cascade server: the road ahead… 2008 cascade server user’s conferencebradley wagner

Bradley Wagner

Cascade Server: The Road Ahead…

2008 Cascade Server User’s Conference

Bradley Wagner

…But First Let’s Review4 Themes for the Cascade 5 series in 2008:• User Experience enhancements• Enterprise Deployment features• Popular Issues• Distinct Feature vs. Patch Releases

9/19/08

Bradley Wagner

User Experience Enhancements• Quick Links for Fast Access (5.1) • Drag and Drop Folder Re-Ordering (5.2)• Drag and Drop Publish Queue Re-Ordering

(5.2)


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Enterprise Deployment Features• Database Publishing (5.0)• Load Balancing Support with

Tomcat/Hibernate (5.0)• Content Types for Pages (5.5)


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Popular Issues• Content Drafting “Save as Draft” (5.0) – 16

votes• Editable Roles (5.5) – 12 votes• 30+ voted on features, improvements, bug-

fixes included up to 5.7


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Release Strategy:Feature vs. Patch Releases

Goal• To release new functionality in scheduled quarterly

releases and provide timely patch releases in the interim.

By the Numbers• 5 Features Releases – Since Last September (5.0, 5.1,

5.2, 5.5, 5.7)• 10 Patch Releases – Averaging 2-3 between major

releases


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Cascade Server 5 Series Adoption• About 66% of our 150+ customers are using

Cascade 5 series in production• Test licenses available on request. Get yours

today!


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Want to learn more?• Database Publishing– Syl Turner, Software Engineer, Tomorrow 8:15-9:00am

• Exploring Cascade 5 – Kevin Works, Services Director, Tomorrow 10:30-11:00am

• Cascade Server Knowledge Base– Morgan Griffith, Marketing Directory, Today 2:30-3:00pm

• Ask Hannon Hillians!


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The Here and Now: Cascade 5.7


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User Experience Enhancements• AJAX Left Hand Navigation

• Type Ahead Search with Relevancy Sorting

• Scrolling “New” Menu – 10 votes


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Content Types Indexes• Great for pulling only the content you need

from folders across your website – “Most Recent…”


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Link Anchors• Anchor insertion/editing – 21 votes


• Supports Clicking Links with Anchors

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WYSIWYG Upgrade• Full-Screen Edit Mode• Full Safari 3 support• TinyMCE 3 provides fixes for lots of bugs

Cascade in our own issue tracker


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Script Formats• Stylesheets -> XSLT Formats• Script Formats: When XSL is too much– Backed by Apache Velocity templating engine– Procedural style familiar to PHP, Python, Perl

developers• Content Type Indexes + Script Formats =

Simper, More Efficient Dynamic Content Regions


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Cascade Server in 2009


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(A Few) Themes for 2009• Scaling Cascade Server deployments• Lowering the learning curve• Providing solutions for the social Web


Bradley Wagner

Scaling Cascade Scenario: We’re adding 50 new micro-sites to Cascade in next 6

months

Questions:1. How can we empower our site managers and alleviate

strain on our CMS administrators?2. How can we easily link between sites being deployed to

totally separate web servers?3. How can we allow content contributors on on site to….?


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New Roles


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Previous Innovations• Introduced editable Roles in Cascade 5.5

Allowed for enabling/disabling a wide-range of abilities for the 5 existing roles: Contributor, Approver, Publisher, Manager, and Administrator


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One Step Further• Allow creation of totally new custom roles• Add permissions to access control lists to

control who can access them• Tailor new Roles to “allow content

contributors” to do whatever you want


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“Sites” as New Components


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Previous Innovation• We’ve been laying the groundwork:– Administration Component Containers– Lastly, Transport Containers in Cascade 5.7


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Site Features• Formal Site Component Site contains its own set of Folders and Administration Area

components Only the assets relevant to the Site are visible Users can belong to multiple sites and can switch between

them

• Contextual, site-specific Roles Allows “contributors on one site to…”

• Site Specific Settings


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Some Site Specific Settings• Site Level URL Allows for robust “linking between sites” deployed to

possibly

• Site Specific Content Preferences– WYSWIYG toolbar configuration (currently in Groups)– CSS File and CSS Classes (currently in Targets, Groups, Global)– Tidy, Spell Check, Link Check, Accessibility (currently Global)

Allows for more fine-grained control to “empower site managers”


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Long Term Site Goal• Sites supplant Targets as the object that binds

Home area assets and Administration components together

Allows for decoupling of Templates (presentation) from Targets (publish destination)


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Lowering the Learning Curve


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Menu Blocks

• Combine common Index Blocks and Formats (XSLT or Script)

• Create Menus with no XSLT and minimal number of options in a simple User Interface– Breadcrumbs– Next/Previous– Selected Objects– Context Navigation


Index Block

Format

Menu

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Providing Solutions for the Social Web


Bradley Wagner

Social Web SitesSites are interactive web applications:• Personalization– Favorites– Watchers

• Community Features– User Comments, Discussions– Ratings– Idea Exchanges– Blogs– Tags– Wikis


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Cascade Delivery Server


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What is a Delivery Server?• Push CMS: Cascade Server 5 is strictly Push CMS that

bakes and pushes files to a third-party Delivery Server (Apache, IIS Web Server)

• Push/Pull CMS: Cascade’s Delivery Server will provide ability to directly serve up site content to browser

Imagine the Preview pane in Cascade 5 in a window by itself


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Cascade Delivery Server• Optional product

• Simple enabling of Cascade Delivery Server from within Cascade

• Content served up by Cascade with the same URL as would appear on your web server

• Can be enabled for specific sites and micro-sites


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Why incorporate Pull CMS?• Pull model has gained a lot more traction in the last

few years as CMS applications have become more stable

• Allows for instantaneous updating of site content for sites that require it: – Events Calendar

• Allows for easy incorporation of Personalization and Community features– Blog with User Comments


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Future Delivery Server Innovations:Live Site Modules

Inject easily pluggable, configurable modules for:

• Dynamic Content Harvesting – Calendars, Search• Personalization – Favorites, Watchers• Community – Comments/Discussions, Ratings, Ideas

Exchanges

right into existing page managed in Cascade Server. Currently achieved with custom scripting code (PHP, .NET)


Bradley Wagner

Push and Pull• Cascade Server will still be a great Push CMS for

maintaining organization controlled content:– Main corporate site (e.g. hannonhill.com)– Course Catalogs– News and Press Releases

• Cascade Delivery Server will be great for interactive, community sites:– Cascade Knowledge Base with Favorites, Ratings,

and Comments


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Benefits for All• Delivery engine requires a consolidated

rendered content cache to deliver the speed

All users will benefit from faster load page times for in-application viewing and during publishing


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Customer Influenced Roadmap:Your Ideas Matter!


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Voicing Your Opinions• Growing JIRA Features Project

– Over 150 new features, improvements suggested since beginning of 2008

– Over 30 voted on features, improvements, bug-fixes implemented in 5 series to date

• Feature Idea Exchange on Customer Success Community

• Need to talk?– Enter Chris Armistead, Client Advocate (product surveys, quarterly

check-ins)– Remember our Support Staff headed by Tim Reilly and Joel Baxter

is there to listen2008 Cascade Server User’s Conference

Bradley Wagner

Q & A

Bring your questions for me to our Open Q&A, Tomorrow 12:30-1:30pm


cascade server: the road ahead… 2008 cascade server user’s conferencebradley wagner

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