X All The ThingsEnterprise Content Management

7/20/2013

Who this is for

• Developers and site builders

• Project stakeholders

So!ware Architect

Email: tcosgrove@phase2technology.com

Tim Cosgrove

Twitter: @timcosgrove

So!ware architect

Email: jturgeon@phase2technology.com

Joe Turgeon

Twitter: @arithmetric

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• Only published/unpublished states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?

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