Taxonomy Framework - More than just intelligent classification

The Taxonomy Manager

From the core taxonomy perspective, we have a Taxonomy Manager which can be used to build and develop complex taxonomy to meet your requirements.

In the taxonomy editor you can see how many uses of a particular taxonomy node there are.

We have a standard format for importing taxonomy which is often very useful when your organisation uses a set predefined taxonomy, such as, in local government, the IPSV of local government Navigation List.

The taxonomy is completely localised , so you can enter the terms in multiple languages. This functionality means that you must only categorise data once, and when it is synchronised to a language variation there is no need to re-categorise.

Taxonomy in the editor

The taxonomy is polymorphic in nature, meaning that a node can exist in more than one place in the taxonomy tree.

When creating content or editing content, the taxonomy classification is made available in a number of ways, from dropdowns and checkboxes to full tree selection. Allowing either single or multiple node selection is straightforward.

Contensis has taxonomy selection built-in to many modules as standard, we have shown a screenshot of the Events Module which uses taxonomy for the categorisation of event location.

Taxonomy Synchronisation and Import

Contensis has a built-in method for importing and synchronising taxonomy. This is very useful when your taxonomy is defined externally, perhaps by a central body or another organised format.

In local government, for example, there is a host of standards including the IPSV, LGNL and many more. These definitions change and are updated regularly, so it is imperative that you can import the changes regularly or as they occur.

As with everything in Contensis, the taxonomy is available through our API , so if you do wish to build it from a data source other than the standard or user input , this is simple to achieve.

So, assuming you have categorised content against taxonomy, now the key is how we can use this data. We have a number of features that natively support the taxonomy.

We have listed some of these below:

Related Items by Taxonomy

This control allows for the auto-generation of links to other content based upon the context of the content you are viewing or based upon user selection.

As an example, you may have a page which is classified under the composer "Bach" and "sonatas". In this case the control would bring back all content available that is categorised under "sonatas" and "Bach". Obviously this is flexible so you could just choose to bring back all content classified under "Bach", if you so choose.

News

The News Module makes extensive use of taxonomy classification. Each article can be classified under different categories, and these categories will then be available to filter or search upon.

We have shown an example from the University of Wales, where they have a news portlet that is user-configurable.

The user can select the news classifications that they are most interested in and then save their choice. Every time they come back to the homepage they will see news they are interested in.

 

Events

The Events Module uses taxonomy classification for the location information and event category.

Multiple locations can be entered against a single event, and in this case the classification is a self-building auto-suggest taxonomy. As the user type new locations, they will be automatically added to the event location node of the taxonomy, and as other users attempt to enter events, after typing the first few characters, the possible locations will be suggested.

There are many other implementations of taxonomy categorisation throughout the CMS. Taxonomy classification is deeply ingrained into our development process.

The taxonomy classification can be used to filter any data appearing in any of the generic lists in Contensis from RSS feeds to a simple What's New.

If you want to use this functionality for other purposes, it is very straightforward to implement new solutions and, of course, covered in full on our Developer Training courses. All of the taxonomy functionality is fully available through the Contensis Open API .