How is content approved?
Once you are satisfied with the content you have edited or created, you submit it for approval so that it can be published and made available on the public website.
When you click the Submit icon (
), the Content Management System (CMS) workflow begins. This means that all content flows through an approval chain, with the following components:
- Author: This is the person who creates the content (text, images, etc.). When the author submits the content, it goes to the content approver.
- Approver: This is the person who approves or rejects the content at the unit level. It may be the department chair, an office director, or whomever the website creator designated in this role. Once the approver approves the content, he or she submits it to the editor.
- Editor: This is a member of the Web Team. The editor may approve the content, with or without editing, or reject it. If the editor approves the content, it will be made available on the public website.
Note: If you are both content author and approver, clicking Submit sends content straight to the editor.
How do I know my content is approved?
The CMS workflow system has the option to inform content authors and approvers by e-mail when content has been approved or rejected. If content has been rejected—either by the content approver or editor—the reason should be included under the Comments tab of the content item to explain why it was rejected and how it should be changed. Based on those comments, the author should rework the content as necessary and resubmit it for approval.
In order to be notified by e-mail when submitted content has been approved or declined, you need to enable system notification e-mail in your user profile within the CMS.
(Website approvers can also enable system notification e-mail to be informed when content has been submitted for their approval.)
When does content go live?
All of the editing and creating of website content takes place on the Staging server, not the “live” Production server. At 4:00 a.m. each morning, all published content on the Staging server goes live in a process called “eSync.” During eSync, the entire published contents of the Staging server are copied to the Production server.
(This is why all editing must be done on the Staging server, never on the Production server. If content is edited or created on the Production server, it will be wiped out during eSync when the Staging server version is copied to Production.)
Can I view content before it is approved?
You can view html content you have submitted for approval, even before it is published, by choosing Preview mode. After you have logged in to Ektron, the following screen options will appear:
By selecting Preview, you can then use the browser to navigate to the unpublished content you want to view (be sure to add the html content to the appropriate menu so it can be found). When you are in Preview mode, the green arrow will turn red.
When you are not in Preview mode (the arrow is green), content that has been submitted but not yet published is outlined with a yellow box in the web browser, as the following image demonstrates:
Remember, content that has been submitted can still be edited, even if it has not yet been approved. (Content that has never before been published will not be visible unless in Preview mode.)
Note: If the box around the content is green, it is published. If the box is red, it is checked out (see below).
Only html content can be seen in Preview mode. PDF, Word, and other such uploaded files are not able to be viewed until they are published.
What is the check-in/check-out process?
Any time you edit a content block, it is first checked out to you. This process ensures that only one person has access to edit that content at any one time, preventing accidental overwrites from occurring.
The content remains checked out to you until one of the following occurs:
- You select
(cancel) from the Edit Content toolbar in the CMS Work Area window. [This is different from 
(close window) at the top right corner. Caution: If you close the Work Area window while the content is still being edited, it will remain checked out to you, and no one else will be able to work on it.]
- You select
(checkin) from the Edit Content toolbar.
- You select (submit) from the Edit Content toolbar.
- An administrator forces the content block to be checked in.
Remember, IUP web pages are assembled from different content blocks. The check-in/check-out process works for individual content blocks, which means that two or more people can work on the same web page at the same time, but on different content blocks.
Please make sure to check in your content when you are done working on it. If you are unavailable and someone else needs to make changes to a content block that is checked out, an administrator will need to be asked to forcibly check in the content block to make it available.
