x all the things: enterprise content management
DESCRIPTION
This presentation accompanies Tim Cosgrove's (timcosgrove) and Joe Turgeon's (arithmetric) presentation at Twin Cities Drupal Camp 2013. What do you do when you need all content changes to run through workflow? Not just nodes... ALL THE THINGS! What about translating all the things? Or maintaining revisions for all the things? Or making all the things use a common template system? When usually nodes get all the attention, how do you provide this kind of control across all the things on your Drupal site? This is a case study about how Phase2 met these challenges for a consumer products company. We discussed the platform architecture for managing sites for multiple brands in multiple markets and languages, and the site components for providing control over all aspects of all page content.TRANSCRIPT
X All The ThingsEnterprise Content Management
7/20/2013
Who this is for
• Developers and site builders
• Project stakeholders
Photo Credit: Allie
hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com
Photo Credit: Allie
hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com
Photo Credit: Allie
hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com
Photo Credit: Allie
hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com
The client
“Brand Z”
• “Global leader in prestige beauty”
• Conglomerate of 26 brands
• $10 billion in sales annually with $1 billion in online sales
• Operates in 150 countries with 50 online
• Sites in about 30 languages
Core business needs
• Common architecture and infrastructure to build many sites
• Rapid roll out of regional site variants
• Multilingual ability for regional sites
• Allow for broadly divergent designs within a site
Existing solution
• Custom-written commerce engine
• No dynamic CMS
• Content primarily stored in static HTML files
• Publishing content and pushing code are similar process
New platform objectives
• Dynamic CMS
• Mobile first
• Integrates with existing ecommerce system
Platform architecture
Core capabilities
• Drupal based distribution
• Ability to build sites for each brand
• Ability to create regional variants for each site
• Advanced content management
• Flexible layout system
English: branda.com
Spanish: branda.com/es
German: branda.chFrench: branda.ch/frItalian: branda.ch/it
“Brand A”
“Brand A” US site
“Brand A” Switzerland site
“Brand B”
English: brandb.com
Spanish: brandb.com/es
“Brand B” US site
English: brandb.ca
French: brandb.ca/fr
“Brand B” Canada site
image:http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html
Revision all the things
Content management
• “Content” includes any public-facing text or media
• Able to be saved to multiple revisions, including dra!s
• Subject to editorial workflow
Revisions
• More like “versions”
• Keep old copies of content
• Ideally, work on multiple versions of content at once
Drupal revision support
• Keeps history of previous copies
• Can’t edit two copies independently
• No working dra!s
• Only applies to nodes
• Only published/unpublished states
Workflow requirements
• Add more states for content, like “dra!,” “needs review,” “approved”
• Restrict access to managing content by state
• Restrict access to transition the state of content
Applying workflow to all content
• Nodes
• Menus
• Blocks
Solution: nodes!
• Drupal provides revisions for entities and fields
• Nodes have publication status and access control
• Existing contrib modules for workflow play nice
Menus
• Drupal menus are not strictly content nor site structure
• Admin UI for managing menus differs from managing nodes/blocks
• Not based on entities/fields
Solution: Menu Field
• Menu-like content as a field
• As a node, the menu becomes revisionable
• Built to mirror Drupal menu output
• Flexible menu content, images and rich text
Solution: Nodeblock
• Block content managed as a node
• As a node, the block content becomes revisionable`
Solution: State Flow
• Highly configurable workflow solution
• API-driven, developer-friendly
• Augments Drupal’s publishing controls and revision history
Revision tagging
• Each revision can be labelled
• All content revisions with a tag can be acted on
Publication and preview system
• Preview whole groups of content updates together
• Publish, unpublish, and manage the workflow state of whole groups of content en masse
Potential Drupal 8 improvements
• Entities everywhere
• Content Staging Initiative and Site Preview System
image:http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html
Layout all the things
Flexible layouts
• Select different templates to use for the same content type
• Allow users to define complex inputs for the output of structured content
• Allow users to build basic templates themselves and to reuse them
Multiple layouts in content
• Layouts are independent of content type
• Multiple layouts can be used in one content type
• Editors can define own layouts in CMS
Solution: Template Field
• Allows a single field to contain many pieces of data
• Each template has HTML, optional CSS & JS
• Can be in code, or DB; can be overridden
• Because it’s a field, can be revisioned
Other benefits
• Allows node-specific layouts, even within one content type
• Layouts can be shared across content types
Control over blocks
• Content editors need to create blocks freely
• Need to be able to place blocks as part of page content
• Need to be able to embed blocks in other content
Solution: Block Reference
• Insert blocks into nodes as field content
• In combination with a content block solution, allows reusable block content to be laid out in arbitrary layouts
Solution: Embedabbles
• Allows block content to be placed into rich text contexts
• Effectively allows revisioning of block placement within that context
image:http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html
Translate all the things
Content internationalization
• “Content” includes any public-facing text or media
• Content used in the CMS should be specific to a language
• Content should also be specific to a region
• Related translations grouped and accessible from the source node
“Subscription” vs “localization”
• Subscribed content adopts a specific piece of content from another language
• Localized content begins as a copy from another language, but can be edited independently and diverge
English (U.S.)
English (U.K.)
German
Each translation is distinct
• Translations may not be literal
• The version of content for a particular market/language should be managed separately from other markets/languages
Solution: Content translation + i18n
Solution: Custom extension for subscriptions + UI enhancements
Solution: Domain with custom extensions
Potential Drupal 8 improvements
• More i18n functionality in core
• Translatable entities
• Simplify UI for managing content translations
Thanks
Questions?
PHASE2TECHNOLOGY.COM