Content Management System

Content management

Content production

Database

Explore

Doc guide

How to organize all your content production in one single doc

Ingrid Machado

Hello! This document was created as part of the Coda Doctorate.

For best use, read this guide that teaches you how to set up, use, and understand the different content production features available.

TL;DR

This document is meant to help you with your content production and organization. This is achieved by the

Content flow⁠

which helps you to visualize your content and push it through the steps using buttons.

If you use a GitLab hosted blog, there is an option to commit your post directly from this doc.

You will find in this guide:

Setting up the document: explains how to configure the content attributes such as status, types, and categories.

Content management: describes the pages available with the content production information.

Content production: describes the pages containing the ideas, references, and the content production flow.

Database: valuable information about the

Database⁠

Publishing a Jekyll post to GitLab: instructions to use the commit to GitLab feature.

Setting up the document

Doc database

Inside the

Database⁠

you will find five tables:

Contents: gather all content managed in the document. You don’t need to change or include any register in this table to use the document.

Status: these are the statuses available in the content management board. If you want to change any of the statuses, just add, change, or remove these registers. It may be necessary some changes in the document views.

Types: the example is set up with two types: post and newsletter edition. The template available for the content will change according to the type selected. Feel free to edit the existing templates or to add another type.

Categories: used to classify the contents. These values are used for grouping the published content.

References: used to organize content references. It’s edited in a Details View in the

References⁠

page.

Configuring the exhibition

To change the status displayed in

Content management⁠

→

Board⁠

, edit the table

Status⁠

. You will need to change the button formula in the “Flow” column in the

Contents⁠

table as well. So, the content flow will keep functioning.

The

Status⁠

page will need some update too, so it can display the new statuses. There is no need to change the charts.

🚨If you don’t have advanced knowledge in Coda, my suggestion is that you use the available statuses.

To change the templates available for each content, change or add a new type in the

Types⁠

table. When writing a content, you can use the template by selecting a type and clicking on the “Apply template” button.

Content management

To understand how your content production is going, check the pages under

Content management⁠

Status

Displays the content production numbers. The first block displays the number of contents in the available statuses and the number of published contents using the document.

The page also includes two charts: one for the content types and one for the content categories.

Info

Page with the useful information about your publishing environment. It can contain links, access data, and any other frequently used information.

Planning

Shows the upcoming contents to be published. The first board contains the contents in which the publication date is due to the current week, and the second board contains the contents in which the publication date is due to next week.

The color coding shows which content is not “Ready for publishing” in red and the “Ready for publishing” and “Published” in green.

Bellow the boards, the page contains the “Content calendar”, in a month view display all the upcoming contents.

Board

A kanban board with the statuses available in the

Status⁠

table. Even though you can manage the status in this view, you may use the

Content flow⁠

more frequently.

My recommendation is that you use this board to visualize the full content flow and set some dates for contents in statuses other than “Review”.

Content production

The pages under

Content production⁠

allows you to concentrate in one place your content production process.

Ideas

Page containing a checklist of ideas you may want to register during inspiration moments. In case you use any of the ideas, you may check it off the list.

References

When researching for content producing, you may find good references that can be used in future pieces. Use this page to keep it well organized. Besides the link, there’s a “Notes” field for including excerpts, reminders, and essential information about the reference.

Content flow

When writing, you may want to organize a flow, so you don’t publish anything bellow your quality standard. To help you with that, the document includes a flow based in the content statuses that will help you focus on the right production stage.

⁠

To Do⁠

When the content is in this status, you may be gathering information, so you can create the base of your content. It can be either a research result, a book excerpt, or an idea. In this view, you will be able to organize all that into the “Notes” field.

When your research is ready, click the “Ready for writing” button so the content will be pushed to the writing phase.

New content can be added by click “New content” at the top of the page.

⁠

Writing⁠

When in writing, you will still be able to read and edit your notes and the “Content” field will be shown right below. For a better view during the writing process, you can click “View row fullscreen” ↙️↗️ in the top right corner.

If you want to start with a template, click the “Apply template” button. It will fill the content field with the corresponding category template. The button is disabled when the content is not empty, to avoid accidental overwriting.

When you are done writing, click the “Ready for review” button, so the content will be shown in the Review page.

⁠

Review⁠

In this step, the “Content” and “Publishing date” fields will be displayed, so you can review your text and define a date for publishing. Even though you can set a publishing date in the previous steps, setting it in the Review phase will help you achieve a compassionate planning.

To schedule contents in different phases of the flow, you may want to use the

Board⁠

then you get a better view of the content available.

When done reviewing, click the “Ready for publishing” button.

⁠

Ready for publishing⁠

The last step in the flow shows the contents in a Cards View, where you can check each content as published.

Using the GitLab feature, this page will display the “Publish” and the “Commit post” buttons in each card.

⁠

Published⁠

Lists every content checked as published in the previous step. The content is grouped by the content category.

🚨 When clicking any of the buttons in Details View, the content will only go forward when the changed field lose focus. This means that you will need to click the button, then click outside the content to see it vanishing from the current flow step.

Database

Every data generated using this document will be stored in the tables in the

Database⁠

page. Try to understand the document using the example data and delete the data using the provided button.

🚨 After setting up the document for the first time, avoid editions in the registers.

Publishing a Jekyll post to GitLab

If you have a Jekyll blog hosted on GitLab, you may use the

Jekyll pack⁠

to publish your content directly from the Coda doc. The pack is already included.

You can configure this feature in the document by changing the button options in the “GitLab” column in the

Contents⁠

table.

When prompted, include your GitLab token, then change the button action formula replacing the “PROJECT_ID” and “BRANCH_NAME” values with the corresponding fields:

⁠