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Service Definition for the core Contensis
Web Content Management System (all Licences)
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Contensis
CMS: the web foundation for
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the world's leading brands, non-profits
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and businesses
Version 2.0
February 2013
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Contents
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About this document .....................................................................
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Licence scaling ............................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
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Service Definition: Overview .......................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
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The Contensis G-Cloud CMS Service................................
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Introduction ................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
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Hosting Environment .................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
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Service Definition: Functionality for managing
your content ...........................................................5
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The Contensis User Interface....................................................................................
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Editor Features & Usability ....................................................................................... 8
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Content Administration and Management
features ..................................................... 11
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Service Definition: Capabilities for Designers & Developers .......................................................... 16
Templates ............................................................................................................. 16
Full site rebranding ...................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Multimedia ............................................................................................................ 20
Search ................................................................................................................. 22
Social Media integration.......................................................................................... 26
Site Tools ............................................................................................................. 27
Syndication ........................................................................................................... 28
Accessibility .......................................................................................................... 29
Membership .......................................................................................................... 36
The Permissions Framework .................................................................................... 30
Website User Login ...................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Service Definition: Information Assurance.................................................................................. 40
Service Definition: Service Management .................................................................................... 41
On-boarding .......................................................................................................... 41
Off-boarding .......................................................................................................... 41
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Service Level and Constraints ..................................................................................
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Support Service Level Agreement ............................................................................. 41
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Escalation ............................................................................................................. 42
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Backup & Disaster Recovery ....................................................................................
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How to raise a support issue ................................................................................... 43
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Service Roadmap ................................................................................................... 43
Help Facilities ........................................................................................................
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Training ................................................................................................................ 44
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Training Modules ................................................................................................... 44
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Data restoration/service migration
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Consumer responsibilities ....................................................................................... 45
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Technical requirements........................................................................................... 45
Service Definition: Pricing & contracts ....................................................................................... 47
Licence scaling ....................................................................................................... 47
Definitions ............................................................................................................ 47
Expanding the service ............................................................................................ 47
Data extraction...................................................................................................... 48
Financial recompense model ................................................................................... 48
Ordering and invoicing process ................................................................................ 48
Contract terms ...................................................................................................... 48
Trial service .......................................................................................................... 48
Annex 1: The Genetics Cloud-based Hosting Environment ............................................................ 49
General Overview ................................................................................................... 49
Resilience ............................................................................................................. 49
Security & Environment .......................................................................................... 50
Operating Systems ................................................................................................ 50
Maintenance ......................................................................................................... 51
Load Balancing, and server resiliency ....................................................................... 51
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Monitoring ............................................................................................................
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Backups ............................................................................................................... 52
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About this document
This document describes the core Contensis CMS. Additional features
can be added to it through our optional modules. These are also
featured on the CloudStore.
Licence scaling
The core Contensis CMS comes in four licence levels. These differ
primarily in the scalability e.g. number of concurrent users, web
projects, publishing servers. For the Lite licence a small number of the
optional modules are not available. Otherwise, the entire functionality
described in this document is the same across these four licences:
Enterprise

Professional

Standard

Lite
Full details of the product (including scale pricing) can be found in this
document and also on our website, ContentManagement.co.uk. Here,
comparative licence user and project quantities are listed in the Pricing
section, and functionality itemised in the Feature Matrix.
All prices quoted in this document are exclusive of VAT.
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Service Definition: Overview
The Contensis G-Cloud CMS Service
Introduction
Contensis is a leading .NET Web Content Management System used by
many large, often high-profile, organisations across the UK. Of these, a
substantial majority are in the public sector, spanning all types of
operations, such as:
Local Government – 19 county, borough and district councils

Healthcare – 13 NHS Trusts & other bodies

Higher Education – 16 universities and 3 colleges

Public services – over 30 organisations including police,
housing associations, research organisations, membership
bodies and charities.
Hosting Environment
With all Contensis packages, we provide a fully managed cloud-based
hosting service operating from UK-based locations. This environment
provides a robust, secure and fully scalable online infrastructure that is
dedicated to hosting multiple Contensis CMS instances and published
web systems of all types.
Key features include:
99.9% uptime guaranteed

24x7x365 monitoring and support

Scalable infrastructure

Fully Managed Backups & Maintenance

Security
Further details can be found in the Genetics Cloud-based Hosting
Environment, Annex 1.
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Service Definition:
Functionality for managing
your content
Our extensive experience in every aspects of the internet – especially
in the public sector - has driven the development of both the Contensis
product and our implementation methodologies. In particular, the
system is very easy for editors to learn and use, taking a maximum of
two hours training before they can productively start adding content.
The Contensis User Interface
Contensis pioneered the development of the single intuitive interface
and its features just continue to grow. Users at every level soon
become familiar with the controls and, as their knowledge grows, even
non-technically minded people are soon undertaking tasks that
previously would have required the involvement of web specialists.
This screenshot shows the CMS’s WYSIWYG editor in use:-
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Contensis makes it easy for editors and their organisations at every
possible level.

The Contensis Navigator works in much the same way as
Windows Explorer on a PC. You can expand folders, right click
on items to get more detail and even drag-and-drop items
around the screen. The navigator shows you the physical
hierarchy of your website or content repository.

Items of content are categorised into this tree structure, and
the structure of the navigator will reflect the structure of a
published website.

Localisation – all the labels on the CMS interface can be
changed if required, either to match local jargon or for users
who operate in other languages. This is in active use for our
Welsh clients.

Management console - gives you access to all of the system
administration functionality; configure a new front-end
webserver or add users and groups with a couple of clicks.
The management console is only visible to users with the
relevant permissions, so you can be assured that only your
System Administrators can make major changes to your overall
system configuration:-
Editor Features & Usability

Browser based and independent – so that your users can edit
content anywhere they wish and at any time, and a Mac user,
for example, has all the same features available to them as a
PC user
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
CMS Search – find content via “Quick” search, filter to just see
a particular type of content or browse through the commonsense navigator.
The “Quick” search screen in action:-
The content filter option:-

Metadata Framework – completely configurable and extensible,
all necessary field types and validations can be applied (e.g.
look-ups, compulsory fields, taxonomy etc)

Image Editor – straightforward tool to enable users to handle
the vast majority of image editing tasks with ease, such as
auto-resize, absolute resizing, choose’n’crop, image effects
such as monochrome.

Image Library – inbuilt library which retains original hi-res
images, displays all edited versions, supports drag’n’drop of
image into placeholders.

Navigation management – we provide a whole suite of
navigation controls as standard. Include in Menu, Search, A-Z,
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SiteMap are all radio button choices. Creating a page in the
navigation automatically creates menus, so great majority of
users don’t need to think about this step. Re-order the menus
is simple drag’n’drop (if you have permission) and the CMS will
handle the rest.

