Implementing dual Intranets (one published, one not) within Rhythmyx 6.7

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1

Hello.

Is it possible to create two(2) separate Intranet web sites to be implemented within Rx 6.7 with the following:

  1. differing templates look and feel
  2. SAME or similar content
  3. differing navigation
  4. with one being in production (live) and one not on production.

We want to dump our existing Intranet content into Rx, then publish it to production, while at the same time build and maintain the same/similar content on another UN-published version with the above 1,2,3,4 specs. Currently going through an Intranet re-design, starting with a content cleanup exercise (that will take approximately a year and 1/2) and we need a “staging area” of sorts to store the same content AS WELL AS some cleaned-up content pieces in the meantime as we go along. Normally it would probably not make sense to dump a soon-to-be-dead web site into a CMS, but we need an easier way to manage the content while going through this re-design in the meantime.

The endgame being “turning-off”/unpublishing the old site and turning-on/publishing the new cleaned-up site. Sorry if this post is a bit wordy, but I wasn’t sure how to briefly inquire about the feasibility of this.

Is this just a simple matter of dumping our existing site into Rx, then cloning it and updating files as they are being cleaned? Can this be done with a different look and feel? Or is there a more simplified way.

My manual is not very helpful in explaining this.

Not sure if this the correct Forum, so apologies.

Please help. Thanks!

2

Short answer: 1. yes, 2. yes, 3. yes, 4. yes. And to answer a couple more of your questions,

Is this just a simple matter of dumping our existing site into Rx, then cloning it and updating files as they are being cleaned?

IMHO, so I encourage to seek other opinions as well, but no.

Can this be done with a different look and feel?

Yes.

Or is there a more simplified way.

If there is, I seriously would welcome guidance on the process!

IMHO, you are asking “can it be done?” which is a technical question and, yes, this is all technically possible. IMHO, the well-documented high failure rate of WCMS implementation projects is because project teams don’t realize that the really difficult yet most critical aspect is on the BUSINESS PROCESS side which needs to muck through answering “how will we go about it?” But back to the technical side…

The devil is always in the details. And of course you should not be doing this on your production environment. Best practice is to minimize risk by changing as few things (ideally, only one thing) at a time. Otherwise, how can you know what exactly caused a problem? The way you describe the situation, it sounds to me like multiple separate projects.

  • Implementing new system functionality: adding a second Site with a new Information Architecture (IA or Site structure or navigation scheme) and its associated publishing configuration.
  • Defining and testing a new business process (clean-up of production content across a full Site inventory).
  • Migrating content of an existing Site to a new IA without any downtime of the Site.
  • Re-design of the presentation aspects (the look-and-feel, the branding, the display aspects) of an existing site.

You can find all 6.7 documents at http://help.percussion.com/cmsystem/index#6.7 but in particular you want to download the pdf for “Rhythmyx Implementation Guide Version 6.7.” In general, I’d say that the section “Rhythmyx Implementation Roadmap” on page 12 applies to all four projects to some extent or another. It has an overview of setting up a new Site with pointers to pages with more detail. You’ll need to read and decide for your own purposes how much you need to do, but at minimum it sounds like the following sections of the document will be relevant.

3 Set up the basic framework for your Site Folders and navigation hierarchy
6 Create your Global template (see “Implementing Global Templates” on page 169).
[sounds as if you can skip step 7 as long as both Sites will use the same exact Content Types]
8 Create your local and shared Templates (see page 125).
9 Completing the set up of your Site Folders and navigation hierarchy (see “Managed Navigation” on page 279).
11 Configure site folder publishing.
12 Deploy your Rhythmyx components to your integration environment, and, after testing, to your production environment.

HTH and I hope others way in. Good luck!