Projects (Beta)
Projects is our first Beta feature in the Edit UI, and the reason for it being beta is that we want to gather feedback from you on what we can improve, which features are we missing and so on, and still have the possibility to do large changes without causing a breaking change.
You can read more about how you enable Beta features in Fredrik Tjärnbergs blog post.
What is a Project and what can it do for you?
I have stolen this text from our User Story
As an Editor
I want to be able to publish multiple content at the same time
so that I can more easily handle a big change on the site, and make sure that all its parts
are available to the visitors at the same time
That means that we have built a "gadget" where you can
- Create Projects, e.g. Summer Campaign 1
- DnD the content that you want to be part of the "Summer Campaign 1"
- Make all the changes for the campaign
- Review your changes
- Mark the content as Ready To Publish
- Publish all the changes made to the content in the "Summer Campaign 1" project at the same time.
If the content you are adding to the Project is not writable, e.g. Published, we will create a new version for you content before adding it, otherwise we will add the Primary Draft.
I have attached a draft version of the User guide documentation were the feature is described in more detail.
Whats next?
We know that the Projects feature is far from perfect right now, but we are releasing it in smaller chunks and adding/removing features based on input gathered from you.
The next upcoming features for the Projects are (might change depending on feedback)
- Preview the site as if the Project has been published
- Schedule the entire Project to be published at a given time
- Add content to the project using other ways than DnD, e.g. from the Publish button
- Auto refresh the Project list - Right now you need to hit the refresh button to see if anyone else has made any changes to the project
If you want to try this feature out you need to be running at least EPiServer.CMS.UI 7.11.0. So please install/enable it and try it out for yourself, and if you have any feedback do not hesitate to let us know.
Hi!
I wrote some feedback here:
http://world.episerver.com/Modules/Forum/Pages/Thread.aspx?id=90572&epslanguage=en
I have a question about the capabilities of projects.
I seem to understand that they will take the place of workflows. We have implemented a site with workflows for a client (v. 7.5). In this workflow, when an editor without publishing permissions makes a change (or adds a page), all editors who have publishing permission for that page are notified via email. When one of these editors publishes it, and email is sent to the original modifier.
Is it possibile to implement this with projects? Based on my first reading it seems that it is "voluntary", that is, if the editor does not create or select a project, s/he will be able to create and modify a page, and there are no longer any hooks to send emails, since it's not part of a project and workflows no longer exist. Is this correct?
Thanks.
Hi Peter,
You are correct in that Projects are voluntary. The strengths of projects are to collaborate around a group of content items, the possibility to preview them together and batch publishing when satisfied with the results.
The more hard approval process I think you are looking for is not in the product at this time but is under active development and willbe included in the project in the future.
That said, what you want to achieve should be possible now by hooking up DataFactory events and using the User Notification API (in beta) to send messages.
/Erik