Drupal 7 FAQ

Want a question answered that's not covered here?

Submit a ticket to request additional assistance. 

How do I get access to a Drupal site?

The site administrator has to create an account for you to log into a Drupal site. If you don't know who that is on your site, you can submit a ticket and we'll look up the site admins and provide their contact information for you.

Your site admin can refer to our User Management Guide if they aren't sure how to make an account for you.

If you get an error message when you try to log in, your site admin can fix the problem by following the instructions at the bottom of that User Management guide.

How do I log in to my Drupal 7 site? 

While it's on the staging server, use sitename-stage.calpoly.edu/user to log in. After your site goes live, remove "-stage" from the URL. 

Why do I get an error message when I try to log in?

That happens when your account was created incorrectly, and can be fixed by your site administrator following the instructions at the bottom of that User Management guide.

How do I get a new site? 

Request a new site by filling out this request form. Sites are free and come with self service documentation and technical support is available if you submit a ticket.

I want to delete a page, but first need to make sure no one is linking to it. 

To see if pages on my own site link to this page, go to Manage My Site, then Page Links, and in the Link URL Filter box, type in the page URL, then Apply.

You should also be on the lookout for other sites (especially other Cal Poly sites) using your old address so you can ask them to update their links.

Searching the web and using Cal Poly site's search boxes for a combination of your site name and old site address can help you find outdated links. It can sometimes be difficult to find out who can makes changes a site using your old link, but if that site is on Drupal, you can submit a ticket to ask the us to look up the site admins for you.

Remember, it's always a good idea to check the broken link report after removing pages, just to be safe. Go to Manage My Site and click Broken links. 

I saved my changes but nothing happened

This is usually caused by one of two things:

1. You saved your changes as a Draft, but did not Publish them yet
2. Drupal's cache hasn't updated yet. The cache updates automatically, but it may take up to an hour for your changes to appear publicly.

I added a page to my menu but it doesn't appear

Make sure the page is Published. Unpublished Drafts will not appear in any menu until they're set to Published. 

How do I make links open in a new window? 

Double click on the links to open the link dialog box. Click the Target tab, then select New Window (_blank).

Links from the main Cal Poly home page

If the main Cal Poly home page has outdated (or no) information for your website or department, send an email to Marketing and Communications to update it. You should check the A-Z index periodically, or if your department has changed names, to make sure it's pointing to the correct website. Marketing and Communications also maintains the University's Google Keyword list, so please contact them if you need updates.

I'm having a hard time navigating outside of a template I inserted

The most surefire way to navigate in and out of templates you might be using in CKEditor is to utilize the Source view and make sure you start adding new content outside of the template's code.

If you're not familiar with code, it can help to add several extra returns before adding a template, and then inserting the template in the middle of those returns. This leaves some blank space before and after that you can click into to add other content.

Why do my uploaded images for News items not display?

If your uploaded image is resulting in broken image icons on your News items, or lists of news items, check the size of your uploaded image. While the help text next to the "Upload Image" button indicates up to a max image size of 50MB, in reality the size that the system can handle is much smaller. Try to reduce image size to 10MB or less.