Integration of SoftCare K4 with SDL Tridion Provides Editorial Department with End-to-End System to Control All Aspects of Online Content Creation and Publishing
New York, NY - Mar 27, 2008 - DPCI, an interactive technology agency that delivers integrated content
management solutions, today announced it successfully integrated Hanley Wood
Business Media's editorial publishing platform with the company's content
management system utilizing a custom-developed XML utility. This integration
provided Hanley Wood's editorial department with an end-to-end platform to
control how content is published online.
Hanley Wood Business Media is an award winning portfolio of housing and
construction magazines and online media. As part of this project, DPCI worked
with Hanley Wood to analyze workflow, define requirements, and develop a series
of tools to optimize the company's investment in SoftCare K4 Publishing System
for delivery of content to its SDL Tridion Content Management System.
Integrating the two systems, DPCI developed customizations around SoftCare's
K4 XML Exporter, an auto-extraction tool utilizing XML. This served as the
bridge between the editorial, publishing, and content management systems. As
part of the project for Hanley Wood, DPCI strategized a way to use
"non-formatting" character style sheets as a way of identifying important
keywords, people, and companies within the article. By doing this, writers and
editors are empowered to decide what is important and what is not. They no
longer rely on a Web producer to identify relevant content before the story is
published online.
The association-building was streamlined as well. Now writers do not need to
write script or insert tags; they can simply highlight words with a set of
pre-defined character styles and the XML transformation will recognize these
"call-outs" and take care of the rest. Once the article is imported into Hanley
Wood's Tridion Content Management System all keywords, companies, and people
become reference links to view-related content.
"With this new integration, our editorial department has complete control and
greater flexibility in developing Web content," explained Jennifer Hannon,
Business Systems Analyst. "Now users can determine the most important content
including names, references, and keywords and integrate them within this content
management database using hotlinks. From a visitor perspective, our Web site now
offers a better content experience providing links to other relevant articles
and subject matter."
Additionally, DPCI developed the capability for editors and art directors to
specify a location for article image-related content. Once articles are
published to the Web, the custom extraction tool built by DPCI will grab article
images and add references to the images inside the article XML. To further
enhance the related image export, all images are automatically checked for
digital rights and then are transformed from various file types into a Web-ready
RGB JPG.
"The XML feed allows our entire editorial department to continuously update
our site with fresh new content," explained Jeff Rule, Managing Director of Web
and Content Management at Hanley Wood. "Enabling our writers to have the freedom
to prepare their articles and images for the Web without requiring the
assistance of a Webmaster is extremely valuable, and ultimately delivers a
better quality editorial experience."
"With the enhancements made to the K4 XML Exporter we've been able to
dramatically streamline and cut down on the time it takes to publish content to
the Web. With the ability to add metadata, tag content, and make associations
from the inception of article content, Hanley Wood is in a good position to
achieve a media-neutral content workflow wherein some articles will be attached
to layouts for print, while other online-only content can be published directly
to the Web. In both cases writers and editors will have a single tool for
authoring that offers them robust editing, tracking, and dictionary support,"
said Ivan Mironchuk, Technical Services Manager at DPCI.
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About DPCI
DPCI is an interactive technology agency that delivers integrated content management solutions for organizations that need to publish content to Web, print, mobile and e-reader devices. DPCI helps customers design and implement Web Content Management Systems, Digital Asset Management, Online Collaboration Software, Multi-Channel Systems, Workflow Management solutions, and recently, Semantic technologies. DPCI serves customers throughout the United States, including Comcast, ESPN, Mitre, New York University, McGraw-Hill Education, and Thomson-Reuters. To read the DPCI CEO Blog, click Here.
DPCI Media Contact:
Tracy Gardner
212.575.5609
DPCI Public Relations
From guiding us through the requirements phase and developing the system, to helping manage the initiative, DPCI has been a great partner for us. The new content management system implementation was a huge project that has been a major success. I now have the peace of mind, knowing that our infrastructure is stable and scalable.
- Marque Staneluis, DNAinfo.com
