Posted: Friday 25th June 2010
Every web project is unique - in size, in design, in complexity, and most importantly in customer and end-user expectation. Take a look at the main stumbling blocks of most web projects and see how a Contensis based solution can deliver better results.
Regardless of the broad spectrum of projects to accommodate, I believe a re-launch with fresh paint and strong content can be achieved on every one. When looking back at some of the complexities, worries and work load on projects we (Contensis implementation team) have undertaken this has sometimes seemed unachievable. However, time after time, projects are completed. More importantly they are manufactured to meet the high expectations of our clients and their users.
You may be managing a project in the initial phases right now and wondering how you will cope with some of the following. In my opinion these are some of the elements of a project that at first can seem daunting to a web team:
Dealing with the project size
The size of the project will always seem a little scary but Contensis reduces the complexity inherent in large implementations.
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Users and user groups are assigned to the project and each user is assigned to a particular part of the website or workflow. Folder structures build upon themselves from the efforts of each or any of these groups and are combined quickly into a full website structure. Structure and content can also be automated by migrating data from legacy websites and back-end systems.
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New content also starts to become more apparent as each of your web editors gets acquainted with the Contensis editor
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The publishing service keeps ticking over, gradually, but surely building a test version of your website.
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The bulk of your content is created and you have started to shape your project.
Realising the design
When you first get a finalised design emailed to your desk you can sometimes draw a blank as to how you’re going to cut this into templates that will handle tens of thousands of pages, each with unique content that may require special formatting. You soon get an eye for it though and it’s made easier by taking full advantage of the toolbox provided by Contensis to tackle just this problem.
Contensis provides easy methods to assign CSS, register Javascript and build your server-side scripting (VB) within your templates. A huge range of web controls are available to automatically generate menus, sitemaps and searches, data lists and accessibility solutions.
Layout templates can be re-used to create other template by taking advantage of template nesting capabilities.
A template can be as open or as fixed as you require:
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Flexible or fixed editing regions – specify text only, allow/disallow styles, set content type usage, and specify max image widths and heights!
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Multiple placeholders – define multiple editing regions
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Nested templates – you can build templates using other sub-templates
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Create sub layouts - you can nest templates within a page to allow flexibility to the page editor – they decide at page level whether they want 1 or 2 columns, a floated image with caption or even the little tabbed Jquery widget. They can simply drag and drop from your template library. Alternatively, you can fix a template down to the point where the page editor can only insert text, or an image at a fixed / cropped size.
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Style management – You can use the same template and easily assign different styles at folder level
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Structured content – create news, events etc using pre-built structured data templates so your data remains consistent over time
Adding rich content
We very rarely find the content too complex to deal with.
Contensis easily handles some of the most widely used digital media and provides options for inserting media such as Adobe Flash, playing and customising Adobe Flash Video, listening to Podcasts, or browsing images in a light box.
Controlling content quality
Confidently creating standards compliant and quality checked web pages is a necessity for most organisations.
Contensis automates quality checking to help web editors’ correct mistakes in spelling and accessibility. Simple to use Microsoft Office import tools are also at hand which allow us to deal with some pretty strange content formatting too! Simply import the content from a Microsoft Word document or copy it from a webpage and format the results in a web friendly way.
Post go-live – keeping content fresh
In the past I’ve seen web projects reach go-live and then work would stop for 6 months – or even longer. I’m sure you’ve experienced this! With Contensis at your disposal content can always keep fresh. You can set pages to expire or automatically notify your users that the content needs review. Page editors have the freedom and tools to update their particular section content and make it look good. Easy to use data listing controls, RSS, metadata and taxonomies means your latest and most important content can always be found - on your website and through search engines.
As you can see Contensis helps us tackle some of the main worries associated with website development every single day.
'The proof is in the pudding' so here are some references Contensis projects: