P a g e | 1 Ektron CMS400 v8 – Content Editor Reference

Ektron CMS400 is the content management system Northeast State Community College uses to maintain its public website, beta.northeaststate.edu. Content editing of the website is widely decentralized, to encourage individual departments to keep their own areas of the site current and updated. If you’ve been given access to edit a content area, this is a short guide to the basic functions you’ll need to know. In most areas of the system, there is also help available via any icon that looks like .

Note that this version of the CMS is not browser dependent—as long as you are running a fairly current version of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome, the CMS editor should work fine. If you’ve got an older, outdated browser version, you may get an error and need to update it before editing in the CMS.

LOGGING IN

To log in to the CMS system from anywhere there is an internet connection, go to

http://beta.northeaststate.edu/admlgn.aspx and click on the button or click the copyright icon at the bottom of the page just like we did in the old Firelogix system.

A small login window will pop up that looks like this:

Enter your assigned Ektron username and password, and click on ‘Login’, or just hit the Enter key. You should be forwarded to the main page you are responsible for editing. If not please send me an email and let me know.

Edit Existing Content

The most common thing you will want to do in the CMS is make changes to content that’s already on the website. This section reviews how to make simple text edits, upload or use pictures from the library, and work with hyperlinks. For this manual, we’ll be looking at the Foundations area as a sample section. Keep in mind you will only be able to edit content to which you have been given access. You many have content from other areas linked in your menu but you can only edit your content.

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Once the test account I have set up for foundation logs in they are redirected to their home page seen in the above screen capture. Two things to notice are the points of entry to edit the page:

1. Page Utilities: First let’s summarize each item of the page edit menu. Click the Bookmarks for details

• Edit This button will bring up the WYSIWYG loaded with the page that you are currently viewing. If you do not have this option and it is a page your responsible for more than likely someone else has it checked out.

• Properties This button will bring up the Work Area loaded with the page you are currently viewing

• Edit in Context This will bring up a WYSIWYG embedded in the current page with limited functionality. This is useful to create and repair links or images. It is also handing to change wording on pages.

• Work Area This will bring up the Work Area in the root of the site. This is handy to browse links and library items of other editors

• View History This brings up a menu that allows you to restore to previous page states and see who has edited the current page

• Add Task Set tasks other users can see.

• Logout Use to log out of the CMS

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2. Add/Edit Menu: Now let’s summarize add/edit menu functions. Click the Bookmarks for details.

• Add This button allows you to add an existing content item, new content block, library Assets, External Hyperlinks, and Sub Menu’s

• Edit This button allows you to modify menu properties and existing links

3. Other Tutorials • Adding Pictures • Working in the library

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Once you click the button the page your on will be loaded into a WYSIWIG for editing.

A comment on what you see in this screenshot—if you have access to the ‘Delete’ option, please use it VERY judiciously. Unlike our pre-CMS environment, if you delete a piece of content accidentally, it cannot just be retrieved individually. More than likely you do not have access to delete but keep the above statement in mind if you do. Normally, after you complete your edits, you will just use “Submit” to complete the process and post your changes to the website. You may choose to use the “Checkin” option if you want someone else to look at your work before it’s published, or if you are collaborating with someone on a new section of the site that isn’t yet ready for the approval chain. When you submit the content does not go live until it is approved by a content manager make sure you only use the submit option when the content is ready to go live so the content manager will only have to review the page one time.

To make basic text changes to the body of the content, simply type as you would in Word, using the familiar text editing icons in the editing bar. Remember though, that HTML isn’t exactly like Word, so results may vary slightly. If you need to copy/paste text from Word or an email, please first paste it into Notepad, and then copy/paste again from there into the CMS, to strip out extraneous formatting. (NOTE: this step is imperative if you are editing a Calendar event, which is not being covered here but deserves a mention in case you will be doing that as well.

Once you click the buttons your page will be loaded in the Workarea.

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Here you will see a rendering of what that content looks like. It is not exact, and may vary from what appears when the content is viewed on the web. From the preview pane, you will click on the ‘Edit’ icon in the upper left of the preview pane, as shown in the screenshot below. If you do not see an ‘Edit’ icon and your icon bar begins with ‘History’, it means you have not been given access to edit a piece of content or it has been checked in by another user.

Most of the other icons across the top of that page are not relevant for content editors; however a few may come in handy and are noted below:

P a g e | 6 The history button may be especially useful—the CMS essentially keeps a saved version of each iteration of a piece of content. So every time content is edited and published, a copy is retained in the database. You can use the history function to restore to a previous version of a page at any time. Keep in mind that if you delete a piece of content, all of its history is also deleted, so don’t rely on this to restore content you’ve completely removed.

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Once you have opened a piece of content to edit, you’ll see a screen that looks like this:

The publishing bar:

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Once you click the you will be allowed the ability to edit within the page using a light weight version of the WYSIWYG

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This is a very convenient feature in the Ektron CMS. It is a quick editor that allows you to Spell Check, Add/Edit/Remove Links, Add Library items, and set text to Bold or Italics without opening up the work area or WYSIWYG

Once you click the button you will be taken to the Workarea just like when clicking the Properties button. The only difference is you will not open a specific page, instead you will be directed to the “Desktop” which is a dashboard for the Ektron CMS.

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You have a dashboard with useful reports showing content that is waiting for approval, content currently checked out, and content about to expire.

