Tridion Content Analysis: Part 5, The Answer

1. The Trivial Example and Question
2. Context
3. Inventory
4. Process
5. The Answer

Quick, how many schemas and templates do you see?

Okay, let's solve this riddle.

We need context, let's take a quick inventory to get the who, what, where, when, how, and why. You can't get the following details from screenshots, so let's imagine the following table came from other documentation and workshops.

Content Type	Field or asset	Example	Author(s) and Layout	Also used in	Managed?	Priority / Frequency
Product Teaser Flipped	Image, positioned on the right	Picture of CD	Nivlong	Product Details, maybe	Yes, in Custom CMS	High / infrequent updates
Product Teaser Flipped	Product name	“Create and Break, The Companion CD”	Nivlong	None	Yes, in Custom CMS	High / monthly
Product Teaser Flipped	Short description	"The companion CD for the blog about…"	Nivlong	none	Yes, in Custom CMS	Medium / rarely updated after creation
Product Teaser Flipped	Price	$0.01	Automatic	Product Details	From external feed	Low / quarterly automatic
Product Teaser Flipped	Read more link, positioned on the right		Templated		From template	High / monthly
Product Teaser Flipped	Product name	“Create and Break, The Book”	Nivlong	Product Teaser, Product Details	Yes, in Custom CMS	High / annual / updated with new products
Product Social Media	Social media quote	“This rocks!”	Automatic	none	No, user generated comment	Medium / hourly automatic
Product Social Media	(Reduced) Price	$0.00	Nivlong	none	Overrides external feed	Low / quarterly automatic

First pass answer: Same fields, but different placement suggests the classic single schema with multiple-template approach.

Think again: But if we recognize authors should control the social media quote's page placement but its actual content is external to the CMS, we could go with two templates for a Product schema and a separate "social media" schema with its own template. 

Though you can decipher a logical lower limit on the number of schemas and templates from screenshots and wireframes, this makes too many assumptions about content authors, template logic, where text and media come from, re-use, and business importance. Except for trivial examples, you can not create a useful content model without getting context.

Content Type	Field or asset	Schema	Template logic
Product Teaser Flipped	Image, positioned on the right	Product	Template controls placement
Product Teaser Flipped	Product name	Product	Template controls placement
Product Teaser Flipped	Short description	Product	Template controls placement
Product Teaser Flipped	Price	n/a	Template places code to make 3rd party service call on front end
Product Teaser Flipped	Read more link, positioned on the right	Product	Template creates the link
Product Social Media	Product name	Social Quote	Template controls placement
Product Social Media	Social media quote	Social Quote	Template places code to make 3rd party service call on front end
Product Social Media	(Reduced) Price	n/a	Template places code to make 3rd party service call on front end

Campaigns Really Differ from Articles

This works with a few templates, but what if you need ultimate flexibility and the ability to control the layout of the same content differently, across different sites and channels?

Content types meant to solicit user action have several things in common. For example,

• They may be called promotions, point of views, or campaigns
• They typically include a header, subheading, description, some images, and one or more "call to action" (CTA) links
• The images in such campaigns don't always appear on the same product or service page (two templates, each displaying a thumbnail or a full image doesn't work)
• They're often seasonal or time-sensitive, possibly connected to a sale
• The design needs vary, with special styling, colors, placement needed for each (they're almost pages in several ways)
• They're often candidates for A/B testing, profiling and personalization (relevance engines such as SDL SmartTarget, Unica, or your vendor-of-choice)
• They're critical to the web and other digital channels
• Authors that have seen Experience Manager (SiteEdit) want to click and drag these around a page, which complicates your wish to implement them with "containers" or with linked list components.

Considering this context, consider a dynamic approach—your developers or designers create “views” or “renderers” in their front-end presentation site, rather than in Tridion templates.

On the other hand, if this placement is critical to your business and must be author-controlled, offer configuration (drop-downs for placement) at the cost of more schema fields. Also know that unless motivated to do otherwise, authors will stick with default options and may get frustrated by unnecessary fields. Flexibility has a cost and choice can be taxing--offer good defaults whenever you can.

For marketing campaigns, the options to create many renderings include:

• Author-controlled configuration (more schema fields)
• Template-controlled (needs setup but may burden authors that have to select from too many Tridion templates)
• Presentation-side layout (renderers or views)
• Presentation-side layout managed in the CMS (container or "component presentation components")

I'm debating if it's practical to treat what seem to be component presentations as pages, but I'd need to see this in action first.

There you go, five posts that take us from the trivial two-template Tridion article example to the more nuanced campaign setup. Regardless if you have a trivial article setup or the cutting edge in not-quite-managed content, use context and some type of content inventory as part of your content / design separation process.