How you can simplify your life

Tipps für Redaktionen

Recently we have been working a lot on projects in the publishing area and have asked ourselves again and again: How exactly do editorial offices want to work and how do they already do it? We're still learning and each of our projects provides us with new ideas and impulses. Of course we don't want to keep this to ourselves, but rather share our experiences here with you.

Have a concept for content creation

"Concept, concept, concept" can be heard at every corner and every end. Let me tell you: It really saves a lot of time and especially nerves to do this at the beginning.

• If you are new to using a CMS, invest the time to work out a content concept at the beginning. With this concept you should be able to answer which content you want to create and how this content can be divided into modules.

In Drupal, we use the Paragraphs module for flexible content design. With this module, a content type (e.g. an article) can be flexibly composed by the editorial team from any number of paragraphs of the types image, quote, headline, teaser text, video, infobox, etc. We have extended the Paragraphs module with our own programming to support the workflows in editorial offices even more efficiently.

• The modular elements for your content creation should allow all necessary combinations. But still the principle "quality instead of quantity" applies here. Reduce the elements to those that are really necessary. The more variations the CMS contains, the higher the maintenance and modification effort. And by the way, it can be very unstructured and confusing when creating content.

Be able to work from anywhere

Nowadays we cannot and do not always have to work on site in the office. With a web-based CMS, the editorial team can - as long as an Internet connection is available - enter and edit content from anywhere.

• Make sure that the CMS is not only accessible from the company network, but that you can also work from other networks.

Work together as a team in a reasonable way

Not only several editors are involved in a contribution, but also professionals for graphics or SEO. When working in a team, it is important that the tools provide support in the right places and avoid work being done twice or not at all.

Among other things, a CMS can reflect various editing and approval processes. The role concept defines who can and must perform which task in the CMS. External staff and interns may have fewer rights than editors and producers.

• Here again, the same applies: Make a concept! Remember the principle "less is more" to avoid intransparent structures.
• In Drupal, content is not only entered via nodes, but also via e.g. taxonomy terms. If you use taxonomy terms for content, make sure that the editor roles have rights for them.

In a CMS, several users can edit a contribution at the same time. The first state saved is usually kept. This means that the content of the second editing session is lost. For editors we often use a function that prevents exactly this: The editing is blocked for further users if one person is already editing a content. Thus it is always visible who is currently editing the article.

• Check if and how you can edit a post with several people. Make sure that the CMS informs you if a post is already being edited by another team member.

Use a test environment

With a CMS, editors can create new views and content combinations themselves. Especially combinations that are used for the first time should be tested beforehand: Do they look as expected? Do they do what is expected?

• Have a staging environment set up for testing. This way you can test the behavior on a copy of the original site.
• Especially do not test changes to taxonomy terms directly on the live site. In Drupal, the preview function for taxonomy terms is not that good.
• Give your new colleagues access to the staging environment so they can easily learn to use it without worrying about breaking something.

Last but not least

Requirements and conditions can change in every editorial department and in every project. This is quite normal. So keep your eyes open - and talk to your colleagues and your agency about further development possibilities.