We've tried to cover all the REIgnition CMS Features but you may have a more detailed question in mind. Here are some we hear most often. Use the links below to quickly find the category that interests you or scroll down to see all the questions.
Site Structure | Link Management | Accessing the System | Workflow | Users and Their Privileges | Multilingual Content | Version Control | Meta Data | Authoring with Templates | Integration
Site Structure
How does the CMS allow the author to manage the site structure?
REIgnition CMS is extremely intuitive. The CMS author can see the entire site hierarchy. They can create new pages, move pages up or down and under a new parent using simple navigational controls.
Is a visual hierarchical view of the site structure available for the administration interface?
Yes, the hierarchy is AJAX-based and can be expanded and collapsed without refreshing the page. This allows users to quickly navigate to the appropriate section that they wish to manage.
Can the CMS render the site tree as a navigation system for our live site?
Yes, all site content is available natively within the CMS for use with templates as well as accessible from the REST, JSON, or SOAP based APIs. Template editors can create templates using XSLT that can parse and display the site tree however is desired.
Does each point on the site tree correspond to a page as well as a folder?
Yes, each page is inherently a folder when viewed on the public site for search engine optimization purposes. The navigational title used for the folder/page can be altered by the content author but defaults to a URL friendly version of the page title.
Can pages or groups of pages easily be moved from one part of the site structure to another?
Yes, as described earlier, there is a simple, intuitive set of controls for moving pages around in the site hierarchy. This can be individual pages or a parent with many child pages.
Can pages be copied from one part of the site structure to another?
Yes, pages can be copied. Everything on the page is copied with the exception of the navigational title. This includes content, workflow, permissions, etc.
Is the site structure available to template creators, allowing the addition of breadcrumbs and site maps to the site?
Yes, as described earlier, all content in the site is available to template authors. There is also a data source specific to just the breadcrumbs of the current page that is a lighter weight version of the data source that delivers the entire site hierarchy.
Link Management
How does the system allow authors to create and edit links to other pages within the site and external URLs?
Within the body of a page, links are added via the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. There is an intuitive pop-up that allows users to navigate the site tree to link to internal pages, navigate the file manager to link to files, create a link to an external website, or create an email link.
From a navigation standpoint, all navigation is rendered dynamically using XSLT to specify any logic and formatting; so therefore these links are created automatically when a page is created. Additionally, the user can specify not to display this page in the navigation, search, or site map. Pages themselves can serve as links to external URLs so that they can be included within site navigation and thereby appear as though they are part of the site.
What happens if an internal link is broken, for example if a page is deleted or expires?
The system disables the link automatically. The link (text link or link graphic) still displays on the public website, but is inactive.
Will the system check for the availability of external links, and if so, how does it notify the user of these broken links and their location in the site?
No. However, we offer support services that include regular link scans of all CMS-driven pages and detailed reports providing all information necessary to correct broken links.
How does the CMS allow the linking of files (for example Word documents, Power Point presentations, PDFs) to the site?
The link dialog in the WYSIWYG editor contains a simple, intuitive file manager where users can view icons of the file type, filter by category or keyword, or add a new file. Furthermore, if Google Analytics is supported on the site, the public website will automatically add the necessary JavaScript tracking code to any file links to ensure that they show in your web traffic statistics.
Can images be links?
Yes, through the WYSIWYG editor.
Does the CMS provide an interface for creating image maps?
Our experience shows that image maps are typically addressed at the template part level. REIgnition CMS uses a well-known, widely used WYSIWYG editor called FCKeditor (http://ckeditor.com/) The CMS uses custom plug-ins for the dialogs to support CMS content as opposed to the generic built in dialogs.
While a GUI for creating image maps is not available in the CMS, the HTML code for an image map can be entered directly into the WYSIWYG content editor through Source Code view.
Accessing the System
Does the system require custom software to be installed on an author's or template developer's PC?
No, all functionality is delivered via XHTML, AJAX, JavaScript, and jQuery.
If the system is browser-based, what browsers and operating systems does it support?
Any modern browser is supported including IE 6+, Firefox 2+, Safari 4+ and Chrome. Any operating system that supports these browsers should be sufficient.
Will authors be able to access the CMS remotely?
Yes, this would be more of a limitation from the network and firewall design.
Workflow
What does the interface for workflow creation look like?
For each page, the author has the ability to specify which CMS roles require approval before publishing. By default, pages inherit their parent’s workflow.
Can authors create their own workflows?
Yes.
Can authors make changes to content and save their changes without the need to submit the content to the next stage of the workflow?
When a page is rejected by any of the required approval roles, the page is removed from workflow. Upon making any changes to the page, it is submitted back into the workflow.
Can comments be attached to a particular stage of the workflow?
A future release of the REIgnition CMS will support the sending of email messages at specific stages of the workflow.
Does the workflow allow documents to be sent back a stage if not approved?
If a page is rejected by any of the required approval roles, the page is removed from workflow. Upon making any changes to the page, it is resubmitted back into the workflow.
Can workflow members be notified by email / SMS / other appropriate methods when documents are waiting for their approval?
The CMS contains a message center that is the default page upon logging into the CMS. Users are shown pages awaiting their approval, pages that they have submitted for approval, pages that have been rejected, pages that are ready to go live based on scheduling, pages that are ready to expire, and pages that have been flagged to notify the user when a specified time has elapsed without an update.
Can time limits be put on the different stages of the workflow, with notification sent to administrators to flag late documents?
Page content can be assigned expiration dates, and the Message Center feature provides content reminders to users and administrators to keep them informed of deadlines.
What information is available about the user's workflow performance?
A page's current workflow status is available to users through the Message Center.
Can groups of pages be passed through the workflow as a grouped package?
Workflow is only available on a per page basis. However, workflow is inheritable so it doesn't require assignment on a per page basis.
Users and Their Privileges
Can you create multiple users, with different access rights?
Yes, all security is role-based. There is no limit to the number of users or roles that can be created. As with most CMS products, licensing is based on concurrent CMS users, providing a limit to the number of users that can be logged in at a given time.
Can roles be created and assigned to users to aid the workflow management process?
Yes, workflows are assignable by role.
Can access rights to create / modify / delete pages in different areas of the site tree be limited by user / role?
Yes, security is currently assignable by role, but user level access control will be available in a future release of the CMS.
Can access to templates be limited by user / role?
Yes, template access is limited by role. The templates to which a particular role has access to use on a page is configurable. The user will only have access to the templates that have been assigned to the user's role(s).
Does the CMS provide any information on authors' performance and content editing history?
Page history provides information on which users have recently modified a particular page.
Is there a limit on the number of users the system will support?
Limitations are only restricted from a licensing perspective. We have current implementations that have supported over 100 concurrent users.
Can users create other users? If so, can their user creation rights be limited and controlled?
Yes, users can be provided with or restricted from access to the security administration. No other level of granularity is supported.
Multilingual Content
Does the CMS support content authoring in multiple languages?
Yes, along with native support for foreign languages, there is also a multi-lingual virtual keyboard available within the WYSIWYG editor.
What approaches are available to multiple languages?
We typically have different sections of the site devoted to a particular language, but the CMS is very flexible depending on what is looking to be accomplished.
Does the CMS support non-western character sets / Unicode editing?
Yes, the CMS stores and encodes all characters in Unicode. Therefore, 16-bit character sets are supported including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.
Version Control
Does the CMS store previous versions of pages?
Yes, the CMS stores all versions of a page and the user can view previous versions of the page and opt to rollback to that version.
Are there any limits as to how many versions of content are stored?
There are no limits to the number of versions of a particular page; however, the history will be erased if the page uses a different template. Switching templates is very easy as the CMS provides the ability to map each content area to a corresponding content area in the new template. A limitation is that the history of the page must be deleted to facilitate this.
A new history record is created each time a page is published.
Can versions of pages be compared?
Yes, the user can preview each iteration of a page.
Are deleted pages stored for rollback?
Most users archive pages that are no longer used on a site. Archived pages are easily retrieved for reuse.
Does the CMS provide versioning and rollback for non-text assets (images, PDFs etc.)?
All content on the page can be rolled back. However, versioning is not provided for individual files. When a file is updated or replaced, the previous version is deleted.
