S1 2GX 2011 - Content Management with a Custom CMS

Content Management with a Custom CMS 10/28/2011

Introduction
Jim Shingler
Lead Technical Architect for Big Lots
Beginning Groovy and Grails – Co-Author
Griffon In Action – Co-Author
Co-Creator of FallME (IOC Container for JavaME)
Grails and Griffon plugin contributor
Speaker

Agenda
Background
Motivation
Options
Approach

BACKGROUND

BACKGROUND – WWW.BIGLOTS.COM
Biglots is the nation's largest broadline closeout retailer , Big Lots has the power to negotiate the best deals in the business. We sell a broad range of high-quality, brand-name products, including consumables, seasonal items, furniture, housewares, toys, electronics, home decor, tools and gifts.

Lots of Items, over 325K
Not all items in all 1400 stores
Website has to handle this VERY Dynamic, High frequency of content change. (5-15 Content pushes per week)

Business Partner – Marketing
Marketing owns website, sets functional direction, sets functional priorities, responsible for content creation and management.

Business Functional Requirements / Objectives
Bring Website development in-house
Faster content creation and deployment
Do More with Less – previous solutions was10 people across multiple disciplines
Give Business Partner more control
No Style, Layout Changes

IT Non-Functional Reqs / Objs
Minimize IT Support required
Supportable by IT
Must run on Windows Servers
Must use SqlServer DB
Give Business Partner tools they need
Java based

BACKGROUND – WWW.BIGLOTS.COM Dynamic Blurb Dynamic Menus Based on Depart. and Category Footer Content Managed Slide Show Content Managed Featured Items Content Managed Widgets / Ads Content Managed HEADER Advertisement Slide Show Advertisements Featured Items Footer Static Menu Menu Dept / Category Blurb

BACKGROUND – WWW.BIGLOTS.COM Dynamic Blurb Dynamic Menus Based on Depart. and Category Footer Content Managed Slide Show Content Managed Featured Items Content Managed Widgets / Ads Content Managed

BACKGROUND – WWW.BIGLOTS.COM Department Overview Dynamic Menus Based on Depart. & Categories Categories Adverts. Dynamic by Page

BACKGROUND – WWW.BIGLOTS.COM Category Items

BACKGROUND – WWW.BIGLOTS.COM Item Details Related Items

MOTIVATIONS

MOTIVATION
Make it easy for Business Partner to create and maintain content

MANAGED CONTENT REQUIREMENTS
Departments
Categories
Items
Ads
Blurbs
Footers
Media
Prices

5-15 Content releases / pushes per week
Must support development of multiple content release at same time
Date Driven Dept, Cat, Item, Ads, Price, Media, . . .
Approval Workflow
Time Machine - view site “AsOf”
Maintain the product / item hierarchy

Store based Restrictions – Ads, Items, Depts (Not all items in all stores)
Membership Level Restrictions Ads restricted by Rewards Club Membership Level
Multiple Media Types Pics, Videos, . . .

Support SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
<a href="/browse/halloween/candy-party-supplies">
<title>BigLots.com - Hot Deals …
<meta name="keywords" …
<meta name="description“ …
<img alt="Tell Me More“
<img … title="Oct 12-18 online ad"/>

OPTIONS

OPTIONS
Drupal – PHP
Joomla - Java
Alfresco - Java
Weeceem – Grails / Groovy
Build Own – Grails / Groovy

OPTIONS
Consistent Pattern
High Learning Curve
Difficult to integrate
Didn’t meet major functional requirements
Still have to build major components

OPTIONS
Build Own
Need to maintain product hierarchy and additional data.
CMS just requires a couple of additional fields, view templates and processes.

APPROACH

APPROACH – ENTITY MODEL Core Product Structure

BACKGROUND – WWW.BIGLOTS.COM Dynamic Blurb Dynamic Menus Based on Depart. and Category Footer Content Managed Slide Show Content Managed Featured Items Content Managed Widgets / Ads Content Managed HEADER Advertisement Slide Show Advertisements Featured Items Footer Static Menu Menu Dept / Category Blurb

BACKGROUND – WWW.BIGLOTS.COM Dynamic Blurb Dynamic Menus Based on Depart. and Category Footer Content Managed Slide Show Content Managed Featured Items Content Managed Widgets / Ads Content Managed

APPROACH – ENTITY MODEL Ad, Dept, & Item are restricted by Store

APPROACH – ENTITY MODEL Ad, Dept, Cat, Item have media associated with them

APPROACH – ENTITY MODEL Ad, Dept, Cat, Item have work flow statuses. Is the change approved?

APPROACH – ENTITY MODEL Different Ads depending on club membership

APPROACH – ENTITY MODEL General Content, Footer, Aisle by Aisle, . . .

APPROACH
Create Admin function for Mkt – Thor
Protect access to Thor
Approve content changes
Promote Content Changes

APPROACH CREATE ADMIN FUNCTION FOR MKT – THOR

APPROACH PROTECT ACCESS TO THOR

APPROACH APPROVE CONTENT CHANGES

APPROACH PROMOTE CONTENT CHANGES

Staging Prod Business Partner Promotes Content to Production Promote based upon workflow status and last change date Streamed as JSON to Controller in production

APPROACH
Object / Entity Model
Templates
Tag Libs

LET’S LOOK AT A PROTOTYPE (CODE)

Q & A DISCUSSION Question and Answer Discussion @JShingler http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimshingler http://jshingler.blogspot.com/ ShinglerJim at gmail.com

Thank You

S1 2GX 2011 - Content Management with a Custom CMS

by Jim Shingler

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