The Content Management Server 2001 Publishing Process

On This Page

Overview Overview
Terms and Concepts Terms and Concepts
Understanding the MSCMS 2001 Workflow Understanding the MSCMS 2001 Workflow
Understanding the Publishing Workflow Understanding the Publishing Workflow
Understanding the Administrator's Tasks Understanding the Administrator's Tasks
Administrator Tools Administrator Tools
Keyboard Shortcuts Keyboard Shortcuts

Overview

This chapter provides an introduction to Microsoft Content Management Server 2001 (MSCMS 2001) publishing, and the administrator's role in the publishing process.

Terms and Concepts

Users

Any valid user account on the network, on a domain or organizational unit known by Microsoft Content Management Server 2001, is a potential user. MSCMS 2001 uses Windows 2000, Site Server Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), and Active Directory services accounts.

Users are automatically authenticated when they use MSCMS 2001.

Containers

A container is a virtual storage area used to organize and store pages, postings, resources, templates, and rights groups in the MSCMS 2001 Site Builder and Web Author.

Screen shot

You'll want to create, name, and sort containers of your own to suit your organization's needs. Only an MSCMS 2001 administrator can create new containers.

Templates

Page templates

Page templates provide the means for authors to create a Web page without coding any HTML. A page template generates an HTML form in a Web browser, where authors can add content. The areas on the page where authors add content are called placeholders.

Text formatting and media properties that are allowed in a placeholder are set by the placeholder's properties. Template designers can set the properties for the placeholder in the Template Design window, a tool that is launched from the Site Builder. The type of content the placeholder accepts, as set by the template designer, is shown on each placeholder's formatting toolbar in the Web Author.

Navigation templates provide an MSCMS 2001 site's navigation interface when the site is viewed in a Web browser. The hierarchy of channels, the order of the pages published to those channels, and the navigation buttons such as "Home" and "Help" are generally provided by navigation templates.

Postings

To publish an MSCMS 2001 page, it must be posted to a channel. A posting contains a publishing schedule that includes start and expiry dates, and which channel to publish it on. When a subscriber navigates to a posting, MSCMS 2001 dynamically generates the page associated with the posting.

Folders

Pages are saved and stored in folders. Although folders do not appear in the Web Author, every channel must have a folder associated with it from the Site Builder. Usually one or more editors are assigned to each folder. Pages stored there must be approved by one of those editors (or by an administrator) before the pages can continue through the publishing process. MSCMS 2001 auto-approves pages submitted to folders that do not have an editor. (MSCMS 2001 always auto-approves pages for editors when working in folders they have editing rights in.)

Channels

Channels are used to store, organize, and manage access to content. Channels organize postings into a hierarchy. Content posted to a channel can only be published after an MSCMS 2001 moderator has approved it. Administrators are responsible for creating channels using the Site Builder.

Roles

There are seven MSCMS 2001 roles: subscriber, author, editor, moderator, resource manager, template designer, and administrator. Part of the administrator's job is to assign users to one or more roles, and select which containers the users have permissions in. The privileges associated with each role are explained in detail in Chapter 2, "Setting up Publishing: Creating Containers for Users."

Rights

A users' rights (what they can do) are determined by their role within MSCMS 2001. For example, you can choose to assign a user the role as moderator, and give that user permission to a particular channel only. You assign rights to users by assigning them to rights groups, and granting permission to one or more containers for each rights group. Users can belong to more than one group.

Rights Groups

Role

Rights

Container

Subscriber

browse to MSCMS 2001 pages published to channels where they have rights

No access to Site Builder

Author

create and modify pages, submit them for approval, and post them to channels
use page templates
use resources

 

Editor

approve or decline pages
delete pages
modify postings
create pages, and submit postings to channels
use page templates
use resources

 

Moderator

modify posting schedules
approve or decline postings

 

Resource Manager

add, remove, and replace content in a resource gallery

 

Template Designer

design page and navigation templates
use resources

 

Administrator

assign user roles and rights
create hierarchies
assign rights in all containers
maintain an archive of content revisions and purge obsolete revisions
find and view revisions by date

 

When creating a rights group, the administrator selects one of the predefined roles, then creates a rights group for that role. Each role can have its own set of rights groups, and the rights groups can be assigned permission to one or more containers. Therefore, a user's rights depend on the rights group they belong to, and the containers in which the rights group has been assigned permissions.

For example, Mark is a member of a rights group named "Sales Editors," which has been created for the editors role. Mark can work as an editor in any container the Sales Editors rights group has been assigned permissions to.

You can set it up so that a user belongs to more than one rights group. They can have editor rights in one folder and authoring rights in three others, while another user has editing rights in all folders.

