Where is the latest Accessible Content Guidance?

You can find out about the latest Accessibility Regulations and guidance in the Accessibility area of our site.

You can learn about the key things you can do to help ensure your website is accessible.  You can also learn about Siteimprove, our digital governance platform and how you can register to receive fortnightly accessibility reports for your site.

How often does my site publish?

The following table shows the publish schedule of the main channels:

Note: Edits will go live approx 45 minutes after the above publish times.

How do I get access to the system to edit my site?

1. You will need to complete CMS Training before you can get a CMS account.  Register your interest in CMS training
2. When you have completed CMS training, you should ask your line manager/site owner to log a request ticket through our SiteHelpDesk. We will then confirm the access request and assign your new CMS account to the site. View more information on accessing the system

How do I request a new site?

The Change Request Process needs to be completed before you can begin developing a new site.

Once you submit the New Website/Change Request Form, this goes to the Digital Operations Group (DOG). This group will review the change request and you will be informed accordingly of the outcomes.

Complete the New Website/Change Request Form

How do I register for CMS training?

You can log a training request through our IT Support service.

Once you have logged a request, we will contact you and then send you our self-paced CMS training instructions and resources.  When you have completed the training tasks and reviewed all the information, you can request your training sign off via our IT Support service.

Where are the CMS Training Videos?

Our online training materials are a series of instructional pages which have been organised into two main categories:

• Common Tasks
• Content Types

To learn how to use the system begin with the common tasks videos, as these are the things you'll need to know to be able to maintain your site, for example, modifying existing content and adding different types of links.

The content types resource are a list of all the layouts you can choose from - each web page being populated using different blocks of content with each block using a specific content type of your choice.

Where is the SEO Guidance?

The Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) guidance for Queen's web authors is located on the 'Managing our Digital Presence' Guidance site (use your ADS login credentials to access this area):

• Digital SEO Guidance

Based on this guidance, we have created a handy checklist that you can reference when you're using the CMS:

• Quick SEO Checklist for CMS Users

How do I add a blog to my website?

You can create a blog using the Queen's WordPress blog facility. 

Once you have a published blog, the CMS offers you the facility to embed the blog feed on any page within your site. Ask us to help you embed your blog.

How do I set a Publish Date and Time?

For each piece of content on your website, the CMS offers you the option to set a specific date and time for that content to be published live.  For example, you can prepare content a few weeks or days in advance, planning its future release to the live site by creating the content, setting the required publish date and time options and then approving the content.

1. Open the piece of content.
2. Click on the Options tab.
3. Click in the Publish date field.  Today's date and time will automatically be displayed and selected.
4. Alter the date and time as required. 
5. Update and Approve the piece of content.

Make sure you set the publish time to be at least two hours before it needs to go live. Do not set the publish time for exactly when you want the content to go live. There is no way to precisely publish a piece of content for a specific time - you have to work within the scheduled publish cycles.

For example, if you want a piece of content in the Schools channel to go live at 1pm, you need to set the publish time to be approx two hours previous to this - 11am. This is because the Schools channel publishes every two hours at 20 past the hour, so you are aiming for the content to catch the 11:20am publish cycle. The content will then publish to the live site at approx noon.

Other channels, such as Research Centres, publish at different times. View the full list of scheduled publish cycles.

How do I shorten my URL?

1. Output URI field
2. QUB GO Short URL Service
3. URL Redirect

How do I remove content from the live site?

You can remove a piece of content from the live web page in two ways:

• Expire content
• Delete content

Expire Content

Expiring content means you apply a date and time to the individual piece of content using the Options tab.  Once this date and time are reached, the content is removed from the live web page but it is retained within the CMS site structure with an Expired status.  You can choose to publish the piece of content again at a later date if required.

To expire content:

1. Open the piece of content
2. Click the Options tab
3. Click in the Expiry Date field

1. By default, today's date and nearest time are selected (you can change this to set a different date and time, as required).
2. Click Save and Approve

Delete Content

Deleting content means you are permanently removing the piece of content from both the live site and the CMS itself. When you delete a piece of content from your site structure, its status changes to Inactive and it moves to the system recycle bin. In the next publishing cycle, the deleted piece of content will be removed from the live site. The recycle bin is purged every week (usually on a Friday) and the inactive content is permanently deleted from the CMS.

1. In the Site Structure screen, click on the section containing the piece of content you want to delete.
2. Click on the Contents tab.
3. Click the Actions menu beside the piece of content you want to delete.
4. Click Delete.
5. Confirm the deletion.

The status of the piece of content is now set to Inactive.

How do I remove a web page from the live site?

You can remove a web page (section) from the live site in two ways:

• Set the status of the page to Pending
• Set the status of the page to Inactive

Set the Status to Pending

Setting the status of a web page to pending means it will be removed from the live site but it is retained within the CMS site structure. You can choose to publish the page again at a later date if required by changing its status from Pending back to Approved. 

Once the status has been changed to Pending, the page will be removed from the live site in the next publishing cycle.

1. In your Site Structure screen, click on the section name
2. The properties of the section under the general tab are displayed.  In the Status drop-down options, click Pending.
3. Click Save Changes.

Set the Status to Inactive

This means you are deleting and permanently removing the section from both the live site and the CMS itself. When you delete a section from your site structure, its status changes to Inactive and it moves to the system recycle bin. In the next publishing cycle, the deleted section will be removed from the live site. The recycle bin is purged every week (usually on a Friday) and the inactive section is permanently deleted from the CMS.

1. Click the Actions menu beside the section you want to delete.
2. Click Delete Section
3. Confirm the deletion

The status of the section is now set to Inactive.