The Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) College of Engineering is the unit that manages both the engineering research and education at the university. Having been a Cascade CMS customer since 2008, the CMU team has completed three successful website redesigns and continues to leverage the many different features and functionality to execute various projects and implementations.
The CMU College of Engineering team has been using Cascade CMS to power their website for nearly 12 years. Throughout the years, they have developed a rigorous team that executes within the platform on a daily basis.
Hannon Hill CEO, Kat Liendgens, connected with CMU College of Engineering Senior Director, Marketing and Communications, Bridget Decker, to get a better understanding of how the team uses Cascade CMS to best meet their needs. Decker explained that after making the switch to Cascade CMS, they have been able to leverage content more efficiently and effectively. As mentioned, they are currently on their third website redesign and have created customized templates within Cascade CMS in order to update content in one place for use in multiple locations, and sites. Decker also noted that they have employed workflows to distribute updating tasks to ensure they are done in a timely and accurate manner.
Currently, the CMU team has around 25 end users that work within Cascade CMS on a day-to-day basis. With a large team like that, training can vary from case to case, but with individual permissions along with easy to use features and functionality of Cascade CMS, the on-boarding process can be done in an efficient and timely manner. Additionally, over the years, the team has created documentation to support execution of specific tasks. This can be especially helpful for ones that aren’t done frequently or as new stuff comes up.
“Cascade is a powerful tool that can help you achieve a lot of different goals with your website. Hannon Hill’s team can help you talk through different strategies from before you launch a site or to add a new feature or solve a new challenge.” -Bridget Decker
CMU College of Engineering recently launched their latest website redesign. While discussing notatable web projects, Decker expressed that the timing worked out nicely to incorporate the upgrade to Cascade 8 while deploying the redesign. They felt this was an ideal time to do both at once, as they would be also launching a new set of templates which created efficiencies across both projects.
With the dual launch of both the redesign and an upgrade to Cascade 8, the CMU team is incredibly proud of the overall execution. The team tried to leverage as much of the available functionality within Cascade CMS as possible while also deploying a website redesign that is not a typical “higher ed” look and feel. The team configured content tags so that content shows up across all sites within the CMS without actually repeating content.
Additionally, the team developed a directory that populates the College of Engineering site, which features various tagging and add-on options. This includes populating smaller individual directories, from full departments, to just a subgroup of people, while being able to update individual bio pages in just one location. This was a giant undertaking but has proved incredibly useful and made the updating process much more manageable.
While discussing CMU College of Engineering's long-time partnership with Hannon Hill, Decker said:
“We have had a great experience working with Hannon Hill. We’ve used Cascade and worked with Hannon Hill for a long time and have been happy with the improvements they’ve made to the product, as well as the customer service they have provided.”
“They have helped us work through creative solutions to technical challenges and how to best use the functionality Cascade has to offer. Members of our team have also attended the Cascade conference in the past, which was a positive experience.”
We have enjoyed our on-going partnership with the Carnegie Mellon University College of Engineering team and are excited at the level of success they've had within Cascade CMS. We look forward to additional partnership opportunities in the future.
Last Updated: Jun 15, 2021 11:00 AM
