This document discusses Big Lots' need for a custom content management system (CMS) to manage their website content. It outlines their business requirements, including the need for dynamic, frequently changing content across many product categories. It evaluates options like Drupal, Joomla and building their own system. The proposed approach is to build a custom Grails-based CMS with an entity data model to manage content types like ads, departments and items. It would include workflows, media management and an admin tool for marketing to manage content.

1. Content Management with a Custom CMS 10/28/2011

4. BACKGROUND

10. 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

11. 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

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

13. BACKGROUND – WWW.BIGLOTS.COM Category Items

14. BACKGROUND – WWW.BIGLOTS.COM Item Details Related Items

15. MOTIVATIONS

21. OPTIONS

25. APPROACH

26. APPROACH – ENTITY MODEL Core Product Structure

27. 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

28. 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

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

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

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

32. APPROACH – ENTITY MODEL Different Ads depending on club membership

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

35. APPROACH CREATE ADMIN FUNCTION FOR MKT – THOR

40. APPROACH PROTECT ACCESS TO THOR

42. APPROACH APPROVE CONTENT CHANGES

45. APPROACH PROMOTE CONTENT CHANGES

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

49. LET’S LOOK AT A PROTOTYPE (CODE)

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

51. Thank You