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The Contribute workflow

Contribute works with your existing website, whether it’s an intranet or a public website. It often takes a team of people to get a website up and running and to keep the content current.

The team may include the following people:

Web developers
Create the website. The web developers (or design team) uses a website-creation application, such as Adobe Dreamweaver®, to build the website. This team is responsible for planning, designing, developing, testing, and publishing the website. They are also responsible for creating templates for websites that require a consistent look and feel.

Web developers using Dreamweaver should see Dreamweaver Help for more information.

Contribute users
Maintain the website. Contribute users are the marketers, managers, educators, students, small-business owners, administrative assistants, project managers, and so on, who use Contribute to keep their websites up-to-date. The user needs no experience in HTML or web design. Because Contribute works like a word processor, the user experience is intuitive and familiar. Users can add or update text, images, tables, links, and Microsoft® Word and Excel® documents.

This Help system is designed for Contribute users.

Contribute administrators
Set up Contribute users and help them use Contribute to maintain the website. Administrators enforce document workflows to web pages by assigning predefined workflows in Contribute to Dreamweaver templates. When you create a page using a Dreamweaver template, the page is assigned the workflow associated with that template. The Contribute administrator is also responsible for setting folder and user permissions, which determine who can edit website content and what contents they can edit. Only one Contribute administrator can be designated for each website in Contribute. However, more than one person can administer the website if the Contribute administrator shares the administration password for the website.
Note: You must connect to a website before you can edit and publish pages on that website, and you must connect to a blog server before you can edit and publish entries in that blog.

The Contribute workflow involves the following steps:

  1. Connect to a website or blog.

  2. Open Contribute.

  3. Create/browse to web a page or blog entry.

Use the Contribute browser to find the web page or blog entry you want to edit. The browser is familiar to users of Microsoft Internet Explorer and other popular browsers. The browser toolbar has the normal navigation buttons plus a Choose button to help you navigate to files that aren’t linked on your website. You can create bookmarks in Contribute and view your Internet Explorer bookmarks. You can also use shortcuts to view current drafts quickly.

  1. Open your web page or blog for editing.

  2. Edit your content.

    After you browse to the desired page or blog entry, click the Edit Page or Edit Entry button in the toolbar to open the web page or blog entry in the Contribute editor. Contribute copies the file from your web or blog server and locks it on the server so that no one else can edit the page or blog entry while you’re working on it.

    The Contribute editor works much like a word processor. You can edit text, images, tables, and links on the page or blog entry, and you can even add Microsoft Word or Excel documents to your website or blog entry. The toolbar contains familiar editing buttons as well as buttons for saving, discarding, or publishing your edits.

  3. Send your content for review or approval.

    Depending on the workflow, get your document reviewed or approved before it is published.

  4. Publish the changes.

    When a web page completes its workflow or you are done with editing your blog, you can publish the page or blog entry to your website or blog server. Click the Publish button, and Contribute replaces the existing page or blog entry on your web server or blog with the edited version. Contribute also unlocks the file on the server so other users can edit the page or blog entry.