SepiaCMS Visual Training Guide 1.

www.sepiasolutions.com

Client Islamic Republic of Afghanistan - Ministry of Communications and IT

Project Title Government Online Presence
Document SepiaCMS Visual Training Guide (Secondary User)
Department Web Development
Version Number 1.0
Date Published 25-October-2010
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Preface

The SepiaCMS Visual training guide would help you to better understand how to use the system, create, manage,
maintain your website, and how to increase the user experience of your site visitors.
This guide was made for the sole purpose of training a user to use the CMS efficiently, effectively and to the best
possible outcome. This guide can be used as a quick guide to learn the main processes and workflow of the CMS.
After reading the guide thoroughly and following the instructions given in it, you shall be able to fluently use the
system to create, manage, and maintain your websites efficiently.

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Table of Contents

Preface ............................................................................................................................................................................... i

1. Work Process of SepiaCMS .......................................................................................................................................... 1

2. System at a glance........................................................................................................................................................ 2

Back End Management ................................................................................................................................................. 2

Front End Management ................................................................................................................................................ 3

3. Main Functionality of New system .............................................................................................................................. 4

The Content Management Interface ............................................................................................................................ 4

4. Introducing System modules and its functionality ...................................................................................................... 5

Page Management Modules ......................................................................................................................................... 6

Newsletter Management .............................................................................................................................................. 8

Link Management Module ............................................................................................................................................ 9

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1. Work Process of SepiaCMS

SepiaCMS is a content management system, which means it is used to manage content. Like any CMS, it has a simple
work process:
 The content is saved in a database.
 The Administrative back-end – the control panel – of the SepiaCMS allows you to edit/update, or create new
content.
 When a visitor visits the website – the front-end – the site shows the content from the database.
Hence, managing a SepiaCMS site is mainly about logging into the administrative panel and adding or editing
content.
 So when you see a SepiaCMS powered website, its front-end is completely derived from the database.
 All the data, right from the links in the navigation menu to the information about users is stored in the
database.
 The administrative interface lets you edit this database, hence giving you total control over the website.
Here is what it means, graphically.

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2.System at a glance

The SepiaCMS is a little different from other CMS’s in that it has a customized user interface, created with the
feedback of the CMS users, and it has some more customizable modules and widgets as well. It offers to upload
content in English, Dari and Pashto.
Here is a view of the back-end of the system – the admin panel.

Back End Management

The back end management is done through the admin panel of the SepiaCMS. The back-end management consists of
creating and managing the content. It maintains the data which is saved in the database, and the back log, history
etc is also maintained here.

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Front End Management

Front-end is the visual of the site as the viewers would see it. In other words, it is the view of the website as you
would like the contents to display as. The front-end of the site is maintained with the layout management module.
The layout defines the main and other sub-pages of your website in the form of widgets and navigation.
The navigation menu is automatically made with the page management module. As you add pages, the menu is built,
and as you add more sub-pages, the menu is divided into more hierarchical tiers. SepiaCMS supports max 3 tiers, in
alignment with the three-click policy, which aims at providing the viewer with information in maximum 3 clicks.
The widgets as you see them are the modules apart from the pages. These would be displayed as you like them, on
the sidebars. Though you can drag and drop a widget of a module in the layout, it shall not display unless you have
content in the module.
The front-end is also just as dynamic and user friendly. (This is one of the possible outcome)

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3.Main Functionality of New system

The new SepiaCMS is made solely for the purpose of maintaining multiple websites on the same hosting
environment with multilingual support. The CMS mainly focuses, besides website creation and maintenance, on the
common look and feel policy, so that in the case of the current project of Afghanistan Government, the user does
not feel he is not in the government infrastructure when he visits any sites related to the government.

The Content Management Interface

The following diagram shows the interface of the SepiaCMS, and explains briefly about the different elements.

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4.Introducing System modules and its functionality

Once you define the Meta data information, start adding contents in different modules. The system has the
following modules:
Module Name Module Description

To create, edit and delete organizations, and its meta information

To create, edit and delete users with specific rights.

To create, edit or delete pages that make the content of the website.

To create, edit or delete news items.

To create, edit, delete Tender.

To create edit delete Documents.

To create, edit, delete Announcement.

To view, delete Feedback forms submitted by users.

To create, edit, delete Jobs.

To create, edit, delete, Survey Polls

To create, edit, delete FAQ

To create, edit, delete Images in the Image Gallery.

To create, edit, delete Videos.

To create, edit, delete Links (external links).

To create, edit, delete and Send Newsletter

To create, edit, delete Audio on the website

To create the layout of the main (home) page & sidebar.

To create, edit, delete words for translation to the other languages.

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Page Management Modules

1. After editing the Meta data information, start adding the pages. To
add a page, go to the Page Management Module from the list of
modules on the left.

2. Select Create New to create a new page.

3. In the Create New page, enter all the information as described in the image below.

Key
1 Choose a language. To add content for a certain language you must check it.
2 Menu Title would appear as the title of the page in the navigation menu.
Page Link is the link of the page you want to redirect to. You can add internal (refer 13)
3
or external page links.
4 Page Title would appear on top of the page and on browser window.
5 Enter the content of the page. This can include images, links, anchors and flash content.
Parent is the hierarchy of the page. You can define up to three tiers (Parent, Child, Sub-
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Child).
There are a number of templates available. You can choose any from those, or request a
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new one at support@sepiasolutions.com
8 Sort Order will locate the page in the navigation menu
9 Show in Menu shows the page link in the navigation menu
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 10 Show in New Window opens the page in a new window.
11 Publish button publishes the page on website.
12 Save Draft would save the page in the pages list only.
Internal pages are the links to the modules available in the system. You can use these
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links under Page Link to make relation with other module.

4. Once you have created pages, you can see the list of pages on the Manage Pages link.

5. You can go to the other modules and add news, jobs, tenders, announcements, images, videos, audios,
documents, FAQs, links, polls, and newsletters. All these modules have resemblance to the Page
Management module.

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Newsletter Management

1. To add a newsletter, you need to have a subscription list. That is, you
should have contacts added to your subscription list. To add a newsletter,
go to the newsletter module in the module list on left.
2. The Create Newsletter page looks like the image below.

Key
1 Enter the title of the newsletter
2 Enter the content of the newsletter. This can include images, links, anchors and flash content.
3 This is the list of contacts. You can choose who to send the newsletter to.
4 Alternatively, you can add a pre-existing newsletter file
5 Send the newsletter to the contacts chosen in contact list
6 Save the page as draft
7 Back to list would take you back to newsletter list without saving.

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Link Management Module

1. To add a link, go to the link module in the module list on left.

2. The create link page looks like the following image.

Key
1 Choose the language. Link must be given in all languages.
2 Enter the title of the link
3 Enter the address of the link, URL.
4 Enter a description of the link
5 Link category can be one or more.
6 Open link in new window
7 Save the link as draft.
8 Publish the link
9 Go back to link list without saving

These are a few of the modules given as examples, because of a few differences in their layouts.

You can access the detail guideline and help after logging into the Control Panel. You will find Help link
on top right corner of the admin interface.

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