TrustRadius
Cascade Server is a Content Management System (CMS) from Hannon Hill. It is designed for decentralized web teams and counts clients in most major industries, including Higher Education, Government, Healthcare, Technology, Finance and Publishing. It can be installed or hosted by Hannon Hill in the cloud. It includes access to a web marketing tool to allow content contributors to promote, measure and optimize their web content.https://media.trustradius.com/product-logos/3M/m6/2D2INT8JVMJ3.PNGHannon HillCascade Server Gets the Job Done2019-04-24T00:11:16.303ZWe manage content from across hundreds of university web pages with Cascade Server. It allows us to implement a consistent style and others meet other guidelines in a central location, as well as assign different roles and levels of access to different people.,Simplified page layout.
Allow quick editing and previewing.
Use templates and apply CSS.,Image uploading and linking can be cumbersome.
Users posting in div tags and inadvertent coding into content HTML can mess up page design and navigation display.,8,Lets us reach more potential students with better SEO than previous CMS.
Helps avoid some accessibility issues by using the accessibility checker before publishing.,Ellucian Luminis Platform,Content Author / Administrator,10-100 pagesVerified UserA robust CMS for all of your digital publishing needs2018-12-07T16:02:51.764ZWe use Cascade CMS for our institution's main website. While it is primarily used by the Communications Department to manage the visual display, most other departments have a presence and update their own content within the system. A major benefit is Cascade CMS's workflows. Workflows allows content contributors to make changes that are then approved by their supervisor before being published online.,Cascade CMS makes no assumptions about your content. Templates control how the content gets displayed.
Workflows are intuitive and allow for one or more people to review content before it is published.
The published site is static (no database connection) which allows for faster page loads and reduced risk of attack.,Upgrades require some technical knowledge; there is not a one-button upgrade.
There is not an integrated backup/restore. Our IT department manages backups for this server.,9,Cascade CMS can be pricey for organizations with small web budgets—especially when comparing to free CMSs like Wordpress or ExpressionEngine.
The cost is justified by the robust features, frequent updates, and top-notch support.
The Cascade CMS community is vibrant and full of very helpful members.,ExpressionEngine and WordPress,Developer,100-1,000 pagesJohn DezemberA fully-baked enterprise web content management platform2018-12-01T20:05:53.777ZCascade CMS is the university's primary content management system, supporting multiple web sites including all administrative offices, all Arts & Sciences undergraduate and graduate programs, and our four graduate and professional schools (business, education, law & marine science). The CMS currently has approximately 200,000 objects (pages, images and files) managed by about 1,000 web content editors.,Cascade CMS uses a simple folder–page paradigm that our content editors can quickly grasp, as it parallels the drive structures they find on their Mac and Windows computers and the URL paths within their sites.
A powerful and flexible Content Type system allows site managers and administrators to simplify complex page structures and user interactions into manageable fields and WYSIWYG content blocks our content editors can maintain.
Cascade CMS implements a fully-baked-publishing paradigm. This allows public-facing web pages to be served by an arbitrary number of front-end web servers, while isolating the CMS itself from any spikes in external traffic.
Cascade CMS provides granular control of permissions/actions pertaining to non-publishable (administrative) and publishable assets assigned to users, groups and site-specific roles. Additionally, optional workflows, asset-naming criteria, file-size limits, spelling and accessibility checks, and other restrictions/automations can be applied and enforced.,Cascade CMS is not an out-of-the-box pre-built system that you can install, turn on and expect to be serving sites and pages on day one. It's not a blogging system like WordPress, or a drag-and-drop system like SquareSpace (both of which I've used for their own purposes). You need to have someone tasked with management and system administration – and if you implement the on-premise self-hosted version, you ought to have several people. We have the university's IT shop handling infrastructure (server hardware, containers, clustering, operating systems, load-balancing, DNS, database servers, NAS/SAN drives), our Web & Design team managing Cascade CMS (system settings, sites, templates, permissions) and managers coordinating each respective academic unit (A&S, business, education, law, marine science).,10,Prior to implementing Cascade CMS, the university had hundreds of sites with disparate designs maintained with a variety of tools. Since implementing Cascade CMS, the vast majority of sites are managed within a single system and have coordinated branding and designs.
