Manage projects
The Projects feature lets you manage the publishing process for multiple related content items. For example, you can add a landing page, blocks, pages, and products (if you have Optimizely Commerce Connect installed) to a project and publish them, manually or scheduled, simultaneously. The projects feature supports the management of content in different language versions so that you can manage the translation of content items in projects too.
Video: Manage content with the Projects feature
Video tutorial: Manage content with the Projects feature (5:20 minutes)
Note
The projects feature may be disabled on your site, in which case you do not see the project bar at the bottom of the user interface and cannot use the feature.
- The Projects feature is turned on or off for the entire site and affects all users.
- Editing actions, such as creating and updating items, automatically associate a content item with a currently active project. Exceptions to this rule are moving items in the structure, setting content to expired, and changing access rights or language settings. These actions do not associate content items with the active project.
Note
Remember to deactivate the project when you no longer want to work with it. Items wrongly associated with a project need to be manually removed from the project.
- You can manually associate items with a project by dragging and dropping them from the page view into the project overview.
- Content associated with a project is locked for editing if another project is active.
- A version of content is associated with a specific project. This means you can have a published version of an item not associated with any project; one draft of the same item belonging to a Summer campaign project, and another to a VIP campaign project.
- You can add, remove, and update existing items even if some or all items within a project are published.
- You can collaborate with other editors by adding comments and replies to comments, project items, and projects.
Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) has two ways to work with projects.
- Use the Projects feature. This feature is enabled by default.
- Add the Projects gadget to your user interface, if a developer turns off the Projects feature.
The following table shows a comparison of the two methods:
Projects feature | Projects gadget |
|---|---|
Accessible to users unless it was turned off for the website. | Accessible to users who add the gadget. |
Turned on or off for the entire site and affects all users. | Added to your own user interface; does not affect other users. |
Content is automatically added if a project is active. | You need to add content manually to a project. |
Content associated with a project can only be updated within the project context. (If content is associated with a project, an editor who wants to edit that content needs to have that project active or create a draft). | Other editors (not using the Projects gadget) can update content associated with a project. |
You can continue working on a project after some or all items are published. | When the project is published, the project is obsolete and can no longer be used. |
You can publish multiple items set to Ready to publish and leave items not ready for a later time. | All project items must be set to Ready to publish before the project is published. |
You can collaborate on projects by adding comments to projects and items. | There are no collaboration features. |
Projects user interface
Project bar
A project bar is displayed at the bottom of the Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) window, indicating whether a project is active.
When you first access the edit view with the projects feature enabled, no project is selected in the project bar. When you select a project, it is preselected the next time you open the user interface.
If a project is active—that is, is selected in the project bar—changes (creating a page or block, updating existing content, uploading an image, and so on) are automatically associated with that project.
If you select the option None (use primary drafts), you can work with content items as usual without associating them with any projects.
You can create, rename, and delete projects from the context menu on the project bar.
If you delete a project, associated items are not deleted but are no longer associated with a project.
Project overview
You can open an overview from the projects bar that displays content items associated with the active project.
The overview shows details such as name, content status, content type, and time and date for the latest change of each content item.
Each content item in the overview has a context menu from which you can set it to Ready to Publish, open it for editing, and remove it from the project, providing you with Edit access rights. The context menu button displays when you hover over an item.
You can select multiple items in the overview and remove them from the project or set them as Ready to Publish simultaneously. Common computer mouse and keyboard functionality for selecting multiple items is supported, except for CTRL+A, which is not supported.
From Options in the overview, you can publish all items set to Ready to publish immediately or schedule them for publishing later.
Show comments open a view where you can select a project item and see a list of events connected to the item. You can add comments on each event and reply to comments, see Collaboration between editors.
Click Sort to order content items for a better overview, and Refresh to reload the view if multiple editors are working on the same project.
Project items navigation panel
The project items navigation panel provides quick access to items in the project. Double-click an item to open it.
Each content item in the project items panel has a context menu displayed when you hover over an item; the menu options are the same as those in the project overview. You can select multiple items in the list as in the project overview.
Versions when you work on projects
Tip
Add the versions gadget to your user interface if you are working with multiple drafts and projects to see a list of the different versions.
Only one version of a page is associated with the project. This means you can have a published version of a page and several drafts, and any one of these versions can be associated with the project. If the associated version is published, the project overview displays Published for that item. If it is not the published version, the overview displays Draft, Previously Published, Expired, and so on.
The Versions gadget shows you which project each version is associated with, which is especially useful if you are working with multiple projects for the same content:
You can only have one published version, so if you publish another version of the page (that is, a version that is not associated with the project) after the version associated with the project, the project version is not published anymore and, therefore set as Previously published in the project overview.
When you open an item and have a project active, CMS displays the version associated with the active project. If you open an item and do not have a project active, Optimizely displays the version that is set as primary. You can see which version is the primary in the versions gadget; the primary version is marked with a target symbol
. The primary draft is not necessarily the latest version. See also: Set the primary draft.
When the projects feature is enabled, versioning works in the following ways:
- Project X is selected, and you create content: The draft is created and added to the active project automatically. Because this is the only version of the content, it is set as the primary draft.
- Project X is selected, and you update existing content:
- Is the content a draft and associated with the active project?
- Yes – The draft is saved and still associated with the active project. Whichever version was the primary draft before is still the primary draft.
- No, the content is a published version or a draft not associated with the active project – A draft is created and is associated with the active project. The previous version is still the primary draft.
If there is a previous draft within the project in the same language, the previous draft is replaced with this draft because only one version can be associated with a project. The previous draft remains in CMS as a draft but is no longer associated with a project. A draft of the same project item but in another language is not replaced as it is viewed as another version of the item. This means you can have one draft in English and one in French on page Z in Project X, but you cannot have two in English on that page.
- No project is selected (use primary drafts) and you create content: The draft is created and set as the primary draft.
- No project is selected (use primary drafts) and you update content:
- Is the content a draft? It does not matter if the content is associated with a project; versioning works the same.
- Yes – The draft is updated and saved. If it was associated with a project before you edited the draft, it will still be associated with it afterward. Whichever version was the primary draft before is still the primary draft.
- No, the content is not a draft – A draft is created and is not associated with a project. It is set as the primary draft.
Projects gadget
A project lets you manage the publishing process for multiple related content items, such as a landing page, blocks, and products (if you have Optimizely Commerce Connect installed) that are parts of a campaign. Projects support content management in different language versions so that you can manage the translation of content items in the project view.
You can create content or create draft versions of existing content, associate the content items with a project, and then publish the project immediately or schedule it for later publishing.
Note
You must add the Projects gadget to the left or right panel to access the project features.