Oxfam America

Content Types

An introduction to the different types of content you can create on the site, and what each is used for.

Introduction to Content Types

The Oxfam America site has a variety of different types of content. Most of these, such as Press Releases or Feature Stories, show up as a single page on the public website. Some, such as Press Contacts, never show up on their own page, but show up as an element of other pages (in this case, Press Releases). In the admin system, however, you'll generally use the same tools to view and edit all these different types. Each time you add a new piece of content, you'll start off by deciding what type of content it is, and that will determine a number of things about your item.

What makes a content type? What makes a Press Release different from a News Update or a Campaign? Each content type has a definition in the system, which includes:

  • A name. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but it tells the user about your content, especially on pages like Search Results where many different types of content may appear. In some cases, the name may be the only difference between content types. For example, there's no functional difference between any of the different types of publication; we designate items as Research Reports or Briefing Notes just so that the user will know what she is reading.
  • A set of elements. This is the key difference between different content types—each type has its own set of elements (alternately called "fields" or "attributes") which define what data that item can have. For example, a News Update has a Title, a Description, a Start Date, Body Text, and so on; a Press Release has all of those fields, plus another field for a Press Contact.
  • A default template. When you view a piece of content on the public site, you're looking at a template, or "skin," that we've created to display that content. Each content type has a different default template, which displays the content in a particular way: News Updates, for example, are displayed with the Title, Start Date, and Description visible; Campaigns are displayed with an intro box but without the Start Date; and so on. It's possible to change the template for a particular item, but most of the time the template will be defined by the content type automatically.
  • Functional rules. The system is set up to apply certain rules to each type of content. If you create a News Update, it will automatically appear on the News & Publications page. No further action is required by you to make this happen. The article might also appear, automatically, on a number of other pages as well, depending on whether a special script has been set up to display certain types of content--such as "all Press Releases"--that match a certain criteria—"Climate Change," for example. If you created this as a Document, it would still have newsy content, but the system wouldn't know to apply the correct rules, and it might not show up anywhere. So, it's critical that you add content to the site according to the type of content it actually is.

Why Should You Care?

Choosing the right content type is the main step to getting the system to do what you expect it to. If you want to create a Press Release, but you create a Document instead, even if the body copy is the same, it's not going to do the things you want—it won't look like a Press Release, it won't have a Press Contact and it won't show up on news pages or in automated searches.

Figuring out where your content should go is also important—but you can always move content after you create it, whereas you can't change the type of content once you've made it. Imagine making a pair of pants—once they're done, you can alter them, sew patches on, move them from drawer to drawer; but no amount of alteration is going to make them into a shirt. If you mistakenly add content to the site but use the wrong content type, you will need to delete the item, create a new one from scratch, and then republish the Workspace.

Available Content Types

These are all of the content types available on the website (there are others, but most editorial staff will never use them). Remember that a content type must be enabled in order to add it to the folder you're working in. In most cases, you will not need to request that a content type be enabled as most Workspaces and folders are pre-configured.

    Common Content Types

    These are the types most content authors will create most often. They are the primary types we use to add new content to the site, in the form of news and stories.

    • Feature Story – An editorial article or reportage of anywhere from 500 to 2,000 words in length, supported by photographs (that appear in the right column). Feature Stories are only written for specific areas of the Web site.
    • Press Release – A one-page document containing an official announcement that must be tagged with a Press Contact.
    • News Update – Usually shorter than a feature story, and not an official announcement. Often used to update an ongoing situation or developing story.
    • File – A static document, usually a PDF, that will be linked directly from another Web page for downloading.
    • Briefing Note – An Oxfam International publication, shorter than a briefing paper. These documents are always PDFs, but Web pages must be created to provide summaries and links to the documents. When you create a "briefing note," you will be able to enter a title, summary and link the file to the page.
    • Briefing Paper – Another Oxfam International publication, generally of research paper length and always a PDF. As with briefing notes, briefing papers require the creation of Web pages with summaries and links.
    • Research Paper – Nearly synonymous with briefing paper, however, research papers are longer-term strategic documents that are not published using the Oxfam International template and are often custom-designed. These documents are PDFs and require a new Web page with a summary and link.
    • Document – A document is a generic Web page that serves a utilitarian function. For example, within many content areas of Oxfam America’s Web site, there are pages labeled “What Oxfam is Doing” or “Background.” These pages are simply “documents.”
    • SidebarText – An element created in “Design” view that can contain text, links, images or photos with captions.
    • Photo – A “photo” strictly speaking, is an image of specific dimensions (500x330, 72 dpi). The CMS will dynamically create alternate sizes of photos for use as thumbnail images. Furthermore, the CMS will present photos in the sidebar with a “click to enlarge” link to open the photo and caption in a pop-up window.
    • Image – An image, distinct from a “photo” (another Oxfam America customization), is a static image. The size remains the same regardless of its position on the Web site. Therefore, “images” must be added only in cases where the specific dimensions are known and the image can be sized and optimized before it is added to the CMS.

    Section Types

    These types of content are generally used as the main pages of sections. Be careful about using them, because they also define the metadata for a lot of other content—for example, when you look at the list of Emergencies you could set for a Press Release, each emergency listed is an actual item in the system of the type Emergency. We have pretty clear definitions at Oxfam as to what is an Emergency or Campaign, so make sure that's what you want before you use these.

    • Campaign. The main page of a public campaign section, like Coffee or No Dirty Gold.
    • Emergency. The main page of an emergency section, like the Sudan or Tsunami sections.
    • Issue. The main page of an Issue section, like Water or Peace & Security.
    • Section Page. Section Pages are two-column pages used for the main page of the top-level sections "Who We Are," "What We Do," and "What You Can Do" (News & Publications has something slightly different). You will probably never need to add another Section Page.

    Special Types

    These don't really fall into either of the above categories.

    • FAQ. An FAQ is a single question and answer, not a whole page of FAQs. However, if you put a bunch of FAQs in a folder, and apply a special template [XXX: link], the folder will put all the FAQs on one nicely-formatted FAQ page, like this.
    • Link. A Link is a special content type that will redirect the user to a URL you specify. Read more about links here.
    • File. A File allows you to upload any file, such as a Word doc or a PDF, so that users can download it. However, we almost always use publications (see above) for this purpose, as they provide a cover sheet, metadata, etc. Files are really only for special one-off uses.
    • Form Mailer. A Form Mailer is a complex content type that allows you to set up a form on a web page and have whatever a user submits get mailed to an email address you specify. We use Form Mailers for order forms and other feedback. Read more about Form Mailers here.
    • Partner. Pages about partner organizations have their own content type, with fields that more or less mirror those in the Grants database. At the time of writing, all Partners live in one folder outside of Workspaces—but this may change soon if we move them into the regional sections.
    • Press Contact. Press Contacts show up on Press Releases, but they live outside the Workspaces, in the Press Contacts folder. If you edit a Press Contact, it will update their info on all of the Press Releases they show up on, making sure that the contact info is always current. You almost always can use an existing Press Contact, rather than creating a new one, unless we have changes in staffing.
    • Slideshow. Slideshows are, you guessed it, slideshows, usually of Photos.
    • Topic. A Topic is a content type that allows you to display a list of other items, usually created through an automated search with specific criteria. Read more about Topics here.

    Job Listing Types

    These are used for posting open positions, and are almost exclusively used by Human Resources.