Content management

CMS Internal imageThe University purchased Percussion Rhythmyx v5.7 content management system (CMS) in the Autumn of 2006. This was part of a major web and brand regeneration project for the University. I worked with the project team throughout the entire procurement and delivery process.

I undertook developer training from Percussion and played a major role in the development of the system. This involved:

Once live in January 2007 I remained the lead developer within the system and launched phase two of the projects which involved all four of the technical schools and service departments moving into the CMS.

The entire system was upgraded to v6.5.2 in the Autumn of 2008 which required further developer training with Percussion as the coding language of the CMS was changed to Velocity. This required a complete re-write of all the templates and procedures within the application. I worked with both internal IT developers and external professionals to ensure that the site was successfully upgraded.

I retain full admin control over the system which enables me to develop/modify all aspects of the system from appearance to functionality. I have written a number of training guides on aspects of the system as well as running training courses for my central team of editors.

In 2009 I developed a method that allows for the printed prospectus content to be sourced directly from the CMS rather than being started from an outdated print version as previously required. This method means that the first draft of the prospectus is now based on the current web content which has benefited from almost a year of constant editing. In the past this draft was the final version of the printed prospectus from a year before which is often very out of date.

This new procedure has managed to save around five weeks of work for the development of the prospectus as the content is sourced digitally and requires far less editing. In addition to this, as all edits are made into the CMS there is no longer a need to recreate the online prospectus at the end of the project which saves a further four weeks work.

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