Real preview - One of the many advantages of the decoupled
model is that the staging site is a real published website, albeit
a test site that is not publicly available. As a result, when you
preview your pages whilst editing, it is are as close to how the
real page will look as possible, in contrast to many other CMS
products which simply create a simulation.

Single-click publishing – If you are editing a piece of content
you can publish to test or live simply by clicking the preview
button in the Editor.
As you can see there is also an option to preview using dualview. Dual-view enables you to view any version of the content
side-by-side, so you can, for example, see how the home page
looked last Christmas against now.
If you just want to preview a previous version this can be done
from the version history tab.
Whatever you preview, you can be assured that it is a REAL
preview of the content, and if you authorise the version to live,
it will appear exactly as you have seen.
Getting content live is straight-forward. If you have the
relevant permissions you can simply click submit and authorise
from the workflow menu, and your content will publish
immediately.
Contensis has a lot of options for publishing, with full publishing
schedules, aliases and, of course, the disconnected publishing
model which ensure your content is live when you want it to be
for as long as you want!
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
Track changes - Track content changes – allows you to see the
differences between different versions of the same piece of
content, supports added, deleted and changed, as well as
indicators for other elements e.g. a structure change to a table.

Wizards - Wizards were introduced in Version 5 of Contensis to
aid and assist users who are less familiar with Contensis, or
who may be using the system less frequently. Wizards
effectively hand-hold you through various processes in the
system, from creating a piece of content to importing files.

Content Administration and Management features

Security & Permissions – the user’s permissions control access:
users see a security trimmed navigator, interface, dashboard
etc. For example, at left is a widget from the dashboard,
personalised for the author’s site activity. The interface is
customisable, so typically editor’s screens have irrelevant
formatting buttons removed – editors then use the style picker
to ensure compliance with corporate design.

Audit trail – all actions by each are captured in detail, for all
content types (not just “pages”).

This screen shows audit trail and version history (note the
Revert and Dual View options):-
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
Publishing schedule – decide when your content goes live, or
set an exact time and date to review it or to remove it from the
live site into archive. Email notifications are provided at each
step.

Content usage and dependencies – details of which template
and stylesheet are in use, indexes of all links between pages
(with warnings on deletion), image usage/dependency and
general content usage statistics.

Import & Export – comprehensive range of import and export
features. Majority of migration tasks can be achieved with the
Contensis Blueprint XML import-export tool. Other options
include database import tool, file system import tool, WebDAV
and spidering an old site.

Multi-channel delivery
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Print - Using tools such as InDesign or Quark Express
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Web - Using the native Web deployment model
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Mobile - Using the native Web deployment model
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TV - Using the native Web deployment model
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Touch-Screen Kiosks - Using the native Web
deployment model

Multilingual capability – as standard Contensis supports UTF8,
enabling websites to be published in any language and any
script (i.e. non-Roman, such as Russian, Chinese etc). We also
have a multilingual workflow capability, see the Multilingual
Module Service Definition.

Multi-site management – manage any number of sites within a
single instance of the software, either on a “pre-paid” basis
(unlimited Enterprise service), or on a “call-off” basis for the
other services (see Licence scaling).

Reporting – Contensis comes configured with a whole set of
reports that can instantly be used. These interactive reports
are generally focused on Content Usage, Workflows and User
information. Each report entry is a clickable, active link with
options such as view, edit etc.

Structured Content – We utilise structured content for many of
the modules in Contensis such as News and Events. It allows
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us to provide a simple form-based approach to content entry,
and to have precise validation over input. You can set up any
structured content interface you wish, making data integration
with other systems easier.

Notifications – keeps you informed about tasks and events that
occur within the system. Notifications are used in many areas
of Contensis, and are completely configurable via email
templates to meet your branding guidelines. Examples of
where notifications are sent include:-

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Content Checked Out
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Content Checked In
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Submit for Authorisation
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Authorisation Declined
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Revoked Submission
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Pass To a User
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Content Published
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Requires Review
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Expiry Imminent
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Content Expired
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Link Failed
Workflow framework – All content types are included in
workflow, including site elements, templates, CSS and
multimedia. Contensis supports multi-level workflow, although
most clients use two-tier and three-tier workflow. These
correspond to the following:o
2-Tier: Contributor (Create or Edit) -> Approver
(Amend, Reject, Publish)
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3-Tier: Contributor (Create or Edit) -> Approver
(Accept/Amend/Reject) -> Webmaster (Amend,
Reject, Publish)
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Referral: Users can forward content on to any other
CMS user (subject to their security rights)
The content can be revoked by the contributor up until the
approval point. If not, it can then be amended, approved or
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returned (with comments) by the Approver and/or Webmaster
and is accompanied at each step by e-mail notification.

Content re-use - Contensis provides extensive options for
content re-use. (Note: As well as the following features, some
of the optional modules also enable re-use especially the MicroSite Wizard and Synchronisation Module Service Definitions.
o
Shared Content/HTML Snippets: This involves a
separate chunk of content being created (e.g.
Address/Contact details) that is stored in the repository
and can be inserted into any web page as required.
When it is updated and the changes are approved then
all instances within pages are automatically updated.
o
Mini Templates: These are believed to be a unique
feature of Contensis not available in other CMS
products. They are similar to Shared Content
described above, but as their name suggests they are
template based. Therefore it is possible to change the
surrounding presentation template in a single place and
have all pages that use the mini template updated
automatically. This is particularly useful with
rebranding exercises as it removes the search and
replace that often takes place in other systems.
o
Dynamic Components: Contensis has numerous
dynamic delivery components that can render lists of
content, e.g. list all word documents within a particular
folder. These components can be inserted, configured
and ready to use in a matter of minutes.
o
Shadow Content: This feature of Contensis, provides a
straightforward mechanism for creating duplicate
content in a separate area but only having to manage a
single version. However it is possible to override the
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meta-data for the shadow copy and to set specific
properties such as include in menu, search, etc.
o
Link “Libraries”: It is straightforward to store sets of
links in a folder which editors can then drop into a page
but not amend. This is particularly useful for
“authorised” external links.
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Service Definition:
Capabilities for Designers &
Developers
Templates
Templating is probably one of the most crucial areas that you must
evaluate when choosing a Content Management System. How the
templating works will have a dramatic affect on the implementation of
your system and ongoing branding requirement.
We believe that Contensis has one of the best templating engines in
the industry - and we will endeavour to show you why.
The Template Framework:
Ability to implement any design that can be created in XHTML

