Ektron 9.00
Setting Up Your CMS Folder Structure
Folders are containers for contenttypes of content include HTML, XML Smart Forms, forms, polls, surveys, DMS documents, Office documents, multimedia, blogs, Web calandars, discussion boards, assets, and content imported from Sharepoint.. Ektron provides the following types of folders:
At their core, all Web content management systems serve the same purpose: to manage content. The only real difference among systems is the way in which that content is used. You can divide content into 3 categories:
The following base CMS folder structure uses the 3 categories to organize your content to provide sufficient separation of roles, search scopes, and content purpose to satisfy most Ektron implementations. You can further sub-divide the structure. The structure may be your root architecture in a single-site instance, or developed within site folders in a multi-site environment.
This structure lets you clearly identify configuration roles, resource roles and content versus page layout roles with user groups and setup permissions accordingly. The folder structure gives you an easy means of keeping unwanted content from showing up in the site search results by having clearly defined locations for the various content types and functions.
By dividing the content data into categories that are based on how the content is used in the application, everything else falls into place more easily.
The following menus and button appear across the top of the View Contents of Folder screen. Depending on your permissions, you may not see all menu options.
For information on the Add Asset button (), see Working with Assets in the Document Management System.
Lets you create and upload new items into the folder.
Lets you display information about existing content in the folder.
Lets you delete folders or content within a folder.
Lets you perform actions on the folder or content within the folder.
The View Contents of Folder screen features a context-sensitive, drop-down menu of options you can perform for a content item.
The options displayed depend on several factors, such as
To see the menu options for any content item:
Each folder lists the following information about its content.
To view a folder, follow these steps.
NOTE: You can only view folders for which your system administrator has granted permission. See Also: Managing Folder and Content Permissions
NOTE: The View menu option lets you filter content by type. For example, you can set it to view only HTML content. Therefore, you may only see content of a selected type in the folder.
To further organize content on your website, create folders to store related content.
You can modify the folder’s properties, permissions, approval chainA series of users or user groups who must approve content before it can be published., and so on.
The folder properties screen lets you set permissions and approvals for a folder. You can also assign or modify the folder’s metadata, Web Alerts, and Smart Forman Ektron-defined Web page that contains XML (hidden from the end user) to display content, and receive, verify, and save user input.s.
Prerequisite
Only members of the Administrator Group and those defined in the Manage Members for Role: Folder User Admin screen can view, add, or edit folder properties. (See Also: Defining Roles) In addition, if a user is not a member of the Administrators group, the user must be given permission for individual folders on the View Permissions for Folder screen. (See Also: Managing Folder and Content Permissions)
NOTE: If you are using an eCommerce catalog, see Creating Product Types and Catalogsfor a description of the Product Types screen. If you are using a Web Calendar folder, see Viewing System Calendar Properties.
The Folder Properties screen contains these toolbar buttons.
The Properties screen lets you set the following folder properties, arranged by tab:
Properties tab
This style sheet affects content being edited. It does not necessarily affect the content’s appearance on your website. To set or edit the style sheet that determines your Web pages’ appearance, open the page’s Web form and place a <link rel=”stylesheet”...
tag within its <HEAD>
tags. If desired, you can identify the same style sheet in both locations. To include user-selectable styles, they must be generic classes.
The Ektron editor ignores the CSS custom properties caption
and visible
. To address this problem for Internet Explorer, replace them with the custom CSS properties localeRef, caption
and visible
. For other browsers, use the custom CSS selectors localeRef
and unselectable
(same as visible: false
). To achieve cross-browser compatibility, use both approaches. Non-IE browsers have no equivalent forcaption
.
Taxonomy tab—See Assigning Categories to a Folder
Templates tab—See Working with Templates
Flagging tab—See Assigning a Flagging Definition to a Folder
Metadata tab—See Working with Metadata
Web Alerts tab—See Assigning a Web Alert to a Folder or Content
Smart Forms tab—See Working with Smart Forms
Product Types tab—See Creating Product Types
Breadcrumb tab—See Creating a Sitemap Breadcrumb Trail
Site Alias tab—See Creating a URL Alias for a Site
Aliasing tab—See Creating User-Friendly URLs with Aliasing
You can copy a folder and paste it into another folder. Or you can cut and paste one folder into another. Cut and paste is synonymous with move.
These users can copy or move folders.
See Also: Defining Roles
calendar(1)
.The following folder types can be copied or moved into other folder types.
You can delete obsolete folders from the Ektron website.
NOTE: The top-level folder, Root, cannot be deleted nor renamed.
WARNING! Deleting a folder permanently deletes the content and Quicklinks that belong to the folder and all of its subfolders. You cannot retrieve deleted content.
