SACPA Content Management
What is Forestry?
Forestry is a content management system that is completely disconnected from your website. It works very differently from traditional systems but creates very significant benefits. Please remember this guide if you are every unsure how, or why, the CMS is set up a particular way.
- Forestry is a tool (provided by a third party company) which allows editing of simple text files using a series of forms we have designed
- Once you have edited these text files they are loaded into a completely separate file-system, in this case a version-controlled repository.
- There are lots of ways to edit these configuration files. Forestry is simply one easy way to do so.
- When a change is detected in our repository, our server is notified and it compiles a new version of the site, generating every possible page. This takes up to a few minutes. When the site is built, it is uploaded to many (potentially hundreds) of servers worldwide, each strategically located to give fast and secure performance.
- Because the local versions of the website contain the entire finished product, they are very fast and entirely secure. There is no way they can be hacked, for instance, because all that exists on the server is a series of published files.
How does the podcast feed work?
- Prior to a recording of a session (a podcast) existing, the session is promoted on SACPA.ca as an upcoming event.
- When a session has transpired, a recording is traditionally uploaded to the website, and linked to the now-past session.
- We have subscribed to an excellent and full featured podcast hosting service called PodBean
- You will upload the session directly to PodBean, which will distribute the episode to iTunes, Spotify, etc. It will also add artwork, potentially manage advertising, and various other perks.
- We will (using this system) then import a list of recent episodes from PodBean , which will be listed in a file called “podcast” in this CMS.
- You should be able to then edit the recent session and find your uploaded episode in the list. If it is not there yet, we will provide a URL to re-run the synchronization function, which may take a few moments to complete.
What are “roles”
- The new website contains a way to describe a person. It can be used to provide a profile of a board member, for instance. However, it can just as easily be applied to speakers.
- For now, this is only in use for board members, but is easily extensible so that SACPA speakers could have more detailed listings, perhaps related to their sessions
- It may be useful to take a mixed approach where SACPA’s long term stalwart speakers could be benefitted with a more detailed profile, where others do not require this treatment.
- Contact forms are logged on our CDN (Content Delivery Network) provider, Netlify. All responses are captured, and can then be exported to CSV or spreadsheet files.
- SACPA’s employees or directors can be emailed with a notification when a form is received
How do I add or edit partners
- Using the partners module in the left menu, add partners you wish to recognize.
- Partners may not immediately appear on the site menu