XHTML support as standard

Enables Accessible Content to AAA standards

Full Workflow

Full Versioning

Full model for site re-branding

Mini Templates

Code Integration

Bespoke Web Controls
Template editing overview
Template editing can be carried out directly through the CMS
WYSIWYG interface. Creating a template is as simple as copying and
pasting the relevant HTML source code into the system and then
adding extra components to it, such as placeholders.
Typically a design will start its life in a tool such as Photoshop,
Fireworks or InDesign. The next phase is to actually cut the template
into HTML and CSS. Normally this would be done for every variation of
the template and it can still be done in this way, but the templating
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engine in Contensis allows us to improve the implementation times by
providing a 'componentised' approach to templates.
The first step will normally be to identify the common elements of the
template, which normally consists of a footer, header and main content
section. This is what we would call the Base Template and this is what
we would first create in the system. Utilising the sub- template
functionality, we may make this template from a separate footer,
header and content template or we could create it as a single entity - it
just depends on the scenario.
Once the Base Template is created, we can then start building on this
by creating a range of variation. Normally we would construct the other
layouts, what we call Framework Templates, such as a two column or
three column layout, for example. At this stage we will probably also
start adding elements such as localised text if we are working on a
multilingual site, menus and breadcrumbs.
Because templates can be created by dragging and dropping other
templates into each other, you will never be in the situation of having
to update the footer on each of the different page templates again - a
single source of change is all that is required.
We have actually done real-world tests with our in-house professional
services department, with the same person creating a template in the
traditional way and the Contensis way, and found that we can reduce
implementation times by up to 40%.
Obviously if you prefer to have completely separate HTML and
disconnected templates for each page type, then this is still just as
easy. The choice is yours.
Because the templates are content in Contensis, just like the CSS, you
have all the standard benefits of the system, including full versioning,
auditing and workflow. As a template developer, once you are happy
with your template you can simply submit it for approval, and once
approved the template will then publish to the live site, and update
every page that uses it.
As templates are standard content you also have the ability to set
publishing schedules on templates, so you may like to push the new
site look-and-feel live on Friday at 8pm after you have gone home!
Separation of Design & Content
Separating the design and presentation from the content is extremely
important in today’s Multi Channel world.
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The template engine allows you to achieve this separation successfully
by allowing unlimited numbers of placeholders, so you can easily split
the content from the template.
It is also usual to restrict the buttons and styling options available to
the user and instead carefully style the different elements of a page, so
a user can simply select a Paragraph or a heading and the content will
style automatically without having to assign a dozen CSS classes.
Although we have many tools available in the WYSIWYG editor so we
can tick boxes in tenders and proposals, in most scenarios, if the
design and CSS is created properly, many of these can be turned off
with no effect other than allowing your users to create beautifully
created content with very little effort.
When template creators insert placeholders into a template they have
a wide range of options available to control how the placeholder will
behave and what the user can do within it. This functionality is very
important when aiming to keep a standard corporate look-and-feel.
Standard placeholder options include:
Text Only - Only text can be placed within the placeholder; no
other HTML such as headings, for example.

Max Length - This option allows you to determine the
maximum number of characters that a user can enter in the
placeholder.

Constrain Images - This option allows you to specify maximum
width and heights that images can be inserted at into the
placeholder.

Content Types - This option allows you to specify exactly what
type of content can be inserted into a placeholder - if you don't
want images to be inserted, just un-tick them.

Can Change Styles - This option specifies whether a user can
utilise the CSS, heading and paragraph options to apply style
to the text content.

Tag To Render - Allows you to specify what HTML tag will
render around the content, or no tag at all

CSS Class - Allows you to specify a CSS class against the
placeholder
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Mini-Templates
Sub-Templates or Mini Templates, as some customers like to call them,
allow you to create pages and templates from a pre-created set of
building blocks.
Many of our competitors offer snippets to achieve this functionality.
The problem with this is that the presentation gets stuck in the content
and when you come to completely re-brand the entire site it becomes
near impossible.
CSS Assignment
CSS is an integral part of any template implementation. CSS can be
assigned to templates by default or forced to appear wherever the
template is used. On top of this you can also change the CSS at section
or sub-section level - you may, for instance, have different colour
schemes for each part of the site. This is simple to achieve just create
the different variations and then assign them to the sections as
relevant.
You may wish to change the style sheets based upon user input or for
personalisation or browser compliance. We offer a simple set of
methods to change the style sheets at runtime, if you want to
programmatically change the CSS assignment based upon anything
you deem relevant.
All types of style sheet Media are supported including, for example,
print style sheets.
Code integration
If you are using our .Net publishing method, then it is possible to write
.Net code directly into the templates which either calls your own
bespoke components or assemblies or calls our Open API or the
standard Microsoft .net framework.
There are many reasons why having the ability to change execute code
at runtime is important. An example may be that you wish to show or
hide a component on the homepage of the site based upon a user's
role.
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A custom code example hiding or showing an element in the template
based upon group membership.
This example is very straightforward, but it just shows that any .Net
code can be executed that you choose - in this case we are calling the
Page API to personalise based upon the user's group membership. For
those of you who are concerned that the name of the group may
change, you can also pass in the group ID (the above example ID is for
illustration purposes only).
If you are a Contensis customer then you can get a whole host of
custom code examples on our Support Website.
Multimedia
Media Gallery
The media gallery control can be embedded in a page. It provides
visitors to the website with a straight-forward means of viewing
multiple images in a gallery format.
The control utilises a combination of components that you can see from
the screenshot including:
Automatic paging

RSS/Atom feeds

Lightbox functionality

Image download option
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Streaming Video
In today's web environment, streaming media is a must for almost
every website out there. In Contensis creating streaming media
couldn't be easier. Typically, streaming video or media is being created
using Flash Video or FLV, as many of you will know it. Contensis
supports FLV content natively but also supports many other video
formats such as MPG, AVI and many more.
This screenshot shows Latest Videos; as you click on the videos they
will “lightbox” up to a full screen:-
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Streaming Video in the Media Gallery: The Media Gallery control
has automatic support for Flash Video, so as you navigate the Media
Gallery you can navigate images and Flash Videos.
Industry Standard Player: Rather than reinventing wheels Contensis
provides support for the LongTail Video JW Player. This player is one of
the only solutions which tick all the boxes from an accessibility
viewpoint. When you commit to a Contensis SAAS contract, you will
have a licence to use the JW Player on as many sites as you are
licensed for with Contensis.
Streaming Video from any page: Adding a video to a page is simple
with Contensis. All you need do is drag and drop a video from the
Contensis Repository and you are done. If you want to insert a Video
from a different source such as a streaming media server or provider,
then just add the URL.
Content, File & Media Types
Contensis is designed to handle any content type that is relevant to the
web or indeed any application, and in practice this is exactly what our
existing clients do. They can upload and publish content in any of the
following formats:Multimedia: FLV, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, MOV, MPEG, AVI, WMF, ASF,
WAV, MP3, WMV, MP4, OGG, SWF
Documents: DOC, DOCX, PDF, PPT, XLS, XML, XSLT
Web Pages/Content: HTML/XHTML, ASPX, ASP, PHP
The full list of supported files has over seventy types. When a new file
type comes into use we add this to the standard set of file types for
Contensis; a recent example is SRT (SubRip Captions Format) used for
video subtitles.
Search
General
The Contensis “Standard Search Engine” is part of the overall CMS
product and has been developed as the underlying toolkit that we use
to create any search which our clients require – and it is far from
“standard”.
Using the Contensis Search as the core engine for your search will
satisfy all of the underlying technical requirements, so that we can
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concentrate on building the search functionality outlined. The design
phase will create the visuals and layout of your searches which we will
implement as a set of templates and mini-templates, so that they sit
neatly within the overall site design.
Functional abilities of the search include:
Absolutely all content is included in the indexing process

Detect and respond to misspelling of terms

Detect and respond to terms with relevant synonyms
(“Thesaurus” functionality)

Assign field weightings, including “compulsory” results

Boolean Query Support

Hit Highlighting

Configurable Data Sources

Respects Permissions

Thumbnail Image support

Word Stemming

Nesting and concatenation of search features into single
“advanced search”

Search term logging & reporting
Starting with this “kit of parts” and assembling them, the full rich
functionality of your search can be built up without the need for any
significant new bespoke work. In particular, the search process will be
configurable. Initially this will be undertaken by our Professional
Services Team who are implementing your intranet, but we will hand
this over to your control, with the required knowledge transfer and
documentation, so that tweaks can be made to how critical search.
This screen shows a standard search results control, without any extra
styling applied:-
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Advanced Search
The advanced search allows users to specify other search criteria to
refine their search results further. The variety of searches that can be
produced is enormous, from Boolean logic:-
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To comprehensive implementations such as this one for the European
University Institute:-
Security, indexing and search inclusion
Securing your Search: Using the Contensis standard or enterprise
search, you can simply tick a box to enable permissions. Once you
have ticked the box, the user doing the searching will only get the
results they have permission to see. It is as simple as that.
If you want the results to be shown, but for the user to be sent to a
call to action or access denied screen when they attempt access, just
don't tick the enable permissions box.
Many search systems have problems when implementing permissions,
especially when the permissions can be completely granular. The
Contensis Search gets around this problem, and allows for a totally
permission-sensitive search to be carried out.
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Include in Search: Within Contensis, at both folder and content level, it
is possible to include and exclude items from the search. This
functionality can be very useful as it gives individual editors the choice
of whether their content is to be returned when a search is executed.
The options can be accessed from the properties tab at any time whilst
editing any piece of content or, if you are a folder administrator, you
can make changes in bulk to content and folders in the section for
which you have administration rights.
Indexing: The Contensis indexing service has the job of indexing all
content in the Contensis repository. Quite simply, as soon as a new
piece of content is uploaded or created, the indexing engine will go to
work to index it for search purposes.
Social Media integration
At its simplest, many of our clients have links to Facebook, Twitter etc.,
often within a full set of social bookmarking links in the footer, such as
the following example from our website:-
Where a client organisation has their own Facebook or Twitter account,
the Contensis RSS control can be used to update Facebook with
selected content, thereby avoiding double-working of content. The RSS
Feed Reader is also designed to properly handle Twitter feeds.
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This means that you can have a Twitter feed up-and-running showing
the Twitter source without any extra configuration.
Because Twitter sets the title and the description of the feed item to be
the same, we recommend hiding the description, which is just another
one of the standard options available on the control.
Most recently, we have packaged up the Facebook controls so that they
can be dropped into a Contensis page without the need for any
technical skills. Controls include:
Like It

Comments

Recommendations

Recent Activity

Combined Like with Comments
They have also been made to produce accessible pages, which the
“raw” Facebook code does not.
We have an additional-cost Social Media Module which manages the
creation and publishing of content to Twitter (see Social Media Manager
Service Definition).
Site Tools
Download as a PDF
The Download as PDF control can be embedded on any page in a site,
typically embedded in your main template as part of a site tools menu
or similar. As with all other controls, just a simple click and insert and
it is up-and-running. The control has the option to use print
stylesheets, in which case the PDF will look like a printed document.
Print this Page
The print page control is there to take the hassle out of producing an
accessible but functional site. In essence, the print control creates a
hyperlink that, when clicked, will ask the browser to print the current
page the end user is viewing. The control supports setting a static print
page that is used to explain to users how to print, if they are using a
browser that does not support script, for example.
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Send to a Friend Controls
The Send to a Friend control can be embedded in any web page. All
you need do is link to the page with the Send to a Friend control and
your end users can start sharing your content. The control comes with
a standard simple theme, so there is no need for any specific styling
unless you want your own look and feel.
Social Bookmarking: If you want to embed a social bookmarking tool,
such as the one we use on this site, to share the page with Facebook,
Digg or any other site, all you need do is paste a few lines of JavaScript
into your page template. Because there are so many providers such as
AddThis.com and ShareThis.com we see no point in specialising in a
particular vendor. Typically one of these services can be configured and
implemented in a few minutes.
Syndication
Contensis has been designed at every level to cater for the needs of
syndication, whether it be automatically available syndication in
virtually every one of our lists such as What's New, News, Events,
Blogs etc. or a bespoke syndication where you want to create a very
specific feed that has nothing to do with your actual page layout and
presentation.
Syndicating content from other sites
All we need is the URL of the feed – such as the BBC news headlines
feed - and we can then paste this into our syndication control. To
improve performance the RSS Feed Reader can also cache the data for
a time duration of your choice.
The RSS Feed Reader is also designed to properly handle Twitter feeds.
This means that you can have a Twitter feed up-and-running showing
the Twitter source without any extra configuration.
The RSS Feed Reader can either be formated as an unordered list or a
series of paragraphs. The control comes with a standard theme that
will style it automatically if your designers have not prepared a specific
stylesheet for it. As with all Contensis controls the source code is
accessible, semantic and XHTML compliant.
Syndicating content from your site
RSS in Standard Controls: Syndicating content out to other sites
couldn't be simpler. In Contensis most of the standard controls support
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RSS and Atom natively. For example, in the What's New control, all
you need do is leave all the options as default when you insert it into
your page or template, and the RSS Link and Atom Link will
automatically appear. Virtually every Contensis list control supports
RSS ranging from social networking to jobs.
Creating a Custom RSS or Atom Feed: If the RSS produced by any of
the lists is not appropriate then you can create a custom RSS feed
using the RSS Feed Writer control. This control allows you to
include/exclude any content from your entire site, and present it on a
URL of your choice. The selection of content is driven by query, so as
new content is applicable it will start appearing in the feed. The website
visitor is presented with a standard RSS feed output when visiting a
URL that is served by the RSS feed.
RSS AutoDiscovery: Contensis fully supports RSS AutoDiscovery.
Accessibility
The accessibility features detailed below are available to be inserted
into a web page design. These are the visible elements that can assist
users with particular needs to read and navigate your content. The
majority of the accessibility functionality offered by Contensis happens
before content is published - for details on this please see Quality
Assurance Module Service Definition.
Sometimes it is important (or useful) to re-format the way a web page
is rendered in order for someone to view it, for example where site
visitors are visually impaired or dyslexic and require a screen reader to
read the text for them. Someone else might be using an old device to
view the content. Using the tools below you can publish content
knowing that it will be accessible to as many users as possible.
The Text-only button provides the user with a fast loading page with
text rendered in a high contrast format. This feature differs from the
Style-sheet Switcher in that the formatting is removed as well as any
images. The text-only version is not only beneficial for users that
require high contrast colours on fonts, it is also great for viewing web
pages on legacy devices or on slow internet connections.
Stylesheet Switcher
As well as addressing the need for content to be accessible for people
using screen readers, effort is being spent to address the needs of
visitors that don't use screen readers at all but do find certain colours
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or font-sizes a challenge. Users of your website or intranet can use the
Stylesheet Switcher to pick the version that will enable them to view
the content in a format appropriate to them.
The Stylesheet Switcher offers different versions of the stylesheet that
controls the layout, fonts and colour scheme for the design. With a
different stylesheet a user with vision problems can use a version with
bigger fonts, no irrelevant graphics and a layout that will make sense
when magnified on the screen.
Each accessible stylesheet is developed at the same time as the rest of
the design is built into Contensis.
Font-size Selector
By adding the Font-size Selector to a website you allow visitors to set
the size of the text to their preference . This provides a quick and
intuitive method of adjusting the text size for users with poor vision
without the need for special tools.
Text-only Button
The Text-only button provides the user with a fast loading page with
text rendered in a high contrast format. This feature differs from the
Style-sheet Switcher in that the formatting is removed as well as any
images. The text-only version is not only beneficial for users that
require high contrast colours on fonts, it is also great for viewing web
pages on legacy devices or on slow internet connections.
The Permissions Framework
Permissions are easy to configure, but at the same time entirely
granular. If you want to do it a certain way, there will be a way of
configuring it within the Contensis permissions system.
Permissions are completely granular in Contensis, and combine a range
of parameters:
What CMS users can do (Create/Edit/Delete/Approve etc)

