Training

Hannon Hill provides both free and paid training programs for technical and non-technical users of Cascade CMS. All training sessions are recorded and links to the recordings are provided at no additional cost. Recordings can serve as valuable refreshers or for training new users.

Review the most common training options below and feel free to reach out to  training@hannonhill.com with questions for pricing or custom agendas.

Free Options

Cascade CMS Minicamp

We periodically provide a free training session to Developers and CMS Administrators. The next available date for the free Minicamp is Tuesday, July 8, 2025 from 1p - 5p ET. For more information and to sign up, visit here.

Annual End User Webinar

Once a year in the fall, Hannon Hill provides a free webinar for new content providers (“end users”).  When registration is announced, sign up to attend or at least receive a copy of the webinar recording.  Here is a link to the webinar from September, 2024.

Paid Options

The Cascade CMS Bootcamp is conducted over two and a half days. The first two days are given consecutively with an additional half-day scheduled soon after -to review topics, answer questions, and cover additional material.

The hands-on training teaches participants how to create and integrate the fundamental assets needed to build a website from scratch, taking full advantage of Cascade CMS. The majority of the content is directed to technical System Administrators and Developers.

Topics include but not limited to:

• Cascade Interface, Dashboard, Site Content Views
• Administration: Manage what users can see and do in Cascade
• An Heuristic Overview of Cascade’s Architecture; What is a Cascade site?
• Create and work with the Core Assets used to create pages
• Render Page Content dynamically using Velocity coding formats
• Use Velocity for Navigation, Breadcrumbs, Content Reuse (topics may vary)
• Publishing: Manage publishing and your page url’s
• Reports for Managing Content and Users
• Open Block, Dedicated time with Trainer

The Cascade CMS Groupcamp consists of two, consecutive, full-day sessions.  This hands-on training teaches participants how to create and integrate the fundamental assets needed to build a website from scratch, taking full advantage of Cascade CMS. The content is directed at technical System Administrators and Developers.

From speeding up onboarding of a new developer to having 1-2 users needing a refresher, this training covers the core skills you need to know. Groupcamp is perfect for organizations that don't need a large number of users trained and are okay with being part of a group training.

Topics Include but not limited to:

• Cascade Interface, Dashboard, Site Content Views
• Administration: Manage what users can see and do in Cascade
• An Heuristic Overview of Cascade’s Architecture, What is a Cascade site?
• Create and work with the Core Assets used to create pages
• Render Page Content dynamically using Velocity coding formats
• Use Velocity for Navigation, Breadcrumbs, Content Reuse (topics may vary)
• How to do development when working in a live site. 

Important Information

• This training is for Hannon Hill customers who have been with us for more than one year. Attendees need not have prior experience working in Cascade.
• Space is limited to facilitate an effective training session.
• A maximum of two users per organization will be enforced.
• Customers needing more than two users trained should contact the training team to ask about our dedicated Cascade CMS Bootcamp.

The next Groupcamp is scheduled for June 9-10, 2025.  Registration is now open.

Register for Groupcamp

Velocitycamp is a full-day session on working with the Velocity templating language in the context of Cascade CMS.  Velocitycamp is for developers with some experience in Cascade but wanting to expand their coding skills with Velocity.

This hands-on training consists of a series of coding exercises of increasing complexity that cover the range of coding problems involved in creating a website.

Topics Include but not limited to:

• How to do development when working in a live site
• Use of index blocks for visualizing XML data, Relationship with XPath
• Built in variables
• Basic syntax for accessing XML data, Looping & If statements
• Working with Arrays and Macros
• An Iterative Approach to Building Components
• Other Key Tools: LocatorTool & QueryAPI

Attendance is limited to 12 participants maximum to facilitate interaction during the session.  Attendees must have Cascade experience or have taken the Minicamp.

The next Velocitycamp is scheduled for July 29, 2025.  Registration is now open.

REGISTER FOR VELOCITYCAMP

Welcome-to-Cascade is offered to new customers who purchase an implementation project.  It provides an introduction to your Cascade environment including the processes your team will use to create, edit and manage content. It is a hands-on training oriented to Managers, Marketers, Administrators and other non-technical users of Cascade CMS.  

The training consists of three sessions:

• An initial two-hour session to acquaint your team with Cascade and set the stage for working with HH Services to plan your project.
• A full-day session scheduled at the completion of your project to instruct your team on how to create, edit and manage content in your main site.
• A half-day session to acquaint your team with any Modules provided by HH Services.

Topics Include but not limited to:

• Cascade Interface, Dashboard, Site Content Views.
• How to create, edit and manage content for different page types.
• How to organize and work with images, files (e.g., pdfs) and content blocks.
• Cascade features available for channeling the creation process, including the use of workflows.
• How to manage what users can see and do in Cascade.
• For purchasers of one or more of our Modules - an overview of how they work.
• Brief overview of the core assets that combine to generate your pages.

End User Training sessions are conducted over a maximum of two hours. The hands-on training is designed to introduce participants to Cascade CMS. End Users or Content Providers learn the basics of managing content within your specific Cascade CMS implementation subject to the Roles, Abilities, and processes you have in place.

Topics include, but not limited to:

• Logging In, Overview of the Cascade Interface
• Creating New Content via Asset Factories
• Organizing Reusable Content (blocks, images, documents)
• Editing WYSIWYG and Structured Content
• Content Checks - Spelling, Broken Links, Accessibility
• Content Collaboration - Workflow, Tasks, Comments
• Previewing, Comparing, Saving, and Publishing Content
• Additional Actions - Editing in Context, Review Dates, Versions, Audits

If you're not quite ready for the full customized end user training, we encourage you to take advantage of our generic end user training webinar recording. Your specific implementation can (and will) vary based on your design. However, this webinar will highlight the major areas of the user interface you'll want to know about and a number of different content creation examples.

WATCH THE 2024 END USER TRAINING

Don't see an option above? Topics don't quite include everything you're looking for? Hannon Hill is proud to offer our customers customized training options. We will work with you to develop a specific agenda for covering your particular needs. Custom trainings are designed to cover specific portions of Cascade CMS and allow users to ask detailed questions.

Additional topic suggestions:

• Workflows
• Managing Users: Groups, Roles, Access Settings
• Web Services: Cascade’s WebAPI
• Universal Migration Tool
• Content Reuse Strategies: Blocks, Pagelets
• Velocity: troubleshooting current issues with your code
• Publishing Non-HTML Content
• Planning Your Site Structure

Questions?

If you have any questions about our training options, please contact us at  training@hannonhill.com.