Omni CMS

Utah State University uses the content management system Omni CMS to give colleges, departments, and programs the ability to create web content catered to their organization while maintaining a cohesive look across the University. Select a topic below to find links to Omni CMS' support site and other information about the topic, or sign up for one of our quarterly trainings on special topics.

Basics

Logging In
Login by selecting the word "Admin" in the footer of any page. This will direct you to USU's login page where you will insert your A number and USU password.

Interface
Start with a brief overview of OU Campus' interface. Learn about your Dashboard and how to customize it. Read about the Report options for user levels 5-8 to see how they will help you manage your site.

Page Editor
Sometimes referred to as the WYSWIG (What You See Is What You Get).
This editor allows content managers to visually see the content they create and edit.

Access the page editor by selecting a page file, selecting the edit button at the top then selecting the green edit button based on which section you want to edit.

Publishing
Getting a page to be live on a site is a two step process.
  1. The page needs to be saved
  2. The page needs to be published

Once the page is saved and published, it will be live on the site. Publishing a page will also automatically create a version of the page in your versions list.

Learn more about Publishing.

Saving
Saving a page by selecting the save option will direct you to the preview screen and save any changes that were made without them being seen on the live site.

Versions
Manually save your changes as a version without publishing by selecting the Save Version button.

Learn how to manually save a Version without publishing.

Recycling/Deleting/Expiring a Page
Recycling: Recycle any file and it will move to the recycle bin where it can be recovered.

Deleting: When you select a folder there is only an option to delete it. When a folder is deleted it cannot be recovered. When deleting a folder recycle the content inside first.

Expiring: A file can be sent to the recycle bin on a certain time schedule. Learn more about expiring a webpage

Checking In/Out Pages
As soon as you edit a page, it is checked out to you. This means that others cannot edit it while it is checked out to you. The page will not be checked in until the changes are published. Only one person can have a page checked out at a given time.

Interior Sections vs. Folders
Interior sections and folders share the same icon, (see below) but there is a very important difference between them. Interior sections are ideally used to hold and organize pages. They come with an index page and other helpful files you might need. Folders are typically for non-web files such as images and PDFs, but can be used like.

Features

Snippets
Snippets allow users to create custom content layouts and other elements. There are several types of snippets in the USU Template including columns and interactive snippets.

Components
Components allow you to easily add and edit content on your pages. They will most often span the area of the block that you put them in.

Assets
Assets are reusable content. Meaning once an asset is created, it can be placed on several pages, and when the asset is updated, all the pages with that asset will update as well.

This eliminates the need to go update each page individually.

Assets can be content such as the number of students attending USU. Assets will also be used to manage forms and image galleries.

Gadgets
Gadgets are useful tools in OU campus to help you easily publish pages, find the dependency tags for a file or see your check out content.

Editing

Show Blocks
The show blocks button is a very useful tool to understand how a web page is structured and also makes it easier when editing a page.

Toolbar
The toolbar appears at the top of a content editor page. Learn more about the toolbar options.

Uploading Images
Images can be uploaded and edited in OU Campus.

Upload images directly into your site's images folder by selecting "Upload" in the top right. Images can also be uploaded when inserting an image to a page by selecting "Upload."

Editing Images
OU Campus has a basic image editor. Learn more about OU Campus' Image Editor.

Basic HTML Formatting
Learn the basics of how a web page is structured with HTML.

Keyboard Shortcuts
Learn simple keyboard shortcuts to make editing in OU Campus easier and more efficient.

Website Optimization

Quality Control Messages/Tooltips
OU Campus displays messages about quality control to make a site more search engine optimized and accessible. There are also tooltips to improve accessibility. Learn more about quality control messages and tooltips

Accessibility
Web accessibility refers to the practice of removing obstacles that might prevent interaction with, or access to websites. This is especially important for people with disabilities, permanent or temporary, but it also benefits all other users.

Protected Data
These links will provide helpful information related to what data is protected and to what degree at USU

Structured Data
Structured data can help improve your page placement in search engine results.

External Supplemental Resources

These resources are provided without endorsement, as a supplemental source of helpful information for content editors.

On This Page