Once you have your content repositories configured you can start thinking about deploying websites. One important fact about how Unify is used by our clients is that none of them have exactly the same interface for updating and managing the content. Our clients have a wide range of users with different backgrounds, a broad range of workflow scenarios and content types.
We think it is absolutely crucial to be able to provide a user friendly experience for the people using the system in order to deploy a successful CMS project. Some clients use form based interfaces on an intranet like web site while others have in context editing templates which resemble the actual website. Some clients have a mix of both, providing a personalised experience based on end user preferences.
Unify is flexible with regards to administration interfaces and it is quick to deploy and update as your workflow or user requirements change.
For the website you can configure domains, error pages, locale settings and access control just to name a few features.
Each page has a readable URL and you have full control over the title tags and metadata. This is crucial for good search engine ranking.
There are two types of container areas, one is shared for templates while the other type is page specific. You put Portlets like the navigation and search in the shared areas while content lists and content detail Portlets are placed on individual pages. This means that you can easily manage changes to you whole site or sections using only a handful of page templates.
All templates, CSS and Javascript files are version controlled with an audit trail and rollback features.
We think it is absolutely crucial to be able to provide a user friendly experience for the people using the system in order to deploy a successful CMS project. Some clients use form based interfaces on an intranet like web site while others have in context editing templates which resemble the actual website. Some clients have a mix of both, providing a personalised experience based on end user preferences.
Unify is flexible with regards to administration interfaces and it is quick to deploy and update as your workflow or user requirements change.
Websites
You can create multiple websites and build a hierarchical page structure using the templates.For the website you can configure domains, error pages, locale settings and access control just to name a few features.
Each page has a readable URL and you have full control over the title tags and metadata. This is crucial for good search engine ranking.
Full control of pages and modules
Pages and templates
Pages are based on templates using standard HTML code. You can transform your designs into HTML, CSS and Javascript and deploy in Unify very easily. The templates have container areas into which you can drop our Portlets.There are two types of container areas, one is shared for templates while the other type is page specific. You put Portlets like the navigation and search in the shared areas while content lists and content detail Portlets are placed on individual pages. This means that you can easily manage changes to you whole site or sections using only a handful of page templates.
All templates, CSS and Javascript files are version controlled with an audit trail and rollback features.
Configurations
Our page components use XSLT to render content as HTML. All XSLT files are managed within the system and again version controlled with an audit trail. The only prerequisite for building a site in Unify is to have good HTML and CSS skills and basic XSLT knowledge. The level of coding is usually just to configure iterators, conditionals for rendering content lists and detail pages. Once the XSLT files have been deployed they can be reused by nontechnical end users.Performance and caching
Unify is being used to manage websites with high traffic volumes and critical online business applications. The system architecture supports a load balanced setup with multiple content delivery servers. Unify is also designed so that you can deploy a hosting environment with no single point of failure to ensure maximum uptime.Cache strategy is very important for handling peaks in web traffic. Unify offers the flexibility of caching pages as static HTML or dynamic based on update intervals. You can even go down to granular levels by caching individual components on a page while keeping others dynamic.
Messaging
One feature of the publishing module is the message templates. It is used for email message management where you can set up event driven or scheduled messages.Examples of event driven messaging could be an email to the website administrator when a new content item is created or a confirmation message to a user posting a contact form on a public facing site. Scheduled messaging can be based on saved searches where you could for instance send a list of recently updated documents to a group of users every Monday morning.