Our CMS takes another step forward with new features

2/17/23

It’s like déjà vu — only better.

About a year ago, we rolled out version 1.6 of our proprietary content management system (CMS). Ever since, we have been diligently adding and testing new features, which will soon reach our bank clients in the form of CMS 2.0.

Among the upgrades is a feature for which our clients have been clamoring: the ability to schedule the publishing and unpublishing of alerts. Even better, we’ve added that same functionality to a variety of other elements.

And that’s just the beginning.

Auto publishing and unpublishing

What’s better than adding a specialized alert to one, some or all pages of your bank website? How about being able to prepare a holiday-hours banner without having to log in and publish it on your day off?

With auto publish and unpublish, you can plan your announcements well in advance and not have to worry about remembering to remove them from the site later. This same feature is also available for forms, blog posts and even entire pages.

Furthermore, we took the opportunity to overhaul how we handle alerts while broadening the scope of what constitutes a reusable element — those pieces of content that are created once and displayed in multiple places throughout the website.

Simply put, we built blocks.

What is a block?

A block can be almost anything. Do you have a call-to-action (CTA) box that you want to include on multiple loan pages? Create the block once and then drop that element wherever you wish. A few other possible candidates for block elements include:

• Alerts and announcements
• Common callouts/CTAs
• Comparison tables
• Disclaimers
• FAQs
• Homepage carousel slides
• Modals/popups
• Promotions
• Quick links
• Videos

With blocks, you not only save time by building once, but also by making future edits in a single place instead of page by page. In many ways, blocks are similar to how most clients have been using our calculators, locations and staff members — only now these reusable elements can be far more customized.

Additional enhancements

In addition to the schedulable block editor, CMS 2.0 also boasts the following features:

• The CMS now runs on the latest version of PHP.
• The login screen lets you easily reset your password if you’ve forgotten it.
• Webforms have been pulled from the dashboard into the main editor system, so forms are easier to create and are more versatile.
• Since they no longer require a special template, webforms can be added to any page or post.
• You can now filter your searches by individual content types — pages, posts, forms or blocks.
• Each of those content types have their own unique settings tab, so you won’t have to sift through and skip over irrelevant fields during the initial setup.
• The introduction of filter groups lets you mark similar content types as related for greater organization, making related alerts (for example) easier to find and manage.
• To streamline the unpublishing process, we introduced a trash can, where pages, posts, forms, blocks and files can be stored before you delete them.
• Trashed items can be restored and even republished; deleting an item removes it from the CMS for good.
• We automated our link checker, so every night your bank website is scanned, and if any broken links are found, the number of them — along with a link to the full report — are displayed at the top of your dashboard.
• Common updates to pages, posts, forms and blocks can now be made without going into the main editor, thanks to the new Quick Edit feature.
• In addition to the existing desktop preview tab, we’ve added tabs for tablet and mobile previews.
• The blog feed preview, embedded in the preview tabs for blog posts, displays which image and excerpt text will appear in relevant blog feeds throughout the site.
• Finally, we did some general cleanup of the CMS’s top-of-the-page quick links, dashboard content and file-editing interface for improved organization.

Rollout coming soon

We want to put these helpful tools in your hands as quickly as possible and are currently in the final stages of thorough testing. More details about the rollout will be shared with our clients during webinars scheduled for March 8, 9 and 10. They can expect to receive an email with signup links shortly.

We hear from clients and prospects alike that they love our CMS. Because of our commitment to continuous improvement, we can confidently say the best is yet to come!

Any questions about our ever-evolving CMS? We’re happy to answer them!