Managing content items

Easily manage your content items by using some basic features in Prepr.

Introduction

This article shows you how to perform the following core tasks to manage your content:

• Create a content item
• Publish a content item
• Manage versions
• Delete a content item
• Find your content items

Create a content item

To add a new content item:

1. Go to the Content tab. Here you'll find a list of all content items in your Prepr environment.
2. Click the Add item button. The availability of models depends on the user role and permissions you have.

3. Select a model.

Now the content item is created and you can start composing your content.

The shown fields depend on the model settings in the Schema. The fields marked with an * are required.

And, depending on the setup of each field, you might see some help text for additional information about the content you need to create.

You can also create language variants of your content item. Check out the Localization doc for more details.

Publish a content item

When you're happy with the content item that you created and want it to be used and displayed in the web app, all you need to do is publish the content item. You can publish a content item directly by clicking the Publish button or selecting one of the other publish options in the dropdown list.

When you publish the content item directly, the Workflow stage of the content item is automatically changed to Done. Check out the Collaboration and workflows doc for more details on workflow stages.

If you want to make changes to a published content item, edit the content item and click the icon to save the changes without publishing them. This means there'll be two versions; your saved version and the published version. You can then publish the saved version of the content item after making your changes.

Schedule a content item

When you want content item changes to be published in the future, you can schedule a content item. To schedule a content item, simply click to open the Publish actions list and click the Schedule option.

Then select the date and time for when you want the content item to be published by the web app. The content item will be marked as Scheduled until the date and time that you selected. You can update the scheduled content item any time before the scheduled date and time without needing to reschedule the content item.

You can click the Reschedule option when a content item is already published or scheduled. When you reschedule a published content item, the First Published at date and time is set to the new date and time you choose.

This means you can order the content items in the front end when they're ordered by the First Published at date and time.

When you choose to schedule a content item, you can also enter the Unpublish on date and time for temporary content. When this date and time is reached the content item will be Archived and no longer available to the web app.

You can see all scheduled content items in the List view by filtering on the Publication status or the Kanban view by viewing the Done column for Scheduled items.

You can remove a schedule from a scheduled content item by opening the Publish dropdown list and choosing the Remove schedule option. When you remove the schedule the workflow stage of the content item is set to In progress.

Preview content items

You have a couple of options to preview content items to check what your content changes look like in the web app directly from Prepr.

Visual Editing

You can click the icon to open Visual Editing. Visual Editing is a live preview of a content item in a side-by-side view. Simply save the content item to see your content changes instantly in this view.

When editing content in this live preview mode, you'll notice the following additional options:

• You can choose different screen sizes to get an accurate view of the page on different devices.

  

• When multiple URLs are enabled for Visual editing, for example, for test and development environments, you can switch to a different environment.

  

To set up Visual Editing, check out the setup doc.

Preview in a separate tab

Another option to preview your content item is to click the icon to open the preview in a separate tab.

To set up one or more preview URLs, check out the setup doc.

Manage versions

Content item versioning enables you to do the following tasks:

• Reset your last content item edits.
• Keep track of all the changes in a content item.
• Revert to a previous version when needed.
• Look for older versions in your content item.
• See every change made in a content item.

You can find content item versions in one of the following ways:

• Click the date link in the publish info text at the top left to open the activity log. And click the Show earlier versions link.

  

• Or click the button to open the dropdown list and choose the Show version history option.

  

You can then see the list of previous versions for this content item.

Select one of the versions and click View to open the specific content item version. The yellow notification bar at the bottom of the page indicates that you are viewing an older content item version.

To restore a previous version, click Restore to open this version for further editing.

Take note of the following when viewing earlier versions:

• All fields and drag-and-drop elements are versioned.
• There is no version history of the slug and workflow settings.
• Content item versioning is available per locale.

Check the linked items

When you edit a content item, you can easily view the content items that reference this content item.
Simply click the button to open the dropdown list and choose the Show referring items option to open the list of linked content items.

Delete a content item

You can delete a content item in a couple ways:

From the Content items list

1. Go to the Content tab.
2. Hover over the content item you want to delete to make the actions visible, and click the icon.
3. In the pop-up window, click Delete again to confirm the action.

• From the Content item page

1. Go to the Content tab.

2. Click to open a content item you want to delete.

3. Click the button to open the dropdown list and choose the Delete option.

   

4. In the pop-up window, click Delete again to confirm the action.

Delete a language variant

If you manage multi-language content, then you also have the option to delete a specific language variant. Click to delete a content item and then choose a preferred option:

Bulk actions on content items

In some cases you may want to perform certain actions on multiple content items at once. To view and trigger bulk actions, go to the Content tab. Hover over the content items and select the checkbox for the content items on which you want to perform the bulk action.

Let's look at each of these actions in more detail.

Publish now or later

In some cases you might want to publish large batches of content items, such as campaigns or updates that span several pieces of content. You can do this by following the steps below.

1. Choose the content items that you want to publish in the content item list.
2. Click the icon to Publish now or later.
3. Click the Publish button to publish the content items right away.
4. Or if you want to schedule the content items to be published later, choose a future date and time and click the Schedule button.
5. Check the number of content items in the confirmation message and click the Yes, publish button or the Yes, schedule button.

