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Settings and Permissions

OGMC delegates certain administrative functions to departments with their own web developers. This page describes settings custom to our installation. Please visit Hannon Hill's knowledge base for full Cascade CMS documentation.

Versioning

Our Cascade installation is set with a 50-version limit on assets. Recycle bin settings are on a per-site basis. IT stores 30 days of database backups.

File Uploads

Templated sites have a 2 MB limit set on the file and image asset factories. There is a 50 MB limit set globally which applies to zip files and site imports. This limit is established to provide adequate space for most multimedia files other than videos. Files larger than this should be stored outside of Cascade, either on an external host (i.e. Sharepoint) or directly on your web server.

Publishing

Cascade uses a parallel publishing queue. Each site is permitted to actively publish two assets (including folders) at once. Pages or folders containing feeds can bet set to publish on a schedule. We recommend a minimum interval of 4 hours between scheduled publishes.

Publish time can be decreased by unchecking test destinations and excluding infrequently changed content such as css and image directories. Full publishes of large sites should be scheduled after business hours, if possible.

Site Manager

Each group of partnering developers is assigned a short department/unit name that will be prefixed to all sites and groups (for example, "McC" for McCormick). This will be referred to throughout this document as DEPTPREFIX. Your department/unit starts out with one site: DEPTPREFIX-MAIN. Within it is an external link to xSite Manager, which provides the following utilities for managing sites that match your prefix.

Site Creation

Creating sites is handled through the Site Manager. Your sites will follow the naming convention DEPTPREFIX-SITENAME. Do not rename your sites from this scheme as this will hide them from Site Manager.

To create a site, enter a name for the site in the input box and click create. The system will create a site in Cascade for you, grant the -ADMIN group Site Management permissions (see below), and assign the -ADMIN group to the Site-Administrator role.

Site Copy

To copy an existing site, use Site Manager. Some units have set up an empty site shell with their preferred directory structure, base assets, and asset factories as a template for creating new sites. As with site creation,  site Administration and folder write permission will be granted to your -ADMIN group. Additionally, any existing roles will be copied.

We strongly recommend storing common templates, formats, and CSS in a single DEPT-Commons area (instead of making copies) to avoid having to change multiple instances of these files later.

Transports

Transports can now be created directly within Cascade CMS. If you lack permissions, please contact webcomm-support for assistance.

User Accounts

User accounts can be created through the Site Manager. After a NetID is entered, the Site Manager will forward you on to their account page. After this process is complete, you should add the user to applicable groups by editing those groups. Please do not remove yourself or other users from the ALL-USERS group, since this is used to send notifications.

To load a new developer who can do everything in your department sites:

  1. Add the user to Cascade using the "Add a new Cascade user" form in Site Manager.
  2. Add the user to your department's ADMIN group by editing that group under Admnistration > Groups.

To load a new contributor with limited access to a site in your department:

  1. Add the user to Cascade using the "Add a new Cascade user" form in Site Manager.
  2. Add the user to a group associated with the site they will be editing, e.g. DEPTPREFIX-SITENAME-Contributors, which belongs to specific site roles for DEPT-SITENAME. Typically, contributor groups should be assigned to the Publisher, Architect, and Contributor site roles (see below).

User Groups

Partnering developers can create groups through Site Manager using the naming convention DEPTPREFIX-SITENAME-GROUPNAME. Groups can be re-used between sites, but establishing them on a per-site basis usually results in less confusion.

Developers outside of OGMC typically belong to a department-specific ADMIN group. This group is assigned to a system role that has more permissions than the Site Groups created via the Site Manager, in that members can:

  • Use Site Manager in their MAIN site
  • Edit groups to which they belong (under Administration > Groups)

Site Roles

Web Communications recommends that you assign site roles to groups instead of users. This makes it much easier to manage permissions as users come and go. To add a role to a specific site, go to "Manage Site > Site Settings." The established roles for our installation are outlined below. We defined site roles to be fairly granular, so typically you will assign a group to several depending on the abilities you wish to grant them.

Site-Administrator

Site Administrators are able to perform virtually any task in the site.

Site-Administrator-RO (Read Only)

Same as Site Administrator, but without the ability to bypass access permissions. In effect, the user will be able to view the entire site, but not make any edits unless specifically allowed on a folder or asset.

Site-Approver

The Site Approver role is a master of workflow. It carries the ability to delete workflows in process (immediately ending them and trashing the content), assign workflows to itself (thereby taking them over), and to bypass workflow completely in Sites that have workflow requirements.

Site-PageMaster

The Page Master role permits editors to change region configurations on each page's edit screen. You might use this if the user needs to create XHTML blocks and assign them to arbitrary page regions.

Site-Publisher

Site Publishers are able to publish files that are writeable by their group(s).

Site-Publisher-Sets

This role mirrors Site-Publisher but adds the ability for users to view Publish Sets in a site's Administration folder.

Site-Contributor

Site Contributors are able to read and edit assets, but are not able to perform publish operations.

Site-Architect

Site Architects can move and rename assets.

Site-Untidy

Adds the ability to bypass Accessibility, Link and Spell Checks when submitting content.

Site-ZipUpload

Adds the ability to upload a zip archive to a site.