Having a single enterprise CMS for the university affords us the opportunity to provide training and support across all divisions & departments of the university.,TERMINALFOUR, CommonSpot and Drupal,LibreOffice, Evernote, Gitlab, Teamwork Desk, Teamwork Projects, Dropbox,Developer,More than 10,000 pages,1000,15,We use Cascade CMS to create and edit content published to our public-facing front-end web servers.,10,Yes,Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Product Reputation
Vendor Reputation
Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
Third-party Reviews,While not perfect, and certainly not suitable to everybody, we remain quite happy with our process. We had a home-grown system for several years, so we knew what we needed and what to look for; we had plenty of time to look for candidate products; we discussed our options with our web design consultant and several peer institutions using Cascade CMS as well as alternative products; and we got feedback and buy-in from a number of constituents across campus.,Third-party professional services,Yes,Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled,Time and effort. Opting for a high-touch implementation involving one-on-one meetings with each department/office required a higher commitment of resources (time and effort) than an automated transfer of old web site content into the new CMS. But that is the trade-off we chose, and we're happy with the result.,10,No,10,Yes,There have been a number of times when we've requested support that was beyond the scope of the traditional annual support contract.
For example, there have been specific cases where we wanted to query and/or modify some data directly in the database that couldn't be done via the Cascade CMS user interface. The Hannon Hill support team was able to help us craft the necessary SQL statements based on their extensive knowledge of the database table structure. (We obviously tested the queries in Dev before running them on Prod – but they've always worked as expected.),Yes,10Andrew BausermanThe Gold Standard in CMS Enterprises for Higher Education and More2018-12-17T16:52:33.222ZCascade Server is the primary content management system at the University of Hartford. Over the past 9 years our user base has grown throughout campus, and, with the launch of a redesigned site in 2019, it will be used to build out, or be the hub for, about 95% of our University's external website content. Cascade provides an environment where web content can be created, reviewed, edited, and shared in an easy and consistent way, without much internet experience. It meets our users' needs when and where they have them, and sets guardrails to keep everyone using best practices, such as SEO and accessibility.,Version upgrades on the cloud are lightning fast. Only took about half hour to convert our site, with about 50,000+ assets.
Setting permissions is very intuitive and easy to set up at a high or granular level.
CMS tracks assets and links when moved, deleted or renamed, and allows for relational publishing of all effected assets.
Integrates directly with many third-party products, including Google Analytics, SiteImprove, WebDam, and many more.
Great customer service!,There aren't many options in who can assist with developing sites, as there aren't many Cascade developers available. We contract most of our development work with third party vendors.,9,The first phase of our Cascade experience brought our University's web users together, and united the look and feel of our pages. We are hoping our next phase will provide the tools necessary to transform the way we market ourselves on the web. More to come.,,Siteimprove, Dropbox, Microsoft Office 365, TeamSupport, Google Analytics,Content Author / Administrator,1,000-10,000 pagesCraig CampbellScripps Research using Cascade for 9 years and still loving it!2018-12-01T20:02:06.321ZScripps Research uses Cascade Server across the entire institute, on both campuses (La Jolla, California and Jupiter, Florida) for both our external web presence and our intranet. We distribute web page authoring among our scientists and academic and administrative departments -- so the product is used for many different purposes and audiences. During 2018 we completely redesigned the external site using a professional design firm and their brilliant ideas were fully implemented with Cascade Server.,Templates
Distributed authoring,Overall we feel that Cascade Server meets our needs with a wide variety of features.,10,Cascade Server provides Scripps Research with tremendous value. When we look at enterprise-scale products, and contrast that to our utility/cost ratio, we are very pleased with the product.
Perhaps less frequently cited by other reviewers, information security for Scripps Research is a top priority, and we have been comforted with the security profile of Cascade Server, especially when contrasted to other products that are "easily hacked".
Another factor that impacts our "ROI" is the Cascade community and the training opportunities for our staff both for seasoned users taking advantage of new features, as well as new users to learn the basics.,Content Author / Administrator,1,000-10,000 pagesCary Thomas, MBA CMACascade is easy to use intuitively, coming from a place with limited HTML/CSS experience2016-02-17T17:21:43.744ZI was the primary user in my department, using it to update our department's website content very often. It was being used across the whole organization, and it was set up by our IT department who still controlled the back-end design and structural support. Certain departments had control over content and updates, and other departments worked entirely through the IT department for updates. Since our department had such high update rates, having immediate control was very important.,Easy, almost text-document style interface for people who don't know coding and HTML. Made it easy to update.
Have the option to switch to HTML and CSS if needed, in case there were more intricate things I wanted to do.
Having the ability to save drafts to get back to later made it easy to work on longer and more complicated page updates.
With the ability to time page availability (go up on this date, come down on this date, etc) we didn't have to worry about timelines as much.,Most of the more confusing aspects of Cascade were simply when the tools went above my head--usually when that was the case I just sent an email to IT to get help.
The publishing aspect had a lot of steps sometimes.
