Adding content to an edition

An edition represents a "drop" or release of content. Content can be added to an edition in two ways:

• Add content directly to an edition - Use this approach where your organization’s workflow doesn’t require you to specify content location at this point. Also use this approach if the content type means a specified location isn’t required, for example a page hierarchy content item.

• Add content to editions using slots - You use this approach where your organization’s workflow uses slots to specify where published content will be placed in your app or website.

Adding content directly to editions

When you open an edition you'll see two tabs: slots and content. From the slots tab you can add slots by dragging slots to the slots window and adding content to these slots. To add content directly to the edition, click the content tab.

If no content has been added to an edition, the empty state screen is shown and from here you can click "Add some content" to choose some content to add to the edition.

The content browser is shown and you add any of your content from the Content Library, including hierarchies. In this example we want to add the "Products" hierarchy to add some new pages to our site, so we'll choose this content and click the "+" icon.

Adding hierarchies

When you add a hierarchy node to an edition, you'll be asked if you want to add all the descendents as well. This is because a hierarchy is a collection of content items organized into a tree structure. In most cases we want to add all the items in the tree and in this example we're updating the entire site map to add some pages, so we'll click "Node and descendents" to add the whole tree.

The entire hierarchy has now been added to the edition, as shown in the image below.

When you click on a hierarchy item that's been added to an edition, the properties panel is shown on the right. In the "Snapshot contains" section the number of items in the hierarchy is displayed- in this case 10 items.

Adding a hierarchy to an edition from the Content Library

You can also add a hierarchy to an edition directly from the Content Library. With the hierarchy open, right click on the node you want to add and choose "Add to edition". In the example shown below we're adding the root of the hierarchy.

From the dialog choose the edition to which you want to add the hierarchy. You can choose whether to add the selected node or all its descendents. In this example we want to add all its descendents as well.

When the hierarchy has been added to the edition a confirmation message is displayed. Click "Go to edition" to open the edition window.

The edition window is opened and contains the hierarchy that was just added.

Adding additional content

To add some more content click "Add content" and choose the content to add from the content browser.

We'll add a few more content items to the "November pop up edition", including a blog.

When you add content to an edition a content snapshot will be created. A snapshot represents the content item exactly as it appears at the point it was added to the edition. This ensures that the content that is published on the edition start date is exactly the version of the content that you added to the edition.

In the example shown below there are 3 content snapshots.

When you click on a snapshot, the properties window on the right will show more information about the content item from which it was created and you can click the content item link to open the content item in the Content Library.

When you've added all your content, directly to the edition or in slots, click "Schedule" to schedule the edition to go live on the edition start date. Your content will be published on the start date and available in your website or app. See scheduling an edition to follow that step.

Other ways of adding content to an edition

Adding content to an edition from the content form

You can also add content to an edition from the content form.

The example below shows a "Great looks for winter" banner. An edition has already been set up, ready to add the content for our winter collection. All you need to do is select "Add to edition" from the Save menu in the content form and choose the edition to which to add the content.

From the "Add to edition" dialog, choose the event, the edition within the event and you can add a comment as a guide for your content planners. In this example the content item is added to the "Winter collection launch promo" within the "Winter collection launch" event.

Click the "Add to edition" button to add the content.

The content is now added to the "Winter collection launch promo" edition and a confirmation message is displayed. Clicking the "Go to edition" will open the edition.

The edition is displayed and now contains the "Great looks for winter" banner.

You can use "Add to edition" to add content to as many editions as you'd like.

Adding content to an edition from the content library

You can also add content to an edition from the content library.

In the example below we want to add the "Spring special carousel" to an edition to use in an upcoming promotion. To add the content to an edition, right click on the item's card and choose "Add to edition" from the menu.

From the "Add to edition" dialog, choose the event, the edition within the event and you can add a comment as a guide for your content planners. In this example the content item is added to the "Get ready for Spring promo" edition within "The Spring event".

Click the "Add to edition" button to add the content.

The content is now added to the "Get ready for Spring promo" edition and a confirmation message is displayed. Clicking the "Go to edition" link will open the edition.

The edition is displayed and now contains the "Spring special carousel" content item, alongside other content that was added previously.

Tag a snapshot to an edition from the content form

If you want to ensure that a specific version of a content item is available to add to an edition, you can tag a snapshot of this content to an edition from the content form in the content production view. This will create a snapshot of the content item at the point it was saved and make it available via the snapshot tab of the content browser. There may be multiple snapshots of the same content item available to the planner and they can choose which version to add to the edition.

This feature is useful if you want to make a specific version of a content item available to add to slots and editions. It makes it easy to work with multiple versions of the same content.

Choose "Tag snapshot to edition" to start creating a snapshot.

Select the event and edition to tag this content with. In the example below, the content is tagged to the "January sale edition".

The snapshot of the "Winter sale banner" is now tagged to the "January sale edition" (1 in the image below), making it easy to find the right snapshot to add to a slot or directly to an edition. This snapshot represents the specific version of the "Winter sale banner" that we saved. If we made a change to the banner, then we could choose "Tag snapshot to edition" again to tag the newer version of the content.

Snapshots can be added to multiple editions, tagging content to an edition is just a convenience to make the snapshot easier to find.

Note that tagging a snapshot to an edition is not supported for hierarchies, although you can tag a snapshot of a single content item that is part of a hierarchy. You can add a hierarchy to an edition from the Content Library, as explained in the section below.