Understanding the MSCMS 2001 Workflow

MSCMS 2001 is a tool that allows a group of people to collaborate in the Web site publishing process. Your organization can:

  • create pages without HTML experience

  • control when pages are made available for viewing, and who can view them.

The tasks involved in publishing and maintaining content are divided among roles. To understand how you'll use MSCMS 2001 to play your part, you first have to understand the publishing process, and your role—or roles—in it.

Understanding the Publishing Workflow

MSCMS 2001 gives you and the people you work with control over publishing and content management for your intranet, extranet, and Internet Web sites.

Authoring

The publishing process begins when an author, who can be any content creator in your organization, uses the Web Author to create a page. Using the Web Author, anyone anywhere in your organization with access to a Web browser can create and distribute pages.

The author can set a publishing schedule (a "posting") that determines when the content can be viewed.

Postings

A posting contains a publishing schedule that includes start and expiry dates, and which "channels" to publish it on. When a subscriber navigates to a posting in a channel, MSCMS 2001 dynamically generates the page associated with the posting.

Channels

Channels are used to store, organize, and manage access to content. Channels organize postings into a hierarchy.

Screen shot

When the author considers the content ready for publication on the Web site, it is submitted for content approval by an editor.

Approving

Once an editor approves the page, a moderator for the channel the page is posted to reviews and approves the posting before publication. Moderators ensure their channels contain relevant content.

Or, the administrator can arrange for pages to be auto-approved. This is covered in Chapter 3, "Setting up Publishing: Assigning Publishing Rights."

Publishing

After a posting is approved, the page's content is published on the site according to the scheduled start and expiry dates of its postings. After a page's content is published to a channel, subscribers to that channel can read the page. When a posting reaches the end of its schedule, publication of the page stops on that channel.

Screen shot

Understanding the Administrator's Tasks

The administrator role overlaps all other roles, but administrators are solely responsible for setting up publishing. This involves assigning roles, creating containers for people to work in, and arranging who can access which containers. Administrators automatically have subscription rights to all channels.

Maintaining the publishing environment

The publishing process is maintained by users who help organize the site, and help authors create pages. Users responsible for these tasks do the following:

  • design the "look and feel" of the templates that authors use to create Web pages (template designers)

  • provide resources, such as images and videos, for use by authors in both the Site Builder and Web Author environments (resource managers)

  • program the site's navigation links, and create custom Web-based authoring programs (template designers).

The above tasks are divided among roles, which are detailed in Chapter 2, "Setting up Publishing: Creating Containers for Users."

Administrator Tools

Site Builder

The Site Builder is where you'll set up publishing, by creating folders, channels, and rights groups and perform some maintenance tasks such as purging obsolete object revisions.

Web Author 

The functionality of the Web Author provides several of the authoring functions currently in the Site Builder. With the improved functionality and user interface:

  • authors and editors can create and edit content-related pages and publish those pages to multiple channels

  • authors and editors can create versions and compare revisions (of pages, postings, resources, and templates)

  • administrators can find revisions by date.

  • resource managers can:

    • add a new resource to a resource gallery

    • replace current resource with a new one of the same MIME type

    • delete a resource from a resource gallery

    • edit the Name, Description, and Display Name properties.

Server Configuration Application

The Server Configuration Application (SCA) is used to reconfigure an MSCMS 2001 server. The SCA presents a series of screens in which you enter configuration changes. See* *Chapter 5, "Using the Server Configuration Application" for information on adjusting background cleanup settings, selecting domains, viewing license information, and other site management tasks.

MSCMS 2001 Site Deployment Manager

The MSCMS 2001 Site Deployment Manager is an add-on product to do incremental updates to your MSCMS 2001 system, using an export and import transfer method. The Site Deployment Manager allows you to separate your development and production environments.

MSCMS 2001 Site Stager

MSCMS 2001 Site Stager converts dynamically generated MSCMS 2001 content to static HTML files for deployment on any Web server. Chapters 8 to 10 of this guide provide instructions on using Site Stager.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Site Builder must be active to do most of the following keyboard shortcuts. The shortcuts listed document MSCMS 2001 specific actions and not only document standard Windows behavior.

Note To enlarge the Microsoft Content Management Server window to fill the screen, press ALT+ SPACEBAR+X. To restore the window to its previous size and location, press ALT+SPACEBAR+R.

Press

To

CTRL+A

Select all contents in the list view of the main window

CTRL+F

Open the Find dialog box from the Microsoft Content Management Server main, Find, Production Manager, or Approval Assistant windows.

CTRL+G

Go To in the Find, Production Manager, and Approval Assistant windows

CTRL+O

Open selected page or template from the main window or Template Design Window

F2

Rename selected item in the list frame of the main window

F5

Refresh the list frame in the main window

CTRL+TAB

Move to the next region of the main window

CTRL+DEL

Purge an object to which you have rights instead of deleting it.