Organizing blocks

Fri, 14 Feb 2014 10:37:57 GMT

A question has been raised among editors if there is a best practice on how to organize the blocks in the folder structure.

Unfortunately there is no simple answer on that question, so I will show some examples of possible ways to organize the blocks. As an editor you might not want the blocks to be organized in the same way as your pages. Hopefully you will find a way to organize your blocks using any of the alternatives below, or even combining several of them.

Before you start, the following facts applies to blocks:

The folders are listed in numeric and alphabetic order in the folder structure.
From EPiServer 7.5 blocks and media files share the same folder structure, which is not the case for EPiServer 7/7.1.
EPiServer 7.5 Commerce also has products as assets.
From EPiServer 7.5 blocks and folders can be moved or copied through drag and drop, also through keyboard shortcuts
(note that this action also affects media as they share the same structure).
From EPiServer 7.5 the folders for blocks and media files are organized in several levels.

Start – Deciding where to organize the blocks and media files

In EPiServer 7.5 there are blocks and media files that can be used globally for all websites in a multi-site environment, for the current website, locally on the page or block you are working on. And they share the same folder structure. In EPiServer 7/7.1 the blocks and media files have separate folder structures instead.

No matter which version you are working with, decide on which level in the folder tree to organize them.

If it is a news page that is to be archived after two days, you might want the images and documents to be stored with the page.

If it is a market campaign or release, you might want the page with the images and documents to be accessed from a more central place in the folder structure.

Alternative 1 – Naming the folders

Arranging the folders by name is the simplest alternative to create a structured order. By naming the folder you are using most often with underscore ‘_’, figure ‘1’, or letter ‘A’ first, will make this folder to end up at the top of the folder structure. Inside each folder you can arrange the blocks by naming them in a similar way as for folders.

Alternative 2 – Grouping the blocks to folders by usage

You can group the blocks to folders by their type of usage, for example, “Campaigns”, “Banners”, “Buttons”, “News” etc. A folder named “Contact” for blocks containing a contact form, and “Startpage” for blocks that are only used on the start page.

Alternative 3 – Grouping the blocks to folders by brand or product area

You can group the blocks to folders by product areas, such as “Kitchen”, “Bathroom” or even product name level for counters, tiles, sinks etc. If you run a website with multiple “tenants”, you might want to group into brands.

Alternative 4 – Grouping the blocks to folders by language

You might prefer to distinguish the blocks to folders by language to keep track of them, especially if you are running culture-specific campaigns with images.

Alternative 5 – Grouping the blocks to folders by access rights

If you are several editors working with the content on the website, you might have access rights to specific parts of the page tree. Therefore you also might want to have your own folders in the block tree as well.

Issues that can occur when using nested blocks

Some editors use nested blocks, which can cause difficulties in naming and grouping the blocks as well as translating the content in the user interface. When using EPiServer 7.5 it is possible to move blocks and media files around in the folder structure through drag and drop, but in 7 and 7.1 it is not.

Scheduling several versions of content for publishing in EPiServer 7 CMS

Tue, 29 Oct 2013 12:19:03 GMT

If you are running an online campaign, you might want several banner ads with different time spans to be shown on the landing page. This can be done by scheduling multiple versions of the landing page in EPiServer 7.

Let’s imagine the scenario “Campaign 2013” with two banners that are to be visible one day each.

Do the following:

1. In edit view, upload the banners on the Files gadget.

2. Create a new page, and select a page type that has the rich-text editor in the main body.

3. Drag the first banner to the editor area of the landing page.

4. Select Options > Schedule for Publish. Select date and time for the content to be published and click Schedule.

5. Select New Draft from Here and replace the first banner with the other one.

6. Select Options > Schedule for Publish. Select date and time for the content to be published and click Schedule.

Adding more features to your campaign

This example shows a simple scenario. If you are running several campaigns using the same landing page, you can have the banner ads as blocks and drag them to the page. These blocks can then be scheduled in multiple versions for publishing in a similar way as for pages. Schedule an A/B test for a block by using the Self-Optimizing Block.

An overview of page or block versions can be found in the Versions gadget, which can be added to the left or right panes in the editorial interface. There you can access versions that have been previously published, are in draft mode or will be published in the future.

Before setting the page to be scheduled for publishing, you can also add Personalization to your banners if you want. For example, banners that differ depending on whether certain pages have been visited on the website.

If you want to test the campaign pages in draft version before publishing, you can run an A/B test in EPiServer CMO.

Additonal information

How to schedule content for publishing, see EPiServer 7 CMS Editor’s User Guide
How to use the Self-Optimizing Block, see EPiServer Add-ons User Guide

Blog posts by Helen Alseby