30
Deploying Contribute to Departments and Enterprises
Use the information in this section to help you determine where to create the shared settings file
for the following common website structures:
Simple intranet website
Typically, this is a website where users have read access to the root of
the site and read/write access to specific folders in the site as controlled by the file server or
network permissions. There is a single root folder and all users access the site using the same
Contribute connection. If this applies to your site, see
“Deploying Contribute to a simple intranet
website” on page 30
.
Several distributed websites within an intranet
In this structure there is a single root folder.
The root folder contains folders for each section or organizational function within the website.
Contribute role are used to control user access to particular folders on the site and to assign a
subset of the common templates used on the site. Although not required, file server permissions
are usually used in addition to Contribute roles to restrict user access to sections of a site. If this
applies to your site, see
“Deploying Contribute to an intranet using multiple connections”
on page 31
.
Contribute Publishing Services
In this example, CPS has been deployed, and the User
Directory service has been integrated with the organization’s LDAP service and is being used to
manage users. If this applies to your site, see
“Contribute and directory services” on page 32
.
Staging Servers and Contribute
Many websites use a staging web server with their production
web server. Staging servers let you create and test web content without making it live on your
public facing website. Only when content has been approved are web pages and their associated
files copied from the staging to the production web server. When used with Contribute, a staging
server adds an extra measure of security because you can configure your staging server so that
Contribute specific files (such as administrative folders, rollback files, and interim drafts) are not
copied to the publicly accessible website outside your network firewall. For more information, see
“Staging servers and Contribute” on page 34
.
Deploying Contribute to a simple intranet website
In this example, Contribute is deployed to a simple intranet consisting of a single web server
hosting a departmental website. The website has a single, common root folder with subfolders for
individual departments. The site uses Dreamweaver templates and CSS styles to enforce the look
and feel of the website and SSIs to maintain page elements such as navigation menus, headers,
and footers.
The key to this arrangement is that all users have the same Contribute site connection. In other
words, there is a single connection point for all users that controls the behavior of Contribute
when editing the website. If you want to restrict users to editing content in their workgroup’s
folder, you would need to create a role that limits access to a specific folder.
An advantage to this type of Contribute deployment is that users in all departments can
collaborate by sending pages for review to one another. If separate connections had been created
for each department (as in the example
“Deploying Contribute to an intranet using multiple
connections” on page 31
), then only the users with access to that folder could receive and edit
drafts sent to them for review.
