Tame the Content Injection Monster

Content Injection, or rendering Content Types (Component Presentations in Tridion) within the context of another Content Type (Component Presentation) is a powerful content management option.

But be careful it doesn't wreck havoc in your implementations and become a monster to manage.

Run! It's the multi-level, deeply-nested content injected monster!
Source: TridionWorld, with a minor tweak and much respect to the authors--
I regularly cite this article in my own engagements..

One or two levels make sense, since your content model might need things like:

• Inline definitions (think <dl>, <dt>, and <dd>)
• In context asides or call outs (a promo within an RTF)
• The ever-popular container component

How can you tell it's too much? Simple, ask or watch your authors create content. Otherwise, if each component with its injected content feels like a straightforward and complete process, you're okay. For example, you might end up with several levels on content injection with an article that injects a promotion, which links to a disclaimer, which itself references related content. This might be okay if promotion was its own already-existing entity and was simply available for your article author to choose.

It's different when say, a simple FAQ that is typically updated all together requires an author to make a page, create a FAQ link list container, then make and link to separate question and answer components. Then maybe it's time to raise the Content Injection Monster warning.

If the process feels cumbersome (e.g. create a container, then create sub-containers, then link to items that actually get updated together), then consider consolidating schemas. Modular is great, but not at the cost of practical content updates. Also if possible, don't use containers just to meet a technical format.