North American Dental Group — Scalable Multisite Platform

Led development of a scalable Drupal multi-site platform for North American Dental Group, enabling centralized management of ~50 dental practice websites while maintaining limited local control for individual offices.

Client: North American Dental Group

Role: Tech Lead

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The Problem

North American Dental Group operated a large network of dental practices, each with its own independently managed website.

This created several issues:

  • Inconsistent branding across locations
  • Fragmented content management, with no central oversight
  • High operational overhead, requiring developer involvement for updates and new site launches

As the organization expanded, this model didn’t scale. They needed a system that could:

  • Enforce brand consistency
  • Centralize control under a single content team
  • Allow new practice sites to be launched quickly without developer involvement

The Solution

I took over as lead developer and restructured the platform into a unified Drupal multi-site architecture.

Each practice site was provisioned through a shared codebase, ensuring consistency while allowing controlled flexibility.

Key aspects of the solution:

Centralized Platform Architecture

  • All ~50 sites ran on a single Drupal installation
  • Shared theme and modules ensured consistency and simplified maintenance
  • Platform-wide updates could be deployed once and applied everywhere

Controlled Customization Model

  • Practice-level users could update:
    • Staff listings
    • Office hours
    • Photos and basic content
  • Network administrators retained full control over:
    • Layouts and templates
    • Global content and configuration
    • Feature rollouts

Reusable Theming System

  • Developed a custom Drupal theme using Twig templates based on provided designs
  • Enforced strict layout consistency across all sites
  • Allowed limited branding flexibility via:
    • Logo uploads
    • Predefined color palettes

Streamlined Site Provisioning

  • Leveraged Acquia Site Factory to enable rapid creation of new practice sites
  • Configured reusable site templates and module configurations
  • Eliminated the need for custom builds per location

Results

The new platform significantly improved scalability and operational efficiency:

  • Faster site launches — new practice websites could be created quickly using predefined templates
  • Reduced developer involvement — content teams could manage most updates independently
  • Consistent branding across all locations
  • Simplified maintenance through a single shared codebase

This transformed a fragmented set of individual websites into a cohesive, centrally managed platform that could scale with the organization’s growth.