Drupal Multisite Governance Template for Universities
Model Preview
Drupal multisite governance is the set of roles, permissions, and workflows that decides who controls what across a university's websites. This template uses one split: the central team owns the platform and brand, and colleges own their content and editorial work. That split is enforced in deployed configuration, not in a policy document.
| Layer | What it covers | Who owns it |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | Codebase, modules, security updates, hosting | Central team |
| Brand | Theme, logo, colors, typography, shared components | Central team, applied to every site |
| Content | Pages, articles, and media for each college | Each college |
| Editorial | Running the workflow within central roles | Each college, within central rules |
The rule the template is built on: governance rules live in configuration deployed with the codebase, not in an admin screen. If a site admin can change a rule in the UI, it is a request, not a rule.
Four Questions
- Do your colleges need separate editors while sharing one database, language set, and compliance regime?
- Does any campus need its own compliance regime, languages, or data location?
- Does anyone own the platform layer today?
- Are you maintaining more than a handful of independent codebases?
Your answers point to Domain Access, Group, or true multisite. The template gives the branch to take on each answer.
Who Is This Template For?
Central web, digital, or IT leaders who own the platform at a university with a dozen or more college and campus sites. Use it when you are:
- Choosing between Domain Access, Group, and multisite
- Consolidating independent college sites
- Writing a governance policy that has to hold
- Preparing a public university's sites for ADA Title II
It skips the case for consolidation and goes straight to the working documents.
Policies Alone are Not Enough
Most universities treat web governance as a policy problem, handled by a committee and a brand book. In practice, it is an enforcement problem. Any rule the platform doesn't enforce (through a shared codebase, a cascading theme, and permissions set in code) gets negotiated away one college exception at a time.
That is why the template pairs role definitions with a permissions matrix and a workflow. The roles are the policy. The permissions make it real.
What's Inside
- Decision checklist. Four questions that place you on Domain Access, Group, or true multisite, with the branch to take on each answer.
- The four governance layers. What each covers, whether it is central or delegated, and a column to name the owner at your institution.
- Role definitions. Platform Owner, Brand Owner, Site Owner, Editor, Reviewer, and Publisher: what each owns, can do, cannot do, and escalates to.
- Permissions matrix. Drupal core and Content Moderation permissions by role, workflow transitions, and what changes under each setup.
- Content publishing workflow. A state diagram and full transition table, including what Varbase ships out of the box and what you configure.
- Brand-component review cycle. Six stages from request to deploy, with owners and target turnaround.
- Site-launch checklist. Governance, accessibility, performance, and SEO checks for each college or campus site.
- Quarterly content audit. Seven checks with owner and action columns, plus an escalation rule.
Vardot is a Drupal Diamond Certified Partner with 15+ years of experience and 200+ platforms delivered, including UNHCR, where 350+ sites were consolidated. See how we work with higher education and multisite platforms.