We would like to have notification banner (from our end) so we can inform over 100+ users all over the locations. We will also send out email as well. See my mockup attached…
I too would like something like this… within the publishing box perhaps a switch with a text box and color options?
Maintenance Message : On / Off
Background Color : {Red, Yellow, Orange, etc}
Message (~50 characters max) : “Maintenance will begin at 10am, all services will be unavailable.”
I would use it most during site publishes. Currently, our full publish takes so long that sometimes our users forget it is running and attempt a single-page publish which causes the full publish to fail.
Same here BrianA. My current publish takes almost 2 hours.
I place important notes on my website page for users to read, but find most has bookmarked the system and bypass my website.
So while I like this for reminders for updates, I also like it in a different color for notifications for changes in procedures - or - something that is similar but also high level.
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Ability to display messages to users in admin area.
Currently when we run a full site publish, it can take anywhere from 1 to 2 hours. During that time Percussion freezes up when people are trying to make changes to their pages and or upload documents/images.
It would be really nice if we could do one of the two if not both items:
-
When a user clicks the publish button they are greeted by a popup informing them that a full site publish is running and their publish could take a little while.
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Have a message area at the top that tells the user there is a full site publish running and that their publish could take a while.
People in our organization tend to freak out and try republishing the page in every browser they have before calling us.
It would also be nice if the system did lock up when a publish is running. There has to be a more effective way to run a full site publish.
Here is my process:
1 - Everything comes through me for review & final approval
2 - I review through the day, but do not approve until it’s time for publishing (incase there are emergency requests from Communications & Marketing)
3 - I run a publishing at 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. each day
4 - The full publishing takes 30 minutes to run
5 - I review the log files, to ensure all took
One of the reasons there is a Webmaster review, is to look for any accessibility issues, scan for misspellings or broken links, and of course check the images to ensure compliance with website guidelines.
While many would not want to use this workflow, I am able to look for any potential issues or mistakes/problems prior to going live. After all, your credibility can be compromised the moment of publication.
Because I am reviewing the entire site (made of 176 websites), I’m also able to cross reference things as needed, give the users recommendations on layout changes, and etc.
** How does everyone else here do their publishing?
Well we have updwards of 4,000+ pages being managed in Percussion with a 2 man team in the webmasters office so our process is a little different. When I started here 3 years ago, all of our site masters had the ability to publish straight to the public facing website. This is still the case here. No one reviews their work at all. I’m starting to see the issue of compliance creep in and I would love to take your approach on the website but it takes us around 2 hours to do a full site publish so I can only do this after 5:00 pm.
1 - Everything comes through me and JP for review and final approval
2 - We only publish every Wednesday and Friday in the morning.
Regarding accessibility issues, do you have a plugin or any software that detect it? I am very curious about it. If not, how do you “look” at it?
When I do my editing, it takes an average of 20 to 30 minutes to run a full publish.
But I have it so that there is one content editor for each site and then 2-3 contributors. Each of them can do a submission, however it all funnels into me for that final approval.
I’ve never gotten any complaints on the system being sluggish or slow, even during the time I’m running the publish. But I have Percussion in a cluster and it pushes to two live servers that are load balanced.
When we have had inclement weather, many of us are even able to VPN and also use remote desktop and do our edits, and I can publish pages (they only take a few seconds to go live) or do full-publishes and still have never had any lag.
I checked and I have 2008 live pages, but we are file heavy.
** Do you think because I have 1/2 the amount of pages, this is why I do not experience slows or freezes or it is the setup?
I was doing the accessibility via “looking at it” - but recently purchased a web governance tool to assist me with accessibility, spelling, link checking and analytics. I needed a tool that could do automated reports for me to forward to editors.
Will you please provide me the link to “Web governance tool”? Thank you!
I emailed you the link with information.
Debbie,
Would you mind sharing your Workflow for this process? I’ve only setup one workflow and that was three years ago so it would be nice to see what you are doing.
Oh sure, I actually have it here: https://www.nsu.edu/website/publishin…
- I’m using Microsoft Outlook and categories / items are not marked read once received.
- I receive the item to approve via email
- I add the category of Publishing to it
- I review it
- One reviewed - I then mark it as read (no longer being BOLD).
>> this helps me keep my place - When the publishing cycle is approaching, I use the Assets by Status / Pages by Status to approve everything
- I then run the publish
- My workflow after publishing is at the bottom of the link above
- I move these emails to an archive named: APRIL 2015 once I’ve ensured they’ve gone live
(image below). These two files did go live, I’m just using them as an example.
Thank you for all of that information. Can you share your workflow inside Percussion? I would be interested in how you have that setup as well. If not, I totally understand.
Oh I see what your saying. Here is the workflow behind the scene (image below).
What I did was isolate anything scripted, by creating a folder in the /Assets/ root called: /navigation/. But for pieces I create for them to reuse as Rich Text, I put in a folder called: /widgets/. Their respective folders have locked folders with the .css or any needed .js inside, so they are still locked out.
They can edit their web pages, have a locked design to use, (generally 3 per site), and send me changes for navigation (I have specific guidelines for this) or their banners.
Here, we are required to have a workflow where everything that goes live, is approved by the webmaster. I even require that those using HTML fill out a form when they are using any scripts, so I can review the code in advance, and I require they either fill out a license for me or provide one - so I know the originator of the script. I only have four others using HTML in the system.
I have one main department design and one main website design, but I’m working on creating variations in the CSS - that lend to better “content design” - vice trying to steer away from overall website design.
Hope this helps and was not too far off topic? I think I have a different workflow for everything since the editors are Faculty/Staff and the Contributors are Faculty/Staff and Students - so this is not their full time jobs and few work with HTML.
Hi, my full publish takes 1.5 hrs and I often do individual page publishes during that time. I thought they just got qued. Is this a known problem? I have been having a bunch of publishing problems lately but mostly due to my DTS settings. Just got it all fixed up. I thought this was an acceptable practice?
Great Idea Aaron
I remember 30 min full publishes. My last one took over 5 hours!
Hi,
So I also posted that I would like to see, a mass messaging tool to all my cm1 users. All of the above sound like great options!
As for the work flow stuff I also have about 100+ users and 3000 - 4000 pages.
I have myself and one other person that mange the website.
I don’t know how you guys manage approving everything? I am so busy just with new development (new sub sites, building custom templates for users) installing and integrating in different 3rd party tools like shareThis and our academic database, cm1 maintenance, trouble shooting functionality issues, training new staff and keeping up with staff turn over, managing the formstack and mailchimp accounts, that there is no way I could take the time to approve all content.
I understand where you are coming from for consistency and I will admit that this can be an issue on my site, however to funnel everything through one person kind of defeats the purpose of having a cms to me.
When I train my staff I meet with management level first and let them know that they (their department) are responsible/ accountable for content that goes out live on the website. Most management says that they have faith in their staff member that I am training and wants them to have access to publish out live. Thats why I love that cm1 tracks what user approved what, on what day and at what time. So there is accountability.
I had 13 rouge sites before we bought cm1. So sites where other departments weren’t happy with the level of service that I could provide, so they would go off campus with their own budget and get some WordPress or Drupal site built and do whatever they wanted, then come back to me a year later when things needed to be maintained and I had all these different systems I was trying to maintain. Want to talk about a consistency nightmare and no control on overall web branding!
This way I have one system to maintain, one system to train on, they have to accept accountability to maintain the content or they don’t get a page on the website, so they can’t use me as a bottle neck excuse for going outside. I can provide custom templates to meet all the needs of each area but I use my template design to maintain the over all branding of the sites and over all consistency.
I have 5 sub-sites that have completely different looks, but the over all Olds College brand is managed by me and marketing/communications as I design the custom templates.
I am now focusing on cm1 maintenance, trouble shooting, staff training, new development, interrogations, and analytics. It feels so great to have the time now to focus on overall site improvement, inquiry tracking strategies and the bigger picture stuff. My counter part is focusing on content consistency, SEO, overall visual design and constancy with marketing campaigns from print to web.
I think we are going to use Site Improve (its another software) to help mange overall spelling for the site content, broken links and things like that. It gives you overall reports on these things (with page breackdowns) so you don’t have to approach it on a page by page basis. You know what pages need more attention then others.
I use template design to manage a lot of the page layout. I lock lots of sections down, I force images to span the full width of the RT widgets and things like that to make it so they can’t messup the page layout too badly. If they aren’t happy with that, then I meet with them to discus what their needs are and I design them a custom template if necessary. I will admit I have a lot of templates. Probably over 100, so that can cause some other maintenance issues sometimes.
I have 35 different workflows that mostly manage who has access to what sections of the site, and I create a bunch of custom roles, like Student Services Manager, for example.
I scan and keep close tabs on my higher level high traffic pages and I keep the content pretty closely managed by me and my counter part on those pages, Home page, Programs landing page, Admissions page etc… I also give out access to the navigation section very seldomly, and I focus on managing the overall site architecture instead of the content.
If someone wants a new section on the site created they have to come through me.
My biggest issue is users uploading and using too large of images on their pages. I talk to them about image compression in their initial cm1 training session. Most of them don’t have access to photoshop or an image editing software, so I tell them to come to my other web girl if they need help formatting an image as well as inform them about copyright issues. They don’t, they just use what they have, so my counter part is trying to scan the site for these and fix them up as we hit them. I think because I make sure this is not happening on those high level key pages it hasn’t been that big of an issue so far.
Along with a responsive image handling solution, I am hoping that one day CM1 will come up with an auto image compression management system. Like FB does or even Word Press auto compresses some images on upload. Today’s users have just come to expect it, so much that they don’t even know that it needs to be done. Its all just handled in the background. Tricky though to do something like that and still leave it as customizable as it is for us web people that do know what we are doing.
Anyway good on you if can mange it all =) Just thought I’d share my approach in-case it might help someone out. Thats what is so great about cm1 you can roll it in whatever way works for you =) Hope my vote on the above issue helps =)