An arrow point left and right to indicate old way and then new way

Big Change: Creating and Publishing New Pages

Author: Lois Nilsen

You may be aware that content cleanup is underway to prepare for the upcoming platform upgrade. This content cleanup process has brought an important issue to our attention. The issue is: many pages are being created without being placed in the menu.

a website without a menu is unnavigable, like a pile of paper

Pages not in the menu are not connected to related pages or to the main menu bar. This hurts website visitors, who cannot navigate to related content, and makes it harder for search engines to find. It makes it harder for the Website Manager to manage the website. The issue affects all the websites on the Digital Commons platform.

Picture a pile of papers. That is how a website visitor experiences a website with unconnected pages.

This situation arose because the Publisher and Site Manager roles can create and publish new pages but can’t place them in the menu. It is not a best practice, but occurs often.

What Will Change

The person in charge of the website needs to determine how to incorporate new content. They are the ones with the big picture, who understand the logic of the entire site. Content creators should be alerting them to new pages before they create them, not after. That’s exactly what this change will enforce.

After the change on January 17, the Add Content portion of all Digital Commons websites will look different for most users. Editors, Publishers and Site Manager will no longer see Site Page or Landing page in the Add Content section of Drupal. You will have to ask your Website Manager to create the page for you. You can discuss appropriate placement in the website menu structure. 

The Add Content section of the site will appear as follows for all users (except the Site Admins):

Find Content Area Without Landing Page and Site Page

What Won't Change

  • Nothing will change for the editing and publishing of existing pages.
  • Nothing will change for creation of new pages that can be added to views: Documents, Events, Press Releases and Blogs.
  • For sites with catalogs, the Catalog Item will also have no changes.

New Workflow

For new Site Pages, Landing Pages, Data Tables and Webforms, the workflow for a new page will be:

  1. You, the page owner, contact the person in charge of your website, the Website Manager (or another site admin who is designated by this person) to request the new page.
  2. The two of you come to an agreement of the title of the page and where it appears in the menu.
  3. The Website Manager creates the blank page for you, places it in the menu and saves it as draft. (If the title needs to change after this, please alert your Website Manager, since the URL and the breadcrumb path would also need to change.)
  4. You add content on the page.
  5. The agency review cycle then occurs as usual.

New Roles and Permissions Configuration

chart depicting roles and permissions on the platform

We believe this change will result in more manageable and more logical websites. Ultimately, it should help the people you serve find your important content. 

 

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