Percussion Software consultants were on-site last week to complete the "foundation build" for our CMS, which will be called "Ensemble." The foundation build included several base components of the CMS such as content types, templates, layouts, managed navigation, and content publishing.
The CMS team chose the name Ensemble to reflect the collaborative nature of the university's CMS project. The word "ensemble" is defined as "all the parts of a thing taken together, so that each part is considered only in relation to the whole." Another definition: "A unit or group of complementary parts that contribute to a single effect."
That is the essence of Ensemble. It allows departments to share content, rather than duplicate effort. It allows us to store content in a single database, and publish it in a variety of designs and formats. It empowers all faculty and staff to participate in web publishing. It shortens production cycles.
Our CMS development team is busy building upon the foundation left by Percussion. The migration of the vt.edu website will begin next week, and our goal is to have the production instance of vt.edu actively using the CMS by Nov. 1.
That also happens to be the date of our Web Development Symposium at the Inn. The four-hour session will focus exclusively on Ensemble. Register now.