All content of the website will be stored and maintained in a Headless Content Management System (HCMS), in our case in Contentstack.
A HCMS allows to define data structures and relations between datasets without any coding efforts. HCMS provide interfaces for creating, editing and maintaining datasets as well ass assets (files) and managing different permissions of the HCMS. Different to a classical CMS, like e.g. WordPress, a HCMS aims at being flexibly adaptable to many different purposes and even quite complex processes.
With the advantages, a few issues come: HCMS interfaces are not explicitly optimized to a defined specific processes. Sometimes you have to add a few clicks more. Basically, if you once understood the principle, working with a HCMS is comfortable.
With Contentstack comes a complete customizable user interface to allow to maintain content without any coding skills. Nevertheless, it helps to understand the key terms used in Contentstack and what relational data management means.
Relational Data Management
If you want to manage a huge amount of data, like e.g. for a website, and think about the different kinds of data, you will see that recurring patterns can be identified.
Simple example: every single page of a website consists of a header, a navigation, a footer and main content. Most of the elements are similar or identical on most of the pages, just the main content differs from one page to the other. If you define one data pattern to manage all data of all elements in one, you will see that you end up in a huge table which is hardly maintainable and in most of the table fields you will find the same values. To e.g. change a simple phrase in the footer, you have to update a lot of datasets in the table. This is tedious and even risky.
If you organize the data relational, you organize the fields in multiple tables, e.g. one for the navigation, one, for the main content etc. Then you also create an additional element where you just define, which dataset from the navigation table, which from the footer table, which from the main content table etc. should be used for a specific page. You define relations.
This is what you basically do in Contentstack, when you create a new page.
Contentstack HCMS Terms
In Contentstack, you work with such a relational data management.
A relation between two datasets is called Reference. Based on the settings of the customized UI, you can reference datasets from one or multiple specific Content Types.
A Content Type is like a table in Contentstack, coming with a customized edit form.
With the edit form of a Content Type, you can create or edit an Entry, which is a dataset.
An Asset in Contentstack is a file you upload to Contentstack, like images, PDFs etc.
Please find more terms in the Glossary.
Be careful with deleting entries in Contentstack.
Many Content Types allow relations to others. This means that if you delete an entry, you might break web pages! If you do not need an entry any longer at a specific point, you should always just change the referenced entry.
Before you delete an entry, you should safeguard, if the entry is in use somewhere.
Search the entry and open the detail view
Open the entry Information at the right (see “Change or edit a referenced entry” below) and check the “Referenced in” information
If you see any referenced entry here, you should better avoid deleting an entry.
Please refer to the Contentstack User Manual for more detailed information about Contentstack.
References in Contentstack
In Contentstack, a reference is a relation from one entry (dataset) to another in Contentstack. Even if two entries are referenced, both are independent in regards to editing, versioning etc.
Example: A simple webpage needs at least an entry of the type “Web Page” and one of the type “Content Block”.
If you reference an entry in another entry, the referenced entry itself stays independent. This means, all options can and must be used independently.
Contentstack allows you in a reference field to either (a) “Choose an existing entry” or (b) “Create a new entry”.
(a) “Choose an existing entry”
If you click this option, Contentstack provides you with a selection of possible Content Types and Entries to select. Once you selected an entry, the reference will be created between the selected entry and the entry where you are coming from.
(b) “Create a new entry”
If you click this option, Contentstack forwards you to the related Content Type’s form to create and store your desired piece of content. Once you store the new entry, it will be automatically related (= referenced) to the entry where you are coming from.
If you create a new entry and you want to create a referenced entry in the same step, you will mostly miss the “Create a new entry” option. → Save you just created entry and try again.
Contentstack needs the unique ID of the entry to be able to store the reference. This unique ID will be created by saving the entry for the first time.
If you want to re-use a referenced entry, but change some parts of it, please take care to copy it before you make any changes! → Copy with a new name and proceed as “normal”
If you want to publish an entry with references, Contentstack will probably ask you, if you want to publish the entry with or without references. → Normally, you want to publish with references.
As already said, the referenced entries stay independent in regards to their edit and publish status. Technically, if you publish with references, Contentstack publishes multiple entries in one process.
Please refer to “Organize Content in Contenstack” to learn more about the handling of referenced entries.
Reference a new entry in a new entry
If you are just about to create a new entry, e.g. a Web Page, and want to reference a content block for the main content area, you might miss the option to create a new content block:
The reason is that Contentstack must know the unique identifier of the entry in which you want to nest a new entry.
If you miss the option to create a new entry from another entry, please provide the mandatory field values and save the entry. Now, you find the option “Create new entry”.
If it’s still not possible to create a new entry, you might not have the permissions to create entries of this content type.
Change or edit a referenced entry
If there is an entry referenced, you can either edit this entry or remove the reference to add a new one.
To edit the entry, click the left icon.
If you edit an entry, it will be changed for all places where you have this entry referenced. If you are not sure about the existing references, click the edit icon to open the entry. Then click the left arrow icon on the top right side to see all references.
To change the entry reference, click the right icon to remove the reference to the entry. Once, this is done, you can add a new reference.
If you change the reference entry, this does not impact the referenced entry. So, if you are not sure if you break something by changing the referenced entry, it might be better to create a new instead.
Instead of starting from scratch, you can also copy an entry and adapt the copy to your needs. Just search for the entry in Contentstack and open the context menu at the right (three dots) and click copy.
Where am I when editing content?
When you click the edit icon next to a referenced entry, Contentstack will forward you to the edit form of this entry. If there are unsaved changes in the entry you are leaving, Contentstack will ask you if you want to save the changes.
If you are not sure where you are, have a look on the top left of the form. There you can see the name of the currently displayed entry (either the title or the internal name, depending on the content type) and the name of the content type itself
If you want to switch back to the step where you are coming from, use the left arrow.