About the CMS Basics Training - University of Houston
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General Information About the CMS Basics Training Sessions

What to Expect | Frequency and Scheduling (Drop-ins) | Cascade Training via Teams - Tips  
| What We Need from You  | Training Location[s]

NOTE: Until further notice all Cascade CMS Basics training sessions will be offered via Microsoft Teams or other UH approved tele-solutions. For more information please see the main Cascade CMS information page.


Cascade login panelWhat to Expect

CMS Basics Training sessions last approximately 4 hrs depending on class participation/need and with short breaks midway. Training by telecommunication will involve either Microsoft Teams or other UH-approved training solutions. For in-person trainings, rooms/labs would be equipped with either PC or Mac desktop computer stations meeting UH standards and requirements. Alternately, in-person trainees could be required to bring along their own UH-authorized devices if necessary or appropriate.

IMPORTANT: As of Friday May 19, 2023, the UH VPN using the full-vpn-uh.edu setting is required for  logging into Cascade from off campus. See the UIT site's VPN information to see how to set things up for your operating system. If you have the Cisco AnyConnect already installed, you need not re-install anything - just change settings.

The training will cover the following topics:

  • The CMS interface
  • Creating pages within the CMS
  • Uploading files to the CMS
  • Editing content within the CMS
  • Previewing and publishing pages from the CMS
  • UH Web Best Practices
  • Gaining Access to the CMS
  • How to learn more

To ensure that all topics get covered in a timely manner, if you have a question which cannot be answered quickly or in the context of the session, please jot it down and save it for either break time, for the end of the session, or for an email to the trainer and/or the CMS team after the training is completed.

Please note:
Although a large part of the training consists of lecture, we do consider hands-on experience and exercises important to learning Cascade, and we therefore limit training session participation according to some reasonable restrictions.

  • For trainings via telecommunication, participation may be limited by the timeframe needed to properly set up and prepare trainees for participation, and/or by limitations of the telecommunications application itself.

  • For in-person, in-lab trainings, please note that various training rooms may differ in their number of training stations and/or their ability to accommodate additional network connections or seating.

The Training Experience

For the CMS Basics, trainees will be working within a separate site dedicated to training only. You will be able to use the training area to learn and to practice how to:

  • find your way around the Cascade interface;
  • find the sites you have access to;
  • find and use reports;
  • use common editing and interface navigation tools (e.g. text fields, rich text editors, Choosers, etc.);
  • set various settings and see how that affects your content and site navigation;
  • create and edit content;
  • publish materials to selected Destinations. 

NOTE: Live publishing features are not enabled in the training area, and we do not preserve what trainees create here; however, it should give you a very true “look and feel" to help you learn what working on your live site will be like in Cascade CMS.

 


Frequency and Scheduling

Training sessions are offered on a monthly basis throughout the calendar year. A rolling invite list is kept for persons expressing an active interest in the training. See CMS contact information to request training for yourself or others in your area.

Once a training session has been scheduled, an invitation is emailed to individuals on the rolling invite list. Invite is sent to the individual to be trained as well as to those who are sponsoring them or who may be otherwise responsible for the website they will be editing.

The training session itself is then held on a first-confirmed first-reserved basis, and is limited according to either:

  • whether trainees using telecommunication applications can be properly set up in advance of their training.
  • the number of available training stations in the scheduled training room –
    although, if there are open computers in the training room, or if individuals are able to bring their own university laptop along, then drop-ins may also be welcome to attend as long as the room can accommodate them;

If individuals do not attend or complete the session to which they have either been invited or to which they had confirmed, then subsequent invitations will continue to be sent to them for up to a calendar year, or until training needs have been otherwise addressed. After a calendar year, interested individuals would need to request training again.

 


Cascade Training via Teams - Tips

Participants training via Teams must be able to join a UH-based Teams meeting invite (which will be sent separately, and only to those confirming for the specific session).

Familiarity with Teams

Attendees should have a basic familiarity with Teams, including:  

  • join with audio;
  • mute/unmute microphone;
  • open chat/text panel;
  • accept a screen-share (and optionally share their own screen);
  • switch camera on/off (camera off displays user icon instead of video).

Please see UIT information on Microsoft 365 and Teams.

UH VPN using full-vpn.uh.edu setting is required for login from off campus

IMPORTANT: As of Friday May 19, 2023, the UH VPN using the full-vpn-uh.edu setting is required for  logging into Cascade from off campus. See the UIT site's VPN information and/or Full-VPN notes to see how to set things up for your operating system. 

Additionally, the Cascade CMS training does involve viewing materials at UH’s non-crawled Staging web address, which requires UH VPN to be installed and running as well.

Please see UIT information on UH VPN options, UH Wireless options, and UHSecure FAQs.

  


What We Need from You

When sending any email request or question please include full names, UH emails, and the departments or areas involved, as well as the specific website for which the individual may be training to edit, or to which the question applies.

New students or new hires who do not yet have a UH email alias or account can use a personal email address for communications about the training. Be aware however, that before a CMS user can be activated in the system, the individual's Cougarnet account must be active; and students must have a UH sponsor or POI before being granted access to a UH website. 

For training by telecommunication application specifically, we strongly recommend that a Cougarnet ID be active at least several days in advance of the training, so the trainee can be properly set up for access to the training materials. Trainees without active CNIDs may still participate in training, but should expect their hands-on experience to be more limited.

After training is completed we must receive an email from you and/or your supervisor including:

  1. Enough information to definitively identify the new user
    ideally, the individual's PeopleSoft ID (aka the last 7 digits of an individual's "UH ID"/ "MyUH ID").
  2. An exact idea of which website, and/or site area the new user will be editing.
    Ideally, send us a URL. If the site is to be developed, let us know what area of the university is sponsoring or hosting the new materials.
  3. What level of CMS-access is requested for the new user.
    The most typical levels offered are:
    1. Editing only;
    2. Editing with the ability to publish to the 'hidden' staging area[s] only;
    3. Editing with full publishing privileges to both the staging and live site areas.

NOTES:  You must be university staff, a workstudy student with a UH/UHS-component sponsor, or have a POI in place, and your Cougarnet credentials must be active before you can be activated as an active Cascade CMS User.

Many colleges and departments also have an office and/or website point-person (e.g. the dean's communications office) to manage that area's website users. That office and/or person may also need to approve access for any website editor within their area.

Persons otherwise eligible for training who have not been sponsored towards specific website access may still attend the training (e.g. as professional development interest only); however, they will not be set up as active Users in the UH Cascade CMS.

 


Training Locations

NOTE: Until further notice ALL Cascade CMS Basics training sessions will be offered via Microsoft Teams or other UH approved tele-solutions. For more information please see the main Cascade CMS information page.

Technology Bridge - Building 3 (formerly ERP)

In-person CMS Basics training sessions may be held at the UH Technology Bridge off-campus location where the main Web Technologies offices reside (formerly UH Energy Research Park, or ERP/UBP); however, not all in-person trainings may be held in the same location. Please check the actual scheduling information for time and location details. 

The UH Technology Bridge remote campus is approximately 1/2 mile from the central campus, and is accessible via the campus shuttles.

* Please be aware: Until further notice, UH shuttles no longer stop at Metro's Eastwood Transit Center. For a review of various transit options, please see the Houston METRO information and other transit options on the UH Parking and Transportation site.
 

Building 3 has visitor/handicap parking near the building, and an elevator closeby inside the main entrance. Building 3 second floor offers a limited kitchenette (microwave, refrigerator, sink without garbage disposal, water cooler with hot water option) and vending machines which offer beverages and snacks [$, card]. There is a handicap-accessible unisex bathroom available in the adjacent Building 2 (see the "How do I find rooms in Buildings 3 and 2?" map). 

For further information about finding and getting around Technology Bridge, please see the Find Tech Bridge page.