovation model since Drupal 8. New features are added to Drupal core every 6 months. In this process, some systems will be deprecated and will be kept as such. The more innovations occurs, the more deprecated code will be there, which eventually will be removed and the code will be released as Drupal 9. Drupal 9.0 should be almost identical to the last Drupal 8 release which will be Drupal 8.9, minus the deprecated code. It means that when modules take advantage of the latest Drupal 8 APIs and avoid using deprecated code, they should work on Drupal 9. Updating from Drupal 8's latest version to Drupal 9.0.0 should be as easy as updating between minor versions of Drupal 8. What next? For those who still uses Drupal 6.x or 7.x should immediately think of migrating to Drupal 8.9 which will be released on June 2020. Once you migrate to Drupal 8.9, upgrading to Drupal 9.0 when it will be released is as easy as executing a minor update as there will not be any changes in Drupal 9 from Drupal 8.9 except changes in some underlying libraries. Annexure Drupal 8 is now power-packed with a handful of features. This include Media Library: 8.8 update brings the easiness in reusing media files. It is also integrated with content forms to capture media content and CKEditor to include media in content. Claro Administration Theme: Drupal is coming out of its long-standing Admin Theme. The new theme is clean and super intuitive. To add, it has some great accessibility features and it’s touch-friendly too. Intuitive Content Authoring:  CKEditor powered interfaces help content authors to craft content in the way they envisage.    Hierarchical Workspaces: it’s now possible to define hierarchical workspaces in Drupal. Eg: Having a workspace for the new year version of a magazine, where all content development happens. On completing it, deploys the entire workspace in a single click. API First Approach:  To facilitate integration with different 3rd party systems using REST API. The web platform can even be used as a content hub. Decoupling Ability: Facilitates decoupling of front end and develop platforms as a progressive web app. Layout Builder: Helps to create innovative landing pages for marketing product/services in short turnaround time. Multilingual Ready: This facilitates content to be delivered in multiple languages. Even admin interfaces can be translated into different languages.  Inline Edits: Drupal 8 allows content authors to edit content right from the front end itself.  Leave a reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The Drupal community is one of the largest open source communities in the world. There are more than 1,000,000 passionate developers, designers, trainers, strategists, coordinators, editors, and sponsors working together. Drupal Global Training Day (GTD) is an initiative of Drupal Association which represents the global Drupal community to introduce people to Drupal. The session aims to provide awareness of Drupal basics and its community. Attendees will leave with an understanding of what Drupal is and how to get started with the software, the community and Drupal.org. International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS)  an autonomous institution under Government of Kerala mandated with propagation, promotion and development of Free and Open Source Software is organising the Drupal Global Training Day in Trivandrum on December 21,2019 from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm.  We invite you to participate in this event and be an active part of the global Drupal Community. The event is organised by ICFOSS in partnership with Zyxware Technologies.Who can join: Decision makers from Government and Business who are interested in knowing and evaluating Drupal for their requirements. Anyone who wants to learn and contribute to Drupal. Anyone who knows Drupal and want to understand the possibilities and best practices. Please note that the registration is limited to first 100 participants and at free of cost. Please do your Registrations hereAgenda Date : December 21, 2019, Saturday Time : 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM Venue: ICFOSS, Sports Hub, Karyavattom, TrivandrumMorning Session (10:00 AM - 1:00 PM) Opening Remarks Why Drupal? and What is the best way to learn Drupal? Drupal Showcase – Case Study Introduction to DrupalTVM - groups.drupal.org/tvm Afternoon Session (2:00 PM - 5:00 PM) Drupal Workshop - Build a simple Drupal 8 application from scratch in 3 hrs. Prerequisite for Drupal Workshop The participants need to bring a laptop with the following installed. MySQL 5.5.3/MariaDB 5.5.20/Percona Server 5.5.8 or higher with InnoDB as the primary storage engine, and requires the PDO database extension. Apache2 - rewrite module enabled. PHP 7.1 or 7.2 - Required memory size is 256MB. PHP GD and PDO enabled A GNU/Linux system (Ubuntu 18.04 LTS) is recommended. If you can install https://www.drupalvm.com/ everything required will be preinstalled. Leave a reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *