Forschungszentrum Jülich
One of the largest research institutions in Europe uses Plone 6 to power hundreds of websites.
Visit the site: https://www.fz-juelich.de/en
About The Client
With more than 7000 scientists and employees, the Forschungszentrum Jülich" (FZJ), is one of the largest research institutions in Europe.
After 18 months of development, the main portal fz-juelich.de was relaunched with Plone in April 2022, together with 11 institute websites, more than 80 institute department websites, and hundreds of other FZJ websites.
All FZJ websites use the modern Plone 6 stack that consists of a Plone backend, Plone REST API and the new ReactJS-based Volto frontend.
Project Facts
Plone 5.2 + Volto 14 (Plone 6 Frontend)
Project Duration: 18 Months (November 2020 – April 2022)
Launch: Begin of 2022
Hundreds of Websites
Plone runs the main portal under fz-juelich.de and hundreds of institutes, institute departments, organizational and project subsites, and individual websites. Editors can create subsites with a simple mouseclick, just like any other content type in Plone. New Plone sites can be created by filling out a simple form and a mouse click. Subsites can be individualized with a custom logo, custom colors and custom fonts by changing those settings in a control panel. Examples of separate subsites are www.hi-ern.de and www.tagderneugier.de.
All subsites can use content from each other. News items can be aggregated from instittute and subsites from the main portal. Subsites can show news items and other content from the portal if needed.
Plone Plays Well with Others
The site comes with multiple integrations. Editors can login with their central user credentials from the AD/LDAP. Member profile information is automatically synced from AD/LDAP. Job offers for the carrer website are automatically synced with the HR system of the FZJ.
Powerful Enterprise Search
A powerful search not only offers all the enterprise features that you'd expect from a search (fuzzy search, search facets, etc.) is also allows the users to search across all FZJ subsites as well as restrict the search to individual subsites.
Open Source Add-Ons
The following add-ons have been developed, improved and open sourced as part of the project:
- volto-blocks-grid
- volto-slider-block
- volto-carousel-block
- volto-separator-block
- volto-button-block
- volto-heading-block
- volto-text-with-background-color
- volto-dsgvo-banner
- collective.embeddedpage
You can see all those blocks in action on fz-juelich.de.
Provider
kitconcept GmbH is a Plone agency from Bonn and Barcelona. kitconcept has been a driving force behind the development of Volto, the new frontend for Plone 6.