Sometimes the HTML would update to something else, even though I had changed it, in HTML. Usually something with paragraphs or breaks.,8,Cascade Server had a very positive impact, because it was easy to switch permissions, easy to update, and that has made it very easy to keep our students and applicants updated on the goings-on.
Since it was easy to learn, it was easy to hit the ground running when I became the website manager, and became easy to teach others for when I went on vacation or was otherwise absent.
When a site-wide redo occurred, it was easy to switch things to the new format, including images and forms.,adobe d,Content Author / Administrator,10-100 pagesMallory RiceCascade in California2016-02-16T20:53:42.944ZCascade Server is the campus central content management system. It is being used across the entire organization. Approximately 80% of our campus web sites are managed with Cascade. Cascade helps the central web team support campus web development through providing accessible, branded templates. Content managers can focus on the content and not the code behind the pages.,Cascade Server pushes pages to a static web server via SFTP so when we need to apply an update to the database or application, public pages remain available but not updateable. This is very tolerable for our users especially during off hours.
Cascade Server has a built in link checking so links don't break when pages are moved or renamed.
Hannon Hill does a great job of listening to its customers. The company is Higher Ed focused and feature requests are often included in future releases.,The way Cascade handles permissions can be difficult if users move between areas in a large organization. If users leave the organization entirely, it is easy to de-provision by removing from the global AD group.
Workflow is available in Cascade Server but is a bit complex and not as user-friendly as some other systems.,8,Cascade Server has allowed our small web team to provide a more accessible campus web environment
Cascade has helped create a consistent brand by centralizing the family of campus templates.
Cascade has allowed us to more easily move to a responsive-mobile design making University content more available to our audiences.,,Blackboard, Google Analytics, MS SharePoint / SQL,Content Author / Administrator,More than 10,000 pagesJeff DillonCascade Server is Highly Customizable2015-06-30T19:21:58.114ZWe use Cascade Server to build and maintain the http://law.hofstra.edu Website. The product allows us to easily expand and customize our website on a daily basis.,We can customize the edit screen to add form fields which allows us to then customize the output.
We can set permissions to view or edit content on a very granular level.
We can customize the site template as needed.,Cascade has few pre-built templates or plugins, so our site is a fully customized build.
XSLT formats can be challenging to edit.,7,We have been able to leverage GA stats to track the conversion rate of our visitors.,WordPress,Developer,1,000-10,000 pages,Implemented in-houseMichael G. WagnerCascade Server review – our choice for Best in Class WCMS2015-06-30T15:09:20.663ZCascade Server is used across our entire organization as the preferred tool for web content management. We currently work with more than 200 content managers across our organization that keep their individual sites current and Cascade Server has made that job infinitely easier than in the past. Cascade Server has solved our problem of standardizing the web content management experience and makes it much easier for department managers to quickly see web pages that may be out dated and in need of attention.,Cascade Server handles the task of permissions and access very well. It allows for very precise permissions based on individual assets from an entire site all the way down to a single page or directory. Users and groups are easy to understand and manage.
Customization of the product to fit our needs is amazing. Our programmers have been able to create a system that is superbly flexible, yet does not allow for "off-the-wall" changes and edits to pages.
Version control is wonderful. User can now make edits to pages and not feel pressured to make it perfect, knowing that it can be rolled back to a previous version to start again, if needed.,Not much that I can add here, except that as a non-programmer, it can be a bit overwhelming to understand all the options and capabilities of the system. We have programmers who have been able to do almost anything we need with the system, but I can't understand it!,10,Cascade has only impacted our organization in a positive way. We now have more engaged content managers, since they can more easily edit pages, and proof those change prior to publishing. Additionally, since there is no software to install, it runs smoothly across any platform.,TerminalFour Site Manager,Content Author / Administrator,More than 10,000 pages,Yes,10,Yes,Just recently we were upgrading our servers, and we needed an additional temporary product license to allow an additional instance of Cascade Server to run on another test server during the transition. With one phone call I was speaking to a product developer who, as I was on the phone, created and emailed a temporary license to me. Then, two months later, when we had fallen behind in our planned roll-out of the new server, I called to get the license extended, it was just as easy to do: one phone call and it was resolved in a matter of minutes.David Van WieCascade Server - Great support and Flexibility2014-10-28T19:43:13.435ZCascade Server is the web content management system used throughout our organization to maintain the official college website. It's used to solve countless business needs, including admissions marketing, fund-raising, news, events, photo galleries, staff directories and job openings. It's also used by the central marketing department to improve search engine optimization and accessibility, and manage a mobile-friendly website (Kurogo).,Cascade Server comes with several avