I promised I’d let you know how the 2008 Cascade Server User’s Conference went, and I’m a man true to my word.  Maybe late, but true.

John Scaramuzzo (Senior VP), Louisa Nicholson (Web Designer) and I traveled to Atlanta, GA to attend the conference, which was held at the Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center, September 22-23.  Despite a scavenger hunt for gasoline in the Atlanta area before our tank ran dry (there was a shortage due to Hurricane Ike), the trip went really well.

The conference consisted of two tracks of sessions:  Technical and Business tracks.  The Technical Track was geared towards developers, whereas the Business Track focused more on what Cascade Server can do for your organization and where Hannon Hill is taking Cascade Server in the future.  Louisa stayed in the Technical Track to learn as many Cascade coding tricks as she could, John stayed in the Business Track to keep up with Cascade from a business owner standpoint, and I jumped from track to track to try and get a flavor for everything.

Both tracks offered a lot of great information.  Presenters included employees of Hannon Hill, as well as Cascade Server customers.  I did a presentation in the Business Track entitled “Tips & Tricks for End Users”, where I presented several different ways to use Cascade Server effectively for your organization, including:

• Smart implementations for large sites
• Content re-use
• Using structured content (Data Definitions)
• Integrate Cascade Server with eCommerce and other database applications (scripting languages)
• Manage Search Engine Marketing efforts
• Control full Flash websites and Flash applications
• Integration of advanced JavaScript applications
• Tips on training end users and providing documentation

Against every fiber in my being, I’m going to provide a link to the video of my presentation.  I know plenty of my colleagues have been waiting for this moment.  So you can view the video here.  Just reserve judgment, please!

I’m not going to grade myself on my own presentation, but I’ll say that it went well, and I had several people tell me afterward that it was very helpful.  I’ll consider that “mission accomplished”.  My goal was to let other Cascade Server users know how Beacon Technologies creatively uses Cascade Server to give all types of organizations the ability to manage their own Web site using content management.

So why did I do a presentation?  Simply put, Hannon Hill’s call for speakers really got me thinking.  They asked a simple question:  “Are you proud of your Cascade Server implementation?  As I wrote in my last post, I immediately thought, “YES”.  We’re always looking for ways to tailor Cascade to meet the needs of any type of organization, from a “mom & pop shop” to large corporations and universities.

All three of us met a lot of great people at the conference:  Hannon Hill employees and other Cascade Server owners and users.  As partners of Hannon Hill, we spent a good amount of time talking with employees, and networked with several Cascade Server users, several of whom we’re still in touch with today.

Already, Hannon Hill has sent out a notice about the 2009 conference, and I can assure you that we’ll be back!  Many thanks to all of the Hannon Hill employees for putting on a great conference.

In the background, John Scaramuzzo (left) and I (with the glowing eyes) talk with a Cascade Server user.  If you look closely, behind the head of Bradley Wagner (foreground, right, Director of Engineering at Hannon Hill), you can see Louisa’s nose as she networks with another user.  :)

As I’ve written in the past, a Content Management System (CMS) is a valuable tool to your business’ online presence.  They enable anyone to maintain their Web site, with no Web development skills required.  As I tell potential and current customers when demonstrating our CMS of choice, “With Cascade Server, if you know Microsoft Word®, you can maintain your Web site”.  This powerful statement is the difference between hiring an expensive Web development staff and having your accountant maintain your Web site (instead of writing big salary checks).  Your Web site “contributor” (a user whose job it is to maintain the content of your site) now has the ability to keep the site up-to-date.

Of course, the “anyone” part does introduce a big problem:  how do you keep control over what your contributors are putting out there?  Chances are they’re not publishing inappropriate content:  anti-government, anti-(insert-your-favorite-sports-team-here), etc.  But what about spelling errors, inaccurate content, general formatting issues, and anything that you just don’t approve of?

Enter CMS workflows.  What is a CMS workflow?  Hannon Hill, the manufacturer of Cascade Server, states that a workflow “ensures that content entered into the system is quality checked by mandating that the entered content go through a series of approval steps.”  In short, it’s a way for a Web site manager to control what’s added to their Web site.

How does a workflow work?  Let’s take a look at a simple workflow.

The first step is to set permission levels for your users.  A contributor in your system should only have the ability to edit content, and not be able to publish that content to your live Web site.  Furthermore, a user can be locked down to a specific section, folder, or even page of your site.  Here, they can make any edits to an existing page, create pages, or if given permission, delete pages.

Once their edits are done, they submit the page into the workflow.  The manager is notified via email that the contributor has submitted content for approval.  The manager then logs into the CMS and reviews the content.  From here, the manager can either reject the content back to the contributor with personalized comments (which notifies the contributor via email as well), or the manager can “approve” the changes, which then publishes the page and associated files to their live site.

Pretty simple, yet effective, right?  By implementing this easy workflow, you maintain control over your Web site, while your contributor does all of the work!  Of course, workflows can be much more robust than our example, and can be tailored to fit your organization’s specific quality assurance practices.  You can have the contributor submit to a manager, that manager can submit to Legal, Legal can submit to Marketing, Marketing can reject back to the manger or submit to IT for publishing, and…well, you get the idea:  it’s completely flexible!

Below is an example of a workflow that we have implemented for a large Cascade Server implementation.

What kind of quality assurance program do you have for your Web site right now, whether it’s in a CMS or not?  Is it robust with several review checkpoints and processes?  Or do you not have one at all?  Whatever the case may be, my team and I can bring your entire Web site into Cascade Server, and apply a custom workflow that fits your needs.  Contact us to find out more.