WARNING! Purging permanently deletes content. You cannot retrieve purged content.
The Purge History option lets you delete historical versions of content in a folder. For more information on content versioning, see Managing Versions of Content.
Purging is generally performed due to storage space concerns or to clear away obsolete versions before going live or migrating a site. Before purging, make sure you are aware of any organizational or legal data retention policies.
When purging, you can:
Prerequisite
Only administrators and users identified on the Manage Members for Role: Folder User Admin screen can purge history.
To purge the history for a folder:
Permissions determine which actions Ektron users and user group members can perform on content, library items, and content folders. For example, you let your Webmaster perform advanced actions, such as adding folders, editing folder properties, and deleting folders. At the same time, you let content contributors only view, edit, and add content.
You can set permissions for a folder or content item. Content item permissions override the associated folder permissions. When you assign permissions to a folder, they affect all of its subfolders and content unless you break inheritance for a subfolder or content item.
Only Ektron administrators and users identified on the Manage Members for Role: Folder User Admin screen can set permissions. See Also: Using the Roles Screens
NOTE: You can view and update membership users by selecting Membership users from the User Type drop-down menu; see Assigning Membership Permissions
IMPORTANT: All members of the Administrators group have all permissions for all Ektron folders. Although these users do not appear when you view a folder’s permission settings, they have full permissions.
You manage the following permissions through the Permission Table.
NOTE: Use the Roles screens to assign permissions not defined in the Permissions Table, such as the ability to create tasks. See Also: Defining Roles
To access the permissions table:
The Permissions Table displays each user or group’s abilities to perform actions on content in the selected folder. Because all permissions cannot fit on one screen, click the Advanced tab to see additional actions.
NOTE: To let users copy or move content, assign the Move or Copy role. See Also: Defining Roles
Standard permissions
Advanced permissions
IMPORTANT: If a user is assigned any of the following roles, the user can create,edit, and delete collections regardless of the user's Collections folder permission: Collection and Menu Admin, Collection Admin, Collection Approver.
An approval chainA series of users or user groups who must approve content before it can be published.’s inheritance is determined by the corresponding permission table. If a folder’s permission table inherits settings from its parent folder, that folder’s approval chain also inherits.
The Approval Chain screen only displays its inheritance status; it does not let you set it.
By default, all content folders and items inherit permissions from their parent folder. You have 2 options for modifying permissions.
NOTE: Before adding users or groups, you must break inheritance. See Breaking Inheritance. If a user and a user group to which that user belongs are both given permission to a folder, the user has all permissions to which he/she is assigned as well as permissions assigned to the group. You can only assign Read Only permission to a Membership user or group. See Also: Membership Users and Groups.
NOTE: Check Enable All to assign all standard permissions. If you do, you still must assign advanced permissions by hand.
NOTE: When you delete the permissions of a user or user group, that change is propagated to all subfolders and content that inherit the permissions. Also, if the user or group was part of a workflow, they are removed from it. Setting Up Your CMS Folder Structure
NOTE: Remember to toggle between standard and advanced permissions.
Users can only add, edit, or delete content in folders if they have traverse permission for its parent folders all the way up to root. If the folder to which you assign permissions is not the root folder, you must grant the user the Traverse Folder permission to all folders above that folder. Otherwise, the user cannot navigate to the folder. For example, consider the following folder structure.
To let a user edit the Book Store folder only and no other folders, assign to the user Traverse Folder permission for the 2 folders above Book Store: CMS400Demo and Folders (root folder).
Prerequisites
- Traverse permission to the folder containing the content, and all folders above it
- Edit permission for the content
NOTE: If Allow this object to inherit permissions is already checked, you cannot uncheck this box. The content in this folder is private and can only be viewed by authorized users and members; see Making Content Private. In that case, this folder is inheriting this setting from its parent folder.
An approval chain is a series of users or user groups who must approve content before it can be published to your website.
An approval chain lets you control how and when your website is updated. For example, if your Web master needs to approve every new content item or update of an existing item, the Web master would be last member of every approval chain and exert total control over the site.
Alternatively, you could set up a less centralized organization, where each department head controls a section. To accommodate this, set up an approval chain for each department, and assign the department head as the last member of the chain. When the last person in the chain approves content, it goes live. Also, if a user deletes content, before it is removed from Ektron, it must pass through the approval chain.
On the opposite extreme, you can delete the approval chain for a content item or folder. In this case, every item in that folder is published as soon as a user submits it for publication.
You can approve, edit, or decline content submitted to you or your user group. The following chart illustrates the approval process.
NOTE: An approver can edit the content and publish it, unless Force All Approvers is set, in which case an edit by any approver would cause the approval chain to start over.