Where they are allowed and what is visible to them, at any
level from a placeholder, to a folder, groups of folders,
sections/microsites to an entire project. For example, a user
may have little access to the overall website, other than one
microsite where they have full control, in effect acting as “local
webmaster” for a small section.
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
Which content types the user can work with, enabling you to
limit who can use PDFs for example

Which templates the user can choose from when creating new
content

Whether they can see and/or access any of the system
administration functions

What content formats and types are allowed within the
placeholders that make up each template
It is worth noting that permissions are not only used internally within
the system, to control content creation, approval and editing, but also,
if required, to restrict access to different parts of a published website.
Keeping permissions all in one place ensures there are no mistakes, as
you can easily comprehend access permissions for any piece of content
in a couple of clicks.
Implementing permissions on published websites
Implementing permissions on your published websites couldn't be more
straightforward. You simply need to update a couple of config settings
to enable authentication and the permissions will kick-in. Having the
permissions totally integrated within the CMS allows the contributors
and managers of different sections to decide which content can
surface.
This screen shows secure content visible to a registered user:-
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We find that many projects no longer have a separate sense of
intranet, extranet and website; they are all the same site. The only
thing that separates them is the permissions you assign to different
types of user.
Securing your Search
Using the Contensis standard or enterprise search, you can simply tick
a box to enable permissions. Once you have ticked the box, the user
doing the searching will only get the results they have permission to
see. It is as simple as that.
Securing your Menus
If you want to know more about Menus then visit our section on
Navigational controls. In this area we are simply highlighting that if you
want to, you can enable permission checking on menus. This means
that users logging in with different permissions will see different
content in the site menu.
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Many of our customers use this on their extranets to show certain
information to clients and other information to suppliers. It is another
simple method of personalising the experience to the visiting user.
Often you can use this functionality in conjunction with a CRM. If you
know that your customer has purchased x level of membership, then
give them permission to see all the documentation; whereas if they
have a lower level of membership they can perhaps see less content. A
simple CRM integration is all that is required to achieve this type of
functionality.
Securing General Content
We have looked at hiding items using permissions from the menus and
the search. The content side is the final piece of the puzzle. You can
configure exactly which users and groups are able to see which
content. This functionality relies on permissions being configured and is
totally granular.
Enabling a Folder Password
Folder password protection is exactly what it says it is. You simply
assign a password to a folder and thereafter anyone attempting access
will be prompted to enter a password. This functionality is very useful
when you want to give out blanket access to anyone with a password.
The accounts will not lock and all you need is the password.
Often this is useful when you wish delegates from an event to be able
to access a shared resource, or for a publisher publishing web
resources when marketing a book. A simple password is all that should
be required.
Content Editors’ Perspective
From the perspective of a content editor, permissions couldn't be more
straightforward. Permissions are used to allow access to certain areas
of the system, everything from editing to authorisation. Administrators
can choose which sections of the site a user has access to create, edit,
authorise and delete new content or folders.
If the administrator decides, you may only see a single folder out of
10,000 in a CMS. The permissions are completely granular.
Page Element-Level Permissions
Even if you want to control permissions for editing element-level parts
of a page, this is straightforward.
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The most common requirement for this is on a website homepage.
Normally we find that most homepages actually contain very little
static data, as the homepages are fed from other sections of the site
automatically. News and events are probably the most common and
they both have full permissions enabled.
If you only want a single box or feature area to be controlled by
specific individuals, then the quickest way to implement this is using
HTML snippets or sub-templates. Creating pages in this way ensures
that the workflow, versioning and permissions can be controlled even
down to a single paragraph.
CMS Administrators’ Perspective
Groups/Roles: Groups, or roles as some people may like to call them,
are an integral part of the permissions system. Normally when
assigning permissions you will be assigning them against particular
groups. These groups may have just been created in Contensis or could
be groups that have been synchronised and already exist in your Active
Directory.
The management of users in groups is very flexible; it can be managed
through AD or through Contensis, sometimes even a combination of
the two.
There are currently three different types of group:

Organisational Units - If you use our Who's Who module,
organisational units can be used to group and categorise your
staff into departmental structure within the organisation.

Security Group - Security groups are there purely for the
purpose of permissions assignment; all group types can be
used for permissions assignment, but this is the default type of
group.

