What Should I Know about Sites in Cascade Server 6.0?
Friday, April 10th, 2009 at 2:30pm -- Morgan Griffith
Although our customers use Cascade Server in many different ways, we realize that a large number of them utilize our CMS to manage not just one, but multiple websites. So with the release of Cascade Server 6.0, we created a a formal administrative component that will aid our users in organizing and managing content specific to a particular website; you'll know these components as "Sites." In previous versions of Cascade, Targets were used as the organizing principle around which each site was based. However, with Sites, organizations are able to more effectively segment and manage the content and configurations for each of their websites separately, while still maintaining the ability to share certain administrative components across them.
So, where in the system can I access Sites? What should I know about Sites before using them? What can you do with them? What can't you do with them? What will I be able to do with them? All good questions; let's get some answers.
Where in the system can I access Sites?
End-users (non-system administrators) can access Site content in the system (where applicable permissions apply) by selecting it from the drop-down menu at the top of the Cascade Server Interface:
Selecting a specific Site from the drop-down shown above will allow this Site to act as a filter that results in only assets specific to that websitebeing displayed in the Home and Administration areas.
For system administrators, the Site Management interface is accessible by clicking the new Cascade Server System Menu and selecting "Site Management." In this area, system administrators and power-users can create new sites and manage those that already exist in the system.
What should I know about Sites?
- All Home/Administration components are grouped by Site
- In the context of a specific Site, Targets are no longer available, and templates and content are decoupled from their publish destination (Target properties are redistributed at the Site and Page Configuration Level).
- Users are provided with contextual roles; Site-specific Roles and Global Area (interface) Roles now further specify and determine what content each user has access to when navigating the system.
- While not yet available system-wide, asset sharing across sites is possible with some assets. The following assets may be shared across Sites in Cascade Server 6.0:
- Asset Factories
- Data Definitions
- Workflow Definitions
- Metadata Sets
- Publish Sets
- Transports
- Blocks
- Formats
- Changes and additions to the user interface include: Site chooser (available in the Global Area), System Menu, Site-specific Tools menu, Site Management interface, and the Site Migration wizard/interface.
What can't I do with Sites?
As was mentioned above, sharing of assets across Sites is available for some assets, but not system-wide.
**Assets that are not immediately shareable across Sites with the release of Cascade Server 6.0 include Templates, Configuration Sets, and Content Types:
- Templates in the Global Area can not be used by other Sites because these templates are tied directly to Targets, a relationship that does not exist at the site level. Templates that belong to Sites will be shareable across Sites in an early release of Cascade 6.x.
- Page Configuration Sets in the Global Are will never be usable by other Sites because they do not contain all of the serialization and output properties that are required of Page Configurations on a Site. Page Configuration Sets that belong to Sites will be shareable across Sites in the same release that Template sharing is enabled.
- Content Types that belong to Sites will also be shareable across Sites in this same release.
What will I be able to do with Sites in future releases?
In a future 6.x release of Cascade Server, users will be able to share templates across sites. In future releases, more robust sharing of assets across Sites will also be available. Linking of inline text in the WYSIWYG to pages and files from other Sites will also become available in an upcoming release.Additionally, System Preferences that are now available and applied at the global-level will become more granular and applicable at the site-level in future releases.
Site copying is another functionality addition that we're considering adding to an upcoming Cascade Server release. If you'd like to suggest future Site functionality or features to be added in an upcoming release of Cascade Server, please visit our Cascade Server Idea Exchange.
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