Need advice about how to draw blog channels into a Bulletin Board page
I could use some help determining a best practice. Here's the sitution:
- A blog channel is in Space A. The Space A Admin entitles that channel: Updates.
- A blog channel is in Space B. The Space B Admin entitles that channel: News from Venus.
- We want to draw all blog channels from all Spaces into our one Bulletin Board page, to allow users to get news from all spaces at once.
Option 1: Drag all space blog channels to live underneath the Bulletin Board page. The advantage here is that if I set the BB page up with the Channels or Nav widget, that page will update automatically. In other words, every time I add a new blog channel, I won't have to update those widgets. The disadvantage is that the naming conventions are going to look messy. We'd have a Channel widget with choices like "Updates, News from Venus" which don't make a lot of sense in the larger context (even though those names make a lot of sense in the context of each space).
Option 2: Keep all space blog channels housed in their respective spaces. To draw them into the Bulletin Board, use the Blog widget to individually select them to pull in. And instead of using the Channels widget, use a Links widget to give visibility to each separate channel. The advantage here is that I can change the naming convention on the Links widget so that it makes sense for this page. "News from Mars, News from Venus". The disadvantage is that every time I add a new Space blog channel, I have to manually draw it into our Bulletin Board.
Does that sound about right? From a best practices perspective, which would you recommend? I'm leaning towards Option 2, but same time, during a year when I have VERY limited time to maintain our workplace, I like the ease of Option 1.
Anyone have any advice or experience from their own site governance to share?
7 Replies
I'd have to vote Option 2. The reasoning being exactly what you stated the end-user experience is cleaner and far more focused. I would be curious to know how often you are spinning up new channels as perhaps a review of the overall channel strategy and "bigger" buckets might make life easier. Not saying it's for sure going to work but worth the discussion. I bet there could be some potential consolidation of older channels but I've lost that bet before.
Nanette McIlravey - I would love to hear from a Solutions Guru what your thoughts and best practices are?
I also like Option 2, because it makes sense for the space objects to live in that space, for the space admins to control. As far as the naming conventions, why not set up some universal guidelines on naming channels across the site, in this case for blog channels that will get pulled onto this page? Then, you can use the blog widget (set to "all blogs in site") to pull in your channels (or multiple blog widgets, grouping channels by category). If it's scaleable, you could use multiple channel widgets (one for each space maybe), then you never have to update this page with new channels, and the names should follow your naming conventions, making it intuitive for your users.
Jocelyn Flint I would vote for option two as well! It is easier for your content owners to know what they are responsible for (especially in a decentralized ownership structure) if they are kept within a specific area. This allows you to surface the information wherever you want while maintaining a clear ownership of the content being created.
Can I also just quickly call out how awesome your questions and comments in the customer discussions have been? I've been following a lot of the topics you have either started or participated in and you are asking all of the right questions!!
Sorena Tiba - I couldn't agree more!
Wow. Thanks Tom Ryan , Nanette McIlravey , and Sorena Tiba for these really helpful responses! I am a team of one here, so I can't tell you how helpful it is to be able to bounce these ideas off of this crowd of experts. Option 2 it is!
And Sorena, an extra thank you to you for the kind words. I really appreciate it!
Also, we do have a naming convention that requires channels to carry the parent name. This helps us with situations similar to what you describe so you can differentiate blog from blog from blog. I set up a new one just this morning for our UK COO. It is called COO (Chief Operating Office) UK and the channels are COO-UK - Blog, COO-UK - Wiki, etc.
And, I second the comments about your questions and comments on here. Always thoughtful and helpful.
Tammy Triplett Thanks so much, Tammy! It's really helpful to learn about another company's naming conventions. I may copy! ;-)