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好色先生TV

Cascade Commons

Your home for Student Affairs website management resources

The Thread  ›  Student Affairs (Internal)  ›  Marketing & Communications  ›  Cascade CMS Training and Resources

Welcome to the Student Affairs Cascade resource hub.

Whether you’re new to Cascade or just need a refresher, you’ll find the guides, videos, training materials and tips you need to manage your website with confidence.

Start with Cascade 101 for an overview of how the CMS works, or jump directly to a topic you need help with. You’ll find guidance on everything from formatting pages and uploading images to accessibility, SEO and content strategy.

Not sure where to start? Begin with the resources here, and if you still can’t find what you need, bring your question to a Cascade office hours session.

Resources

Cascade Happy Hour: Fall 2026 Sessions

Key takeaways
      1. Use the staging site before publishing to the public website. It lets editors review layouts, check links, and catch errors before changes go live.
      2. Understand the folder and index-page structure. Each section's index page serves as its main page; the folder hierarchy determines much of the site's organization and navigation.
      3. Organize images in dedicated folders. Moving or renaming assets unpublishes them, so they need to be republished along with their parent folder.
      4. Use version history to recover previous work. Cascade retains earlier versions that can be restored and republished.
      5. More training resources are coming. The internal Student Affairs site, The Thread, will house Cascade training resources, existing university documentation, and eventually additional instructional videos.

1. Dashboard and site navigation

      • The Cascade dashboard is customizable. Users can add or remove widgets.
      • My Sites shows the websites the user can access.
      • My Content helps users find recently edited or owned content.
      • The content tree on the left shows folders, pages, images, files, and other site components in parent-child relationships.
      • Each folder generally contains an index page, which is the main page for that section.
      • The Details and Versions options help editors check publication dates, authorship, and earlier versions.

2. Editing pages and content

The main editing interface has four tabs:

Tab

Purpose

Content

Edit page text, images, and content blocks

Metadata

Set information such as review dates and other metadata

Configure

Control publishing and indexing behavior

Key guidance from the training:

      • Understand the difference between Include when publishing and Include when indexing. The former controls whether content is published; the latter affects whether it appears in site navigation or indexing.
      • Use appropriate heading levels in sequence, with one H1 per page, followed by H2s and lower-level headings as needed. This supports screen-reader navigation and search engine optimization.
      • Content blocks can include standard text, grids, slideshows, and wide-format elements. Alternate text and visual elements where appropriate to improve readability.
      • Wide-format elements should be used sparingly, in part because of accessibility concerns.

3. Linking and navigation

The group discussed how to handle links within and between websites.

      • Within the same website: Keep links in the same window rather than opening a new one.
      • To an external website: We recommend opening links in a new window.

For navigation, the index pages in parent folders generally populate primary navigation, while other pages are typically part of secondary navigation. 

4. Creating and managing content

      • Create folders, pages, and files through the plus (+) button, top left.
      • Use lowercase names without spaces for Cascade content names; distinguish the internal page name from the public-facing page title.
      • Right-clicking content provides options to edit, publish, move, rename, unpublish, delete, and inspect relationships.
      • Before deleting a page, check Relationships to identify other pages linking to it and avoid broken links.
      • Moving or renaming content can unpublish it. Republish it afterward and verify that the public-facing page works.

Important distinction: Edit existing index pages directly rather than replacing them with newly copied pages, because removing an index page can cause problems for the folder. For longer redesigns of other pages, copying an existing page to create an unpublished working version may be appropriate.

5. Publishing, staging, and version control

      • CMS staging: Visible to people with editing access to the site.
      • Live website (cmu.edu): Publicly accessible.
      • Check Content and Submit: Useful for identifying spelling issues before submitting changes.
      • Versions: Previous versions can be restored, but restoring a version does not automatically make it live; it must be published afterward.

Cascade is generally forgiving: mistakes can often be corrected by restoring an earlier version or republishing content. Staging remains the recommended safeguard.

6. Image management and optimization

This was a particularly practical portion of the meeting, prompted by questions from communicators.

      • Store images in dedicated image folders rather than leaving them scattered among page content.
      • When moving images, select the assets in the content tree, use the bulk Move option, and choose the destination folder.
      • Moving images unpublishes them, which can cause images on live pages to appear broken until the assets are republished.
      • Renaming an image also requires republishing it and its parent folder.
      • Organize images into subfolders where useful, and use Cascade's thumbnail view to identify images visually.
      • Compress large images before uploading them to improve page-loading speed and user experience.

We recommend as a tool for reducing image file sizes. I suggest adding -min to the compressed filename to distinguish it from the original.

  • Page structure
  • Components
  • Headings
  • Lists
  • Tables
  • Page titles
  • Search-friendly URLs
  • Image sizing
  • Compression
  • Cropping
  • File naming
  • Alt text
  • Accessibility
  • Uploading/replacing files
  • Recommended image dimensions for different placements
  • JPG vs. PNG vs. WebP
  • Uploading PDFs
  • Naming PDFs
  • Reducing PDF size
  • SEO fundamentals
  • Calls to action
  • Keeping pages current
  • Headings
  • Link text
  • Alt text
  • Accessible PDFs
  • Auditing your site
  • Finding outdated content
  • Broken links
  • Updating profiles
  • What to do when something changes
  • Updating faculty/staff information
  • Updating dates
  • Updating contact information
  • Updating policies
  • Maintaining department information

Existing CMU Cascade Resources

好色先生TV's CMS team has created resources, how-tos and guidelines for using Cascade. This is not a comprehensive rundown of everything Cascade can do (and everything that will cause you problems) but it's a good place to start when troubleshooting an issue with your site. 

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