You can create approval chains for a folder and content within a folder. If a content approval chain exists, it overrides the folder approval chain. You can also set up an approval chain for a language.
An approval chain can include any number of users or user groups.
NOTE: Only members of the Administrators group and users assigned to the Folder User Admin Role screen can modify the approval chain. See Also: Defining Roles
Ektron can automatically send email notification, informing users that content work flow events have either taken place or are requested of them. For example:
The list of automatic emails and directions for customizing their content are described in Customizing Ektron email with Variables.
Finally, the Approval Method determines if content must be approved by all users in the chain, or only users higher up the chain than the one making the edits. See Setting the Approval Method.
Prerequisite
Only Administrators group members and users assigned to the Folder User Admin Role screen can modify the approval chain See Also: Defining Roles
Before you can create or edit an approval chain, you must access the View screen.
The screen shows the following information about the approval chain.
Best Practice
Assign user groups (and not individual users) to an approval chain. In this way, if someone is out of the office, any group member can approve the content.
NOTE: Only users and user groups with permissions to the folder appear. See Adding a User or User Group to the Permissions Table for more information.
After you assign approvers to a folder, you may want to adjust the approval order. Place the user or group with final approval authority at the end of the approval chain (that is, the highest number). For example, if you have a content contributor whose edits must be approved by a department head, and the Webmaster has final review of all content, the approval order would look like this:
To edit the approval order:
WARNING! If a user is deleted from a folder's permissions table, the user is automatically deleted from the folder's approval chain.
You can change the approval chain for a specific content item. Use the View Content screen's Approvals button to do this.
- You must disable the inheritance of permissions for the content whose approval chain you want to edit. See Setting Permissions for Content.
- You must assign users or groups to the approval chain. Only users and user groups with permissions to the content may be assigned. See Managing Folder and Content Permissions.
If the approval chain is inherited, you must break inheritance.
NOTE: An approver can edit the content and publish it, unless Force All Approvers is set, in which case an edit by any approver would cause the approval chain to start over.
The following example follows a typical content block from creation to publication. Three users make up this approval chain.
Each user has different permissions that correspond to their roles.
The approval chain begins when a content contributor submits a new or edited content. If email is enabled, an email is sent to the next approver in the approval chain.
After the Sports Writer submits the content, the first user in the approval chain, Sports Editor, receives an email stating content needs approval. Sports Writer can change and approve the content or decline it.
Sports Editor logs into Ektron, navigates to the desktop, and sees the Content Awaiting Approval panel.
Sports Editor clicks the View All link and sees all content awaiting approval. The approvals folder window displays information such as title, who submitted it, go live date, and so on. Sports Editor clicks the submitted content.
The View Content Awaiting Approvals window appears listing all information necessary to decide whether to approve or decline the content. At the approval window, the Sports Editor has these options.
NOTE: An approver can edit the content and publish it, unless Force All Approvers is set, in which case an edit by any approver would cause the approval chain to start over.
For this example, choose Publish.
After the content is approved, the next approver in the approval chain receives an email saying that the content is ready for approval.
EditorInChief logs in to Ektron and accesses the Workarea. The Workarea has an Approval folder with the content awaiting approval. EditorInChief navigates through the Approval folder to the content Red Sox win World Series.
From this window, EditorInChief can view information about the content, including title, go live date, user who created it, and so on. EditorinChief then clicks the content to be approved.
This window is similar to the previous approver’s but includes a Publish button at the top of the screen. The EditorInChief has a Publish button (instead of a Submit button) because this user is the last approver in the approval chain. When the EditorInChief approves the content, it is published to the website.
Like the Sports Editor, the EditorInChief has the following options:
NOTE: An approver can edit the content and publish it, unless Force All Approvers is set, in which case an edit by any approver would cause the approval chain to start over.
After reviewing the content, the EditorInChief decides it is great and publishes it. At this point, the content becomes live on the website, and the approval chain is complete. The user who created the content receives an email notification that it was published.
The Approval Method determines if content must be approved by all users in the chain, or only users higher up in the chain than the user creating or editing the content. The approval method affects the approval process only if the person submitting or editing content is a member of the approval chain.
Two approval methods are available.
The Approval Method applies to all content in a folder, regardless of its language.
For example, assume the approval method is set as follows:
If the Approval Method is Force All Approvers, and the Department Head submits content, the content must be approved by the content contributor, then the department head, then the Webmaster before it is published.
If the Approval Method is Do Not Force All Approvers, and the Department Head submits content, the content must only be approved the Webmaster before it is published.
Prerequisite
If the approval chain is inherited, you must break inheritance.
By default, the approval method is set to Do Not Force All Approvers. To change the approval method for a content folder or item: