Creating and managing a flexible site for 1,000 editors

Pamela Agar – Head of Digital and Creative Media, Communications and Public AffairsManjuka Tennakoon - Product and Technical Domain Manager, ICT

• 2007 project last major review of site – little change since then to core templates

• Cross-College project launched in 2012 to review and redesign site

• Scope grew and changed until site finally launched in December 2014

• Partnered with Domain7 and TERMINALFOUR

2012-14 website redesign project

Scale of Imperial web content

College CMS: • 441 current live ‘page groups’• 42,647 ‘live’ pages • Most content in professional services• Majority of sites research groups in

Natural Sciences and Engineering• Many pages will be redundant

Medicine CMS: • 12,000 pages, 12 main folders

• Currently 1,100 editors across both systems

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Sites

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Our web support structure

Communications and Public Affairs- Designer/Developers- Web Training and

Support- Content strategy

ICT- Developers- Editor help desk

Faculty Web Officers

College-wide web editor community

Project objectives

1. Make the site compatible with mobile devices2. Refresh the design 3. Renew our audience research4. Organise content in a better, user-focused way5. Change content management technology6. Meet level AA accessibility

Guiding concepts

1. Allow flexibility: Smooth internal systems, optimized for the current culture

Choices of templates and tools Guidelines and best practice advice

2. Utility everywhere: Give your audiences efficient search and shortcuts

Improve navigation User centric architecture De-clutter site

3. Invite outsiders in: Appeal to both emotion and logic in external decision-making, by providing with evocative inspiration and top actions

Improve content, reflect brandRedesigned and modern templatesImproved navigation User centric architecture

4. Promote who we are: Publish timely research, education and translation breakthroughs constantly

News across site CMS capabilities to share content Remember – every page is a homepage

Creating flexibility within a brand and best practice framework

Templates and content types

• Three landing page templates• One content page template• Navigation resets throughout IA to enable

departments to create homepages with local nav

Offering choice

• Add content types to that framework• Over 50 content types created,

including tabs, accordions, videos, call-to-action buttons, columns, news and events feeds and social media feeds

• Plus – a general content area • Eight colour themes offered to all

editors

Variety within the templates

Limiting choice!

• Developed and integrated image crop tool as a new Input Type• Sensitive to content area activated from and only offers relevant size(s)• Create 3 different resolutions for different media types

Limiting choice!

• Context aware editor (TinyMCE)• Only offer input options that are relevant to content type being addede.g: General content editor

Limiting choice!

Carousel

Limiting choice!

3 Column general content block

Further Input Types being integrated

People and Research groups • Back-end standalone Java applications• PHP front-ends to work in T4• Input types for seamless integration

Handling 1,000+ editors

Editor groupings

• Adding editors to roles in AD, managed by Faculty Web officers• Imported to T4 SM hourly• Editor groups are created and added to branches in T4 centrally.• Groups are populated by Faculty Web officers

Access control

• Based on T4 code• Active Directory based authentication• Recursive group search• Authentication code added to login page for security (removed from

‘Code Before Section’)• AD Naming convention agreed for ease of management

Document access control

• Works in conjunction with hierarchy access control• Secure documents in ‘internal’ category• ‘Internal’ folder can be created anywhere• Access denied to ‘internal’ documents by default• No secure URL list or full site publish involved

Media Library SM Hierarchy

Migrating 60,000 pages

Our approach

• No automatic migration for any sites• Launched in December 2014 with top level of site and sample set of

departmental and group sites• Planned to migrate all pages into TERMINALFOUR within 12 months of

launching the site• Timetabled large sites (over 100 pages) to spread load on training and

support during year• Timed slots for strategically important or time specific (e.g. Festival,

Graduation, New Students etc) • Encouraged smaller site owners to sign up for training when they felt

ready throughout the year

• Part time temp for year, and additional temp for last three months to support “long tail” of sites

The process

1. Content type training and overview of designs first2. Site map planning and review3. Half day in-house TERMINALFOUR training or 1-2-1 introduction4. New site created in hidden “under construction” area5. Central auditing and review of site pre go-live6. Friday release cycle accompanied by redirect creation

What’s next?

The end of the project

• Complete the migration• Currently migrated 36% of sites in Oracle, representing 60% of total pages. • A further 32% of pages are in the process of migrating

• Continue to develop and improve content types to offer more choice and flexibility for our editors

• Focus on events calendar and forms• Review and evaluate project – continual improvement rather than

future redesign

Thank youAny questions?