And that's it, you've published multiple content items simultaneously.

Unpublish now or later

In some cases you might want to unpublish large batches of content items, such as outdated articles. You can do this by following the steps below.

1. Choose the content items that you want to unpublish in the content item list.
2. Click the icon to Unpublish now or later.
3. Click the Unpublish button to unpublish the content items right away.
4. Or if you want to schedule the content items to be unpublished later, choose a future date and time and click the Schedule button.
5. Check the number of content items in the confirmation message and click the Yes, unpublish button or the Yes, schedule button.

And that's it, you've unpublished multiple content items simultaneously.

Change workflow stage to

In some cases you might want to change the workflow stage of multiple content items, for example, when you've created a batch of content items and need to move them to the Review stage. You can do this by following the steps below.

1. Choose the content items in the content item list for which you want to change the workflow stage.
2. Click the icon to Change workflow stage to.

3. Choose your desired stage, for example Review from the dropdown list.

And that's it, you've change the workflow stage for multiple content items simultaneously.

Assign to

In some cases you might want to assign multiple content items to the same user, for example, when you've created a batch of content items and need someone to review them. You can do this by following the steps below.

1. Choose the content items in the content item list you want to assign.
2. Click the icon to Assign to.

3. Choose the user from the dropdown list.

And that's it, you've assigned multiple content items to a single user simultaneously.

Export to

In some cases it's necessary to export content from one environment to another, for example, when you want to do system testing in your development environment with realistic content from the production environment. This activity is usually done in the context of the overall CI/CD process and requires special permissions. Check out the Syncing content doc for more details.

Delete

To delete multiple content items at once follow the steps below.

1. Choose the content items you want to delete, by hovering over each content item and clicking each checkbox.
2. To select all content items, click the icon at the top of the list.
3. Click the icon at the top of the list to delete all the selected content items.
4. In the pop-up window, click Delete again to confirm the action.

Find your content items

Content views

Use the content views at the top of the Content page to find content items easily depending on your needs.

• The List view: When you go to the Content tab, the List view opens by default to show a complete list of all of your content items. You can filter the content items to narrow down the list.
• The Kanban view: If you want to see a clear overview of content items by their status, click the Kanban view.
• The Adaptive content and A/B tests view: If you want a view of all content items with adaptive content and A/B tests. You can then filter the content items by the Status (Active or Inactive), Type (Adaptive content or A/B test), the content item Model, and the Language. For example, you can filter the list to only show content items with Active Adaptive content, in other words published content items with Adaptive content elements.

Filter content items

Prepr makes it even easier to filter precisely the content you're looking for with Advanced Content Filters. You can choose multiple filters to narrow down your search for specific content items. See the complete list of filters below.

• Model - Filter your content by model (for example, All blog posts).
• Supporting model - Once the model is chosen, filters will be visible for all supporting models. The filter name matches the name of the supporting model, for example, the Category of the Car model.
• Stack - Once the model is chosen, filters will be visible for all stack fields. The filter name matches the name of the Stack field .
• Enumeration - Once the model is chosen, filters will be visible for any enumeration used in the model. The filter name matches the enumeration name, for example the Size for the Product model.
• Language
• Publication status - Filter on Published, Scheduled, or Not Published items.
• Workflow stage - Filter on Done, Review, In progress, To do, or Archived items.
• Assignee
• Publication date - Select a date range to filter published content items and/or content items scheduled to be published in the future.
• Tags

Publishing filters are retained for a session. So the next time you visit the overview of the content items, the last selected filters will be active. If you often use the same filters in your Prepr environment, you can save your content item filters. Make the filter selection and click on Save filter. Saved filters will be visible to all users of this environment.

Give the filter a name and save it. The quick filter now appears in the list sidebar. To activate the saved filter, click on the filter. The filters are entered and the content item list only contains the filtered content items.

To remove a saved filter, click on Edit, select the filter you want removed and click on the trash can.

Search content items

When you type any keyword in the content item search bar, Prepr performs a fuzzy search on the Title field of content items, by default.

When you click the search bar, a drop-down list appears with the following additional search options:

• Search on full-text - Prepr performs a fuzzy search on all text fields and text elements.
• Search on slug - Enter a partial or exact keyword for this fuzzy search on the Slug field.
• Search on ID - Enter the exact ID of the content item you are looking for.

Now that you understand each of the core tasks in more detail, review the handy shortcuts below to manage content.

Manage content items with shortcut keys

You can use a number of shortcut keys to manage content items more efficiently.

Go to the Content tab to view the content item list. From this view, you can use the following shortcuts:

• Add a new content item with Ctrl + I or Command + I. If the content item list is filtered by a specific model, this shortcut creates a content item for that model directly.
• Select all content items in the list with Ctrl + A or Command + A.
• Simply press the esc key to deselect any selected content items.
• Delete selected content items from the list by pressing the backspace key.

Choose and click a content item in the list to make changes to that content item. From a specific content item, you can use the following shortcuts:

• Publish the content item with Ctrl + P or Command + P.
• Save the content item with Ctrl + S or Command + S.
• Close the content item with Ctrl + L or Command + L.

From any other page in Prepr, you can press / to open the launchbar. The launchbar allows you to do quick searches on content items or any other page you have access to in your Prepr environment.