Once you click the button you will be able to see past revisions of the current page. You will be able to restore to these past versions from this page.

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The above page shows a list of all the updates, and who made them with a timestamp. You can choose to restore to any given entry on this page from this page.

Once you click the button you will be able to post messages to other users in the Ektron CMS

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Use the form you see above to add notes that are viewable to other users.

Once you click the button you will be able to add items to your menu. If your menu has a “Sub

Menu” Make sure you select the correct button or your link will be in the wrong place.

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Select the first radio button to add “Existing Ektron HTML pages”

If you do not see the file you want to link to you can browse the entire site to find it.

Select the radio button to create “new html content” and link to it.

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After you select New Content Block you will need to select the folder to house the content - See above image. THIS IS IMPORTANT to get it in the correct folder because the site map is generated automatically and is indexed by folders that coincide with sub menus for the entire site. If you are unsure about this please let me know and I can set up folders or make sure it is in the correct place.

Select the radio button to link to library assets. This will be used mostly to add links to PDF files that I have indexed in the library. You will be able to find this under the “hyperlinks” dropdown.

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Once you are in a folder that has hyperlinks created you will something similar to the above picture

Select the radio button to put a link to Any page you have a URL to.

Once you click the button you will be able to edit existing menu items. If your menu has a

“Sub Menu” Make sure you select the correct button or your link will be in the wrong place.

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From here you can “Add” new menu items, “Remove” existing items, “Reorder” items of the current menu. NEVER use the delete menu button. It cannot be restored. INSERTING A PICTURE

Inserting a picture is very similar to working with links in the Library.

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1. Place your cursor in the editing window where you want to insert an image.

2. Click on the Library icon

3. When the Library opens, be sure you choose ‘Images’ from the drop down menu. If the picture you want to insert has already been uploaded into the Library, simply find it in the list of images and double-click on it, then skip to step #6.

4. If you need to upload the file you are linking to, click on the ‘Add to Library’ icon

5. The Add window will open. There are only two fields you need to fill out there—the first two. Click on the ‘Browse’ button and find the image file on your hard drive or flash drive. Select it and hit ‘Open’, or just double-click on it. Then type in a title for your file. Please make it short but descriptive, as it will be used in the site search function, and as the alternate text, which makes the image ADA compliant. When both fields are populated, click on the ‘Add’ icon circled in the screenshot below. The link will be created and the Library window will close.

NOTE: There should be no spaces in your file name. If there are, please rename the file first, using underscores as place holders for spaces, and then select it for uploading. Otherwise you will end up with web URLS for your files that look like /pic%20of%20college. Messy.

6. If you need to adjust the image once it’s been placed in the content, right-click on the image and choose either ‘Set Image Properties’ or ‘Image Modification Tool’ window will pop up.

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WORKING IN THE LIBRARY

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If you have a number of items to add to the Library at once, or you want to remove things from the Library, it is easier to do that directly, rather than while you are editing a piece of content. From the main CMS Workarea, click on ‘Library ‘ in the upper right, and the Library window will open. It will open to the root of the website, so navigate using the left tree to the folder in which you want to work, and click on the folder name to see the related Library contents. Change the drop-down menu at the top depending on whether you will be working with images (.gif, .jpg) or files (.pdf, .pptx, .doc, etc).

In the following examples, the /foundation folder is used. As you can see from the screenshot below, ‘Images’ has been selected from the drop-down menu, and the Library Workarea is displaying images, in alphabetical order by name, that are kept in the /cce Library folder.

There are only two icons on the main Library screen: the first is for adding a Library item, and the second is search

. The search may come in handy if you have a particularly large Library folder and need to get to something quickly. Search is not described in detail here please explore, use the help function if you need help with searching the Library.

To add an item, click on the small green + icon. There are only two fields on the subsequent page that you need to populate; title and filename—this is exactly the same as the process for adding a file or picture while you’re editing a piece of content. Simply browse your hard drive or flash drive for the desired file, select it and click on ‘Open’ (remember-no spaces in your files names). Then give it a title. Click on the ‘Save’ icon to upload it to the Library—it is now available for use during content editing.

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If you have a newer version of a Library item already in the system, you can use the ‘Overwrite’ option. Double-click on the name of the item you want to update, and the item’s properties will display. The third icon from the left is the ‘Overwrite’ icon , which will be visible to you if you have access to this feature. Click on it, and you will get a screen much like the normal Library upload screen. Browse your drive for the updated file, select it, and then click on the ‘Save’ icon. The Library item will be updated with the newer version.

To delete something from the Library, first double-click on the item name to open the item properties. Before removing anything from the Library, it is advisable to ensure nothing on the site is currently using it. To do a link check, click on

the ‘Link Search’ icon (second one from the left). The system will do a search and determine if anything is linking to the Library item. If it finds nothing, it will let you know—if it does find links, please do not delete that Library item until you have removed those connections, otherwise the site will contain broken links.

Click on the ‘Back’ icon to return to the properties area. Then click the ‘Delete’ icon . Check the box that says ‘Remove from server’ and then hit the ‘Delete’ icon again.

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You will get a warning to confirm you really want to delete the item—click on ‘Okay’, and the item will be permanently deleted. If you change your mind or are uncertain about deleting something, just use the ‘Back’ icon to return to the previous screen.