Create flexible nested components and schedule content automatically
That feeling of moving a task into the done column is hard to beat. When you finish a great piece of content for a future campaign, the last thing you want to do is set a calendar reminder to publish it in a week or a month from now. You just want to set it to automatically publish at a specific date and time.
So, today we’ve introduced the ability for authors to schedule entries to be published or unpublished. We’ve also made it possible to nest components inside another component, made several content modelling improvements, and added new features to the users and groups screens.
Schedule entries to be published or unpublished
Often, you have content that you want to publish or unpublish at some time in the future. This could be a press release that needs to go out on Monday morning when you are still in bed. Or it could be to unpublish a course or event once it has taken place.
To make this easier we’ve added the ability for authors to specify when an entry should be published or unpublished by setting schedules on an entry.
Manage schedules from the entry editor
We’ve added a new scheduling panel to the entry editor. Authors with the appropriate permissions can use this panel to set, update and remove entry schedules.
Quickly view all scheduled content
We’ve also added a new workflow state called Due to be published for entries that reach that stage in the entry workflow. You can use the filters or the workflow status column in the entries listing screen to quickly search or highlight any content in this state. You can also filter entries in the listing that have a publish or an unpublish schedule set.
Send notifications when content is scheduled to be published
The Due to be published workflow state is also available as a trigger in webhooks, so you can use it to send a notification to Slack, Teams or another platform when an entry has been scheduled for publishing.
Control who can schedule content using permissions
Setting an entry schedule is a permissioned action which can be controlled by adding the Publish scheduling or Unpublish scheduling action in the roles builder.
Create more flexible content models with nested components
That’s right – you can now nest components inside an existing component. This was one of the most requested features on our roadmap and marks the biggest change to the content type builder since we launched content types and entries. It brings a lot more flexibility to components in Contensis, allowing you to create data models that align with your front-end components.
Take the example of a simple Button component with fields for a button label and a destination URL. Previously, you could have used this component in any of your content types, either in a tab or in a composer, but not inside another component. This meant that when you had another component that required a button, such as a call to action block, you had to recreate your button label and destination URL fields inside that new component. Not only would this mean copying any validation settings and content guidelines from fields in your existing Button component to ensure consistency, it would also complicate the code for your front-end components. Now you can simply add in your existing component – saving time, preventing mistakes, and normalising your front-end code.
We’ve also made some other changes to components to support this feature.
The Usage panel in the component builder has been updated so you can understand what content types and components a particular component is used in.
We’ve added the ability to edit components from the content type builder. This means that when you’re editing a content type and want to make a change to a component, you no longer have to leave the content builder and search for the component you want to update.
You can also now customise the ‘Add component’ button text when you use the component in a repeatable field. So, if you’ve created an Address component to store fields like street name, town, postcode, and country, you could change the button text to “Add an address” when that component is used in a repeatable field.
For a deep dive into nested components, check out our recent webinar – Core component updates.
Content type improvements
Alongside the introduction of nested components, we’ve also made other improvements to the content type builder.
Tab guidelines
You can now add tab guidelines to each tab using the content type builder.
Tabs allow you to group fields in your content types, making it easier for your authors to navigate and manage content in the entry editor. Each tab will generally have a purpose or theme, which may not necessarily be obvious to other content strategists adding new fields to your content type or to authors when they are editing entries. Tab guidelines let you add instructions or contextual information for each tab which is then displayed at the top of the entry editor.
Both tab guidelines and content guidelines now use a Markdown editor to make it easier for users unfamiliar with Markdown syntax to add styling and links.
Include in Delivery
If you’re storing sensitive data in Contensis that you don’t want to be publicly available, you can now stop it being surfaced by the Delivery API.
We’ve added a new setting to the content type builder to specify whether the entries of a content type should be available from the Delivery API. This setting is on by default. If it is switched off then entries created using that content type will only be available via the Management API.
This is useful if you have content types that store transactional data, personal details, or other sensitive business information that you don’t want to be available in front-end searches or consumed by the Delivery API.
Users and groups improvements
Following on from our major update to the users and groups screens in Contensis 15, we’ve made a number of updates to the users and groups screens.
Users
- It’s now possible to identify users that have failed logins through the users search
- You can view the account activity of a user including when their password was last reset, last time they logged in and if they have any failed login attempts.
- A user can now update their own password.
- You can also set a user account to expire on a specific date.
Groups
- You can now search for groups by name and type.
- You can automatically assign a user to a group based on their email domain when their account is created.
Other updates and improvements
Other new features and significant changes in this release include:
- The ability to republish an unpublished entry without making a change.
- VoiceOver users now understand the sort order of tables.
- The number of search results displayed is now read out in VoiceOver.
- Text size zooming is now improved in Site View.
For a full list of changes, check out our what’s new page.
Upgrade now
If you are a cloud customer, you can raise a support request today to schedule an upgrade to Contensis 15.1.
If you are currently using an on-premise version of Contensis, and want to find out more about moving to our cloud platform, get in touch to arrange a call from your account manager.