Adding content to editions using slots

A slot represents where in your app or website the content is going to be published to, from an entire page to one section of a page. The slots that should be added to each edition will usually be part of the content plan for each event, in which the planner will specify when each item of content should be published, and where it should be published to.

The example on this page follows on from adding editions in which we created a Winter collection promo event and added two editions to it. We'll now show how to add slots to an edition within the winter collection and add content to these slots.

Adding a slot to an edition

To add a slot to an edition, choose to view the edition by selecting choosing "View edition" from the event's contextual menu in the calendar view or viewing the event and opening your chosen edition. Then click the "Slots" tab and choose "Add slots" to start adding slots.

The available slots are displayed and you can add a slot by selecting it and then clicking "Add".

In this case we're going to update a banner on the home page to promote the sale and add other content including a carousel to the main area of the page. We know that the main area of the page is represented by the "Home page main content slot" so we'll add this to our edition. We'll also add the "Home page hero banner slot" to contain our banner.

Duplicating editions and slots

When a slot is added to an edition it will always start off as empty. If you have a slot that contains lots of items of content, you might not want to go through and add all the items to the slot from scratch, especially if only certain items have changed from another edition. If that's the case you can:

• Duplicate another edition containing the slot or slots you want to add to the new edition. Copying editions is explained on the copying editions page.
• Copy one or more slots from another edition, as covered in copying slots.

In this example we're just adding a single piece of content to a slot. To add content, open the slot by right-clicking on it and choosing "Open/close slot from the contextual menu" as shown below.

Once one or more slots are added to an edition you can add content to those slots.

Adding content to slots

There are two ways of choosing content to add to a slot in an edition:

• Choosing content from the Content Library to add to any slot in any edition directly from the content browser

• Choosing a snapshot of a particular version of a content item that has been tagged to an edition

To show how to add content to slots contained in an edition, we'll use the example of a winter collection launch event and add content to its "Winter collection launch promo" edition.

Adding content to a slot with the Content library

The edition details window for the "Winter collection launch promo" is shown below. In the slot tab there are two slots: "Home page feature slot", that represents a banner at the top of the home page, and "Home page carousel slot" that will contain promotional content shown on the page.

To choose a slot to add content to, either click within the slot title or choose "Open/Close Slot" from the slot's contextual menu.

The slot is now opened. Any content already in the slot will be displayed. When a slot is created it will be initially empty.

To add content click the "+" icon labelled "Add".

The content browser is now displayed, allowing you to choose content from the Content Library to add to this slot. Only content items of the types that can be added to the slot will be displayed. The feature slot has been configured to accept a banner, so only items of this type will be displayed. You can also filter the content by modification date and publish status and select content in a particular folder.

To add an item to the slot, select it and click the "+" icon. You can visualize a content item by selecting it and choosing the eye icon. A preview of the content will be shown on the window on the right hand side. In this example we'll choose to add the Winter sale banner to the slot.

When the content has been added, you'll be returned to the editions detail window. The Winter collection image has been added to the slot. If a slot supports multiple items then you can click the "+" icon again to add more items, up to the maximum that the slot supports.

Tagging a content snapshot to an edition

To create a snapshot of a content item you can tag it to an edition. Open the item you wish to save in the content form in the content production view. In this example we want to create a snapshot of the updated version of the "winter sale now on" banner and make it available to add to the "January sale edition".

From the Save menu choose "Tag snapshot to Edition".

"Tag snapshot to edition" is useful if you want to make a specific version of a content item available to add to slots and editions. It makes it easy to work with multiple versions of the same content.

Choose "Tag snapshot to an edition" to start creating a snapshot.

Select the event and edition to tag this content with. In the example below, the content is tagged to the "January sale edition".

Navigate to the edition in the scheduling view, choose the slot that you want to add the content to and click the plus icon.

Click the "Snapshots" tab to see the snapshots available to add to this slot.

The snapshot of the "Winter sale banner" is tagged to the "January sale edition" (1 in the image below), making it easy to find the right snapshot to add to a slot or directly to an edition. This snapshot represents the specific version of the "Winter sale banner" that we saved. If we made a change to the banner, then we could choose "Tag snapshot to edition" again to tag the newer version of the content.

Only snapshots created using the "Tag snapshot to edition" menu item will be displayed in the snapshot view and the snapshots saved to the current edition, the "January sale edition", are selected by default. To choose from snapshots saved to other editions, uncheck the "January sale edition".

To add a snapshot to a slot, just select it and click the "Add" button.

The snapshot is now added to the slot.

Snapshots can be added to multiple editions, tagging content to an edition is just a convenience to make the snapshot easier to find.

For more information about editing content in slots see editing content in a slot

Snapshots

• When you add content to an edition or a slot what you are actually adding is a "snapshot" of this content. A snapshot is a representation of a content item exactly as it appears at the point when it was added, or when it was saved to an edition. By creating snapshots, Dynamic Content allows planners to be certain that the content, including any linked items, or hierarchies they preview and schedule is exactly the version of the content that will appear when the edition goes live.

• If the content item is subsequently updated and the planner wants to use the latest version, they will need to add the updated content item to any slots or editions in which it is used.

• If you want to ensure that a specific version of a content item is available to add to a slot you can save this content to an edition. This will create a snapshot of the content item at the point it was saved and make it available via the snapshot tab of the content browser. There may be multiple snapshots of the same content item available to the planner and they can choose which version to add to a slot. This is explained in more detail in the next section.

Related pages

Editing content in a slot

Adding editions

Scheduling an edition

Introducing hierarchies