Can a snapshot of the entire site be taken and used for rollback in the future? There may be legal or other reasons to keep previous versions of our site.
This function can be accomplished by with either database and file system backups or by using the static content publishing feature.
Meta Data
What meta data can be stored at a page level -keywords, description, live / expiry dates?
Specifically referring to the head tag, title, keywords, and description are all available for editing along with template defaults if not specified. Otherwise, a number of additional items can be stored such as publish date, expiry date, categories, query string variables, redirects (301 and 302), visibility settings, etc. Other options are available site-wide such as copyright and business classification.
How is the entry of meta data presented to users on the authoring interface?
Various methods based what type of data is being edited. In reference to title, keywords, and description, a text area or text box is presented.
Can meta data be made mandatory for a given page?
Not on a per page basis; however, defaults can be assigned at the template level if no meta data is specified. The user-friendly interface of REIgnition CMS makes it extremely easy to add meta data during the page creation process.
Allow the assignment of automatic live / expiry dates for pages?
Both publish date and expiry dates are assignable and the pages will automatically publish (if approved) or automatically be removed from the site based on those dates.
Authoring with Templates
How does the CMS present a choice of large numbers of templates to an author?
Templates are assignable via a drop-down menu; however, this list can be limited based on the user’s roles.
Are visual previews of templates provided to the author?
All pages can be previewed prior to publishing.
How does the CMS deal with paragraph templates within a page?
While not a feature at this time, we will look at paragraph templates for a future release of the CMS.
Does the CMS place any limits on the number of paragraph styles on a page, or their positioning on a page?
This would be controlled at the HTML/CSS development phase of a project and there are no specific limitations that the CMS demands.
What languages can be used for template creation?
Any XML-based language such as XHTML, RSS, etc. No server-side execution occurs on a page in relation to the templates such as ASP, CFM, PHP, etc. All application code would be implemented by using the available APIs.
What is the template creation interface / IDE (Integrated Development Environment)?
Templates are managed and edited directly within the CMS. No third-party tools are required.
What debugging features does the template provide?
No template debugging is required for static templates. Standard XSLT conventions are available for debugging transformation templates.
Can you use our own IDE to develop templates?
As long as it is assumed that they would be copied and pasted into the CMS.
Can several template creators work on the templates?
Yes, however, they cannot work on the same template at the same time.
Does the IDE provide template check-in and check-out to manage multiple template creators working on templates at the same time?
Unfortunately, no.
Will the CMS generate graphical title and navigation images in web formats (GIF or JPEG)?
Unfortunately, no.
Does the CMS make provision for a shared library of media items?
Yes, the CMS has a robust file/media management tool that also displays thumbnails. The tool supports numerous file types including DOC, PDF, XLS, FLV, MP3, JPG, GIF, etc.
How does the CMS deal with Flash movies created by authors and designers?
It is assumed that the question refers to the management of FLV files. FLVs can be managed directly within the file manager. There is a different means of calling them from a SWF on the public site than other file types as the CMS has built-in Flash streaming capabilities.
Can the CMS update content within Flash movie templates?
The CMS provides numerous APIs of which Flash can pull from many of them. Almost all sites that have implemented the CMS manage flash content in some form with the CMS. This could include copy, imagery, audio, site structure, etc.
Does the CMS should have graphics manipulation capabilities?
Images cannot be cropped or edited directly; however, dynamic image resizing is built-in. The user does not need to worry about the size of the graphics that they upload; they will be sized and cached appropriately upon display.
Integration
What access does the CMS give to its content storage database?
The CMS itself does not provide any access to the database directly for security reasons; however, all CMS content is available in the database in a very non-cryptic fashion for those familiar with database administration or querying from external applications.
Can the CMS integrate with our existing software and systems?
The CMS has numerous APIs that are supported by any language that supports XML-based HTTP calls or .NET based assemblies.
Can the CMS run on multiple servers to spread the load?
Yes, the public and staging websites can be load balanced. The administrative website must run on a single server.
Is the CMS multithreaded, and does it support multiprocessors?
This CMS is multi-threaded and does support multiple processors. Limited experience with IIS and windows server administration is required.
Can the system be remotely monitored to alert and action any system problems?
Yes.