Community Groups - Community groups are there to support
our Social Networking, Forums and other modules.
Groups can be nested within groups to any level in much the same way
as you have come to expect with services such as Active Directory
from Microsoft. Having “group within group” functionality makes
permissions straightforward, flexible and scalable.
Group Integration: As standard, Contensis integrates with Active
Directory. When a group is AD integrated it will show up slightly
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differently all over the system. An example has been demonstrated
below.
Active Directory User Group Icon
Wherever groups are available to assign, create,
delete or edit, you will instantly recognise the type
of group by the icon.
Standard User Group Icon
Wherever groups are available to assign, create,
delete or edit, you will instantly recognise the type
of group by the icon.
You can use our API to integrate with any other group membership
system. Previously, customers have integrated with CRM or even
bespoke internal systems. Integration is straightforward.
Users: Users are probably one of the most important areas we can look
at. Users are going to be at the heart of your content management
system, making it come alive and deliver what your organisation
requires from it. At the other end of the scale, users of the published
solution, which may be an extranet, intranet or website, are all
managed through the same user management interface, which gives
you a high level of control and a simple approach to user management.
Because we are catering for both system users and end users, there is
a lot of functionality available for users:
Self-updateable user profiles both through the CMS and
website interface.

Ability to opt-in and out of different system notifications both
for traditional CMS purposes as well as activity from social
networking and forums, as an example.

Full user integration with any third party user management
system that can be interfaced in some manner through .NET.

Full native support for Active Directory synchronisation.

User-level permissions available to assign to any piece of
content.

Personalised dashboards at CMS level, as well as full
personalisation options.
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
Google integration for Google Mail, Docs and RSS.

Who's Who integration to show and provide searchable
interactive organisational staff or user directories.
When we are looking at users purely from a permissions perspective,
we can assign any permission to an individual user, but more
commonly we would assign permissions to groups of which users are a
member.
Membership & Personalisation
Personalisation Framework
The Contensis Personalisation Framework is part of the Contensis API.
It provides a framework that allows web developers to introduce
explicit and implicit personalisation into their website with ease and
with no limitations.
There are two options for delivering personalisation using the
framework, through either explicit or implicit processes.
Explicit personalisation is fully catered for through the provision of
authentication controls. You can find details about the log on control,
registration control and profile control by visiting the Control Gallery on
our website. Contensis also provides built in AD integration.
Implicit personalisation is handled using components available from the
Contensis Personalisation Framework. Every page on the site will have
the implicit log-on control available, provided through the base
template. This means that when a user hits the site for the first time,
an implicit user account is set up automatically.
Rules are configured through the use of custom code, these are
typically a single line of code to record the fact that a user has visited a
section of the site for example and to attach them to a personalisation
group. Individual items of content, listings, galleries can then be
controlled to display or not through the membership to the
personalisation groups on an individual basis.
The implicit log on control also captures any referral information,
Google/Bing/Yahoo search terms, IP address and regional settings.
This allows for the use of suggesting lists of content when the user first
hits your site based on this initial hit.
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The framework also provides options to utilise both session storage for
single visits or cookie storage for multiple visits. When cookies are
used, the framework prompts the user of this use so that it conforms
to the EU directive on the use of cookies. If the user declines then the
framework automatically switches to session storage.
User Login - Creating a login is straight-forward
In many systems creating a full login and authentication system would
be complex. In Contensis you can have permissions and a login system
up-and-running in minutes.
This screenshot shows the standard login control with the simple theme
applied:-
The Login Control
The login control can be added to any page, but typically you would
create a page called "access-denied" and a page called "login". Once
this has been done, simply add the control to the page and it is now
configured. The login control supports remembering login, and
password change requests based upon password expiry, for example.
When remembering a password, the system stores a 3-Des encrypted
cookie on the users browser.
Getting to a login
Typically users of a site will get to the login page because they have
clicked on a link that requires authentication. You may, however, want
user to be able to login to a typical member's area, at any time whilst
they are on the site. If this is the case, we have a control that supports
this called Login/Out link. This control allows the user to quickly either
logon or logout based upon their current login status. This control is
fully cache compliant and will work even if you have caching enabled
on your site. At any point a user can login or out from the bar they
have implemented into their templates.
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Active Directory Integration
If you are using Internet Explorer, you can configure the site to
automatically login from the credentials of your local Active Directory.
In other words, your users don't even have to logon because they are
already logged onto their computer. In other browsers, or
circumstances, such as accessing an extranet over the internet, this is
not possible, as the user may be in an Internet Cafe, for example. In
this case the login functionality is fully supported using the Contensis
standard login control, and the user will be able to authenticate using
their Active Directory credentials.
Open API
Many of our competitors will say that they have an extensible API that
you can use. Our product is architected in such a way that our User
Interface and Services use our API.
This means that anything that we can do in the UI you can do through
code. You may wish to automate processes; you may wish to create a
specific tool for a specific department to contribute content in a tailored
manner. Whatever your needs, the tools are there. If you come on one
of our Developer Training courses we will give you the knowledge and
examples to create almost anything you desire.
The system also has a plug-in architecture that allows you to extend it
e.g. add new buttons or create new reports. This gives you the
flexibility to cater for very specific needs and you can do all this
without affecting the ability to upgrade the system at any time you
desire.
The system is written in the latest .Net framework 4.0 which means
that your developers can use Visual Studio to interact with the API and
utilise all the Intellisense and features that Microsoft provide for us out
of the box. The non-chargeable Express versions of visual studio can
deliver on all of the standard requirements you are likely to have.
Although our API is not open source, we are more than happy to
provide our customers with code if required. In a recent case, a
University customer requested the code to one of our navigational
controls so they could extend it slightly. Naturally, our first call was
'can we include your requirement in an upgrade?'. However, after a
detailed analysis, it was deemed that the change was so bespoke that
no other customers would benefit, so we simply provided the developer
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in question with the source code of our control and they went on to
update and extend it to meet their locally-specific requirements.
We are very open with our customers and, as long as we are not giving
away core sensitive code, we are more than happy with this kind of
approach. We are even considering the idea at present of making our
non-licensed web control code available so any of our customers can
see how things are done - a route that Microsoft themselves have
taken with great benefit to the community.
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Service Definition:
Information Assurance
The Cloud based services provided by Contensis are capable of
delivering services up to IL2. We are currently in the process of
obtaining accreditation to ISO 27001 which will mean the services are
compatible with IL3 certification.
Contensis is certified to ISO 9001:2008 and we have internal policies
and procedures including Risk Management and Disaster Recovery that
are followed by our staff to ensure a first class service is maintained
throughout.
We can also confirm that our systems are regularly exposed to
penetration testing carried out on our instructions, but also carried out
on request from our high profile clients.
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Service Definition: Service
Management
On-boarding
Contensis provides new clients many facilities to get started, these
include migration tools, sample sites, co-ordinated training, fully
documented online support site, with video and textual tutorials.
From sign off, a new system can be installed and ready to go within
one week.
Off-boarding
In the rare event clients leave the Contensis system, there is a full XML
based export option. This allows selective export of all the content,
structure and metadata that is held within the system enabling clients
to move onto another platform.
Service Level and Constraints
All servicing and maintenance within the cloud environment will be
carried out during out of hours (UK) and will ensure that service
availability is maintained at 99.9% and above.
Support Service Level Agreement
Genetics Limited provide a comprehensive support service for the
Contensis CMS and any related modules.
The formal arrangements for support follow the provisions of the
matrix below, which forms the basis for our support contract. It is the
client’s choice to determine the severity of the support issue, and
hence the response level required.
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Definition Receipt
Response Resolution
1
Business Standstill/ Immediate 30 Mins
Critical
8 Hours
2
Major User Problem 60 Mins
4 Hours
2 working days
3
Minor Problem/ 4 Hours
Enhancement
Request
8 Hours
3 working days
& prioritise
Receipt is defined as acknowledging the incident has been logged.
Response is defined as a suitably qualified consultant contacting the
client to start investigations.
Resolved is defined as having produced and implemented a solution,
which is working in the production environment.
Escalation
The client may escalate a call at any time. The following escalation
path is listed for guidance:Level 1:
Head of Development
Level 2:
Support Manager
At each escalation point, the company will respond with an action plan
and timescale for implementation, in agreement with you.
Support is normally provided for system administrators and developers
and this would be provided by our Support site, telephone and e-mail.
Support cover is provided during normal office hours, usually 8am –
6pm UK time. Outside these hours, support will also be available but
not guaranteed. However, Genetics as a matter of principle would
always make every reasonable endeavour to assist you whenever
practically possible.
Whilst high-level support will only be provided for the Contensis
system, assistance will also be provided for any other software tightly
integrated with Contensis, but advanced level support for this software
is not guaranteed. (e.g. SQL Server, IIS, .NET Framework).
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Backup & Disaster Recovery
We utilise VEEAM to backup all Virtual Machines. Typically backups are
carried out once every day. If you require more frequent backups then
this is normally achieved using either increased schedules in VEEAM or
SAN level snapshots of volumes. SAN level snapshots or volumes are
particularly useful for services such as SQL server as we can for
example set up snapshots automatically every 5 minutes if needed
without any loss of performance.
Backups are all written to disc and discs are cycled and taken off site
weekly.
In the event of total failure at the primary Data Centre we have the
provision to restore the live web servers at another location. If you
need this level of DR we can even configure VEEAM to keep a
replicated server at another one of sites.
How to raise a support issue
Support issues can be raised directly through our online Helpdesk.
Priority 1 issues are immediately messaged to relevant support staff by
SMS. You can also phone or email to alert us to an issue, but this will
then need to be entered into the Helpdesk queue.
Service Roadmap
Contensis is constantly being developed in line with customer
expectations. These are gauged partly through our constant, multiple
contacts with clients and the requirements and enhancements they
identify. We also provide a specific Wish List forum, where users record
their ideas, including their urgency and priority. We collate these and
feed them in priority order into the development path. And the
frequent User Groups also act as direct input to our development plans,
both in terms of functionality and priority.
The Contensis Development Team operate according to the Sprint
development cycle. As a result, the software is subject to one major
and two interim upgrades per year.
In addition to these stable versions, we also release monthly hot-fix
roll-ups. There are regular knew versions posted by the development
team, so if you need to get hold of functionality we are currently
working on, it is immediately downloadable from the support site.
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Genetics Limited will apply all upgrades to the service, in a manner
designed to eliminate downtime.
Help Facilities
Contensis has a full on-line help facility which covers virtually every
aspect of the system and is fully searchable. Whilst most on-going
(after launch) support is provided by e-mail through a ticketed system,
telephone help will always be provided when appropriate. It is normal
for the relationships built during project build to continue as an ongoing dialogue which is maintained by careful account management.
Training
We offer a full range of training packages covering every aspect of the
system. Our on-line help system contains a set of video tutorials which
are a valuable training resource which can be accessed as and when
required. From a user perspective this means that newcomers to the
system can quickly get up to speed and learn at their own pace.
The actual training requirement is carefully assessed during the
implementation phase when we will propose a training schedule based
upon individual project needs. Wherever possible, we work on a
cascade training basis, in order to minimise cost and time commitment.
Training Modules
Training is normally split into the following sessions. Each of these
sessions focuses upon different aspects of Contensis; however, there is
inevitably some overlap depending upon the role of the user.
User training (‘Train the trainer’ sessions) – creating/editing/publishing
It is recommended that users having user training have basic IT skills
including word processor knowledge.
Administrator training (Requires user training) – system administration
of the Contensis CMS
It is recommended that users having administrator training have basic
IT skills and the understanding of how systems are controlled through
permissions and restrictions.
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Contensis Templates and Controls training (Requires both administrator
and user training) – implementing designs in Contensis templates
using (X)HTML & CSS
It is recommended that users having template, controls and forms
training have IT design skills and ideally experience with Dreamweaver
or similar products.
Developer training – new modules & bespoke
extensions/integrations/migrations using the API
It is recommended that users having developer training are
programmers with web application experience
Full system documentation and training manuals for Contensis are
made available 24/7 via the Contensis support site. The manuals are
provided as PDF documents and are available as articles within our
Support site. In addition to the manuals there are also videos available
on our support site, these show how to use certain areas of the system
such as the editor, image library, etc… The videos are available as FLVs
that are embedded in the support site. We can make them available as
standalone videos that can be distributed to users if required.
Data restoration/service migration
The environment is fully backed up with incremental backups carried
out on a daily basis. Restorations can be made on request although
this may incur costs.
A full service migration of content or environment is possible through
XML export or production of a virtual server image.
Consumer responsibilities
It is the responsibility of the client to ensure that there is always a
contact available so to prevent delays in service delivery or issue
resolution.
Technical requirements
Contensis is a web based product, therefore clients requires one of the
following browsers;

IE 7+

Chrome (latest)
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
Safari (latest)

Firefox (latest)
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Service Definition: Pricing &
Contracts
Licence scaling
The Contensis CMS services are available in four licence levels, which
cover the complete range of project scales.
All functionality described in this document is the same for these four
licences, since they differ only in the numbers of users and websites.
All services include hosting for the CMS, the resulting websites and
technical support for the CMS.
Definitions
Users – all licences are based on average concurrent CMS users, not
total users. Website users are not relevant to this definition.
Projects – a project is a single navigation interface to a collection of
content. A project can contain unlimited microsites, designs, secure
areas and be accessed with multiple URLs.
Cost – cost is quoted in GBP per calendar month exclusive of VAT.
LICENCE
Concurrent
Projects
Users
Cost per
month
Lite
2
1
£298
Standard
5
1
£723
10
2
£1,275
Unlimited
Unlimited
£2,550
Pro
Enterprise
Expanding the service
During the course of a contract, clients on the Lite, Standard and
Professional services can add additional concurrent users (£35/month)
and projects (£86/month).
Professional services for design, implementation, consultancy are £800
per day.
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Data extraction
Our standard data extraction rate is £100/hour or £800/day.
Financial recompense model
Genetics Limited are committed to providing a service that
permanently meets 99.9% uptime. Where we are unable to achieve
this level, we will provide a credit system that reduces the cost of the
service as invoiced to the client.
Where the service fails to reach this level of availability, the expected
payment will be reduced by a percentage equivalent to the difference
between 99.9% and the % which the service did actually provide, on a
per month basis.
Ordering and invoicing process
We anticipate invoicing on a quarterly basis, under a Purchase Order
which remains in force for the agreed term. However, other
arrangements proposed by the prospective client can be considered.
Contract terms
Minimum contract period
The minimum contract period for the service is three (3) months.
By consumers (i.e. consumption)
Genetics Ltd requires notice prior to the beginning of three full months.
By the Supplier (removal of the G-Cloud Service)
Genetics Ltd will give at least six months notice of our intention to
cease any service. However, we must stress that this is considered
extremely unlikely to occur, as we have substantial numbers of existing
clients using the full range of our software on our hosting service
already (i.e. pre G-Cloud), and need to maintain these contracts in
operation.
Trial service
We have sandpit versions of the CMS available to utilise prior to a
client opting to sign a CloudStore contract.
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Annex 1: The Genetics
Cloud-based Hosting
Environment
General Overview
Contensis offer a cloud based hosting service, powered utilising
VMWare Sphere 4, the latest DELL R710 Servers, with 12 cores of
X5660 2.80Ghz processors per server.
The service is split into Clusters of 3 physical servers, each powered by
a state of the art Dell Equalogic SAN running 15k SAS drives.
In each cluster services are split across all 3 servers, but only
provisioned for 2 servers. The system is provisioned this way, so that
in the event of any hardware failure, within a matter of minutes, any
servers can be instantly available on one of the other two servers.
When we supply servers, we supply based upon disk space, Memory
and CPU power.
Due to the infrastructure new servers can be provisioned in minutes if
required, and upgrades can be carried out in seconds for areas such as
HDD space and memory.
Resilience
The environment is connected into two separate 155MB backbones,
using full BGB routing, so failures are almost impossible.
Power is provided by UPS, and automatic dual redundant Backup
generators are in place to provide an indefinite power supply.
Every server has dual resilient hot-swappable power supplies.
For every 3 servers, a spare server is provided. This spare server
allows complete hardware failure on either of the other two in the
cluster. If 2 servers were to be lost out of the 3, the service would
continue to run, but with limited and reduced resources.
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None of our Servers have any moving parts other than fans, as storage
on board is Solid State.
Central storage is provided by a Dell Equalogics San, which has DUAL
on board controllers.
Memory, Disks, and even entire controllers can fail without any loss of
operation.
All equipment is covered by Dell 4hr response, but in practise losing
any component of the system would not matter for days if required!
The entire system is networked using state of the art multiple switches,
configured for complete redundancy. In the event of any switch being
unplugged nothing on the entire network will loose connection, as each
server is connected into separate switches.
Our firewall solution is dual honed. Firewalls can also lose all power or
have total failure, without any downtime for the environment.
We don’t just say it is resilient; we actually fully test every cluster, by
physically pulling power on switches, servers, San Controllers etc.
Security & Environment
Each customer has their own segregated network, so you can be
assured your data is not accessible by any other customer or service.
From a physical stand point we offer:

Extensive CCTV

Multipoint access control

24/7 security guard patrols

Air conditioning

Overhead cable management

Raised flooring

FM200 Gas Fire Protection.
Operating Systems
We run Microsoft Windows 2008R2 Datacenter edition across the
board, which ensures you have 0 limitations, in what you may want to
achieve with the servers.
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We patch all servers as applicable for security updates, but once a
month for other updates.
Maintenance
Due to the power of VMotion, we can physically move your virtual
servers, between any server in the cluster in minutes (or seconds
depending on how busy they are), so maintenance to physical
hardware, or upgraded such as adding memory can be carried out at
any time, without any downtime.
Due to the fact that we would provide a clustered, or load balanced
web server set-up, we can also remove any server at any point without
any loss of service. This means windows updates for example can be
carried out without any loss of service.
The only small amount of downtime ever needed, is when a SAN
firmware update occurs, which will cause around 20 seconds of service
pause, while the SAN switches to its second controller, and back again.
Typically this is carried out less than once a year, in the middle of the
night, with at least two weeks’ notice.
We can hot add extra CPU, Memory and HDD space without any
disruption to running servers.
Load Balancing, and server resiliency
Even though in the event of a server failure, which is extremely
unlikely, you will only get a couple of minutes of downtime, we have to
ensure that services are split across physical servers to ensure no
downtime at all.
Generally if you run Web Server applications, we will split the servers
across separate physical servers in the cluster.
To balance the load across the web servers, we run a cluster of Load
Balancers, which are themselves split across our servers. This ensures
that it is near impossible to loose even a second of service.
We utilise a load balancer called HAProxy, which runs on a FreeBSD
operating system.
This load balancer has not had a single security vulnerability in its
existence, and is used to power some of the largest sites in the world,
including Twitter for example!
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We can configure the load balancer so that it not only balances, but
checks the health of your site, and will stop sending requests to certain
servers if the server generates an issue.
Monitoring
We fully monitor all our operations, from both inside and outside of our
network, this ensures full coverage.
Monitoring covers everything from IP access, to disk space, to CPU and
memory consumption.
In the event of failure, we are notified by SMS and Email immediately.
In practise with the set-up we have, we only get an SMS once a day,
for our SMS test, to ensure monitoring is working correctly.
Backups
We utilise VEEAM to backup all Virtual Machines. Typically backups are
carried out once every day. If you require more frequent backups then
this is normally achieved using either increased schedules in VEEAM or
SAN level snapshots of volumes. SAN level snapshots or volumes are
particularly useful for services such as SQL server as we can for
example set up snapshots automatically every 5 minutes if needed
without any loss of performance.
Backups are all written to disc and discs are cycled and taken off site
weekly.
In the event of total failure at the primary Data Centre we have the
provision to restore the live web servers at another location. If you
need this level of DR we can even configure VEEAM to keep a
replicated server at another one of our datacentre sites.
Sales: sales@contensis.co.uk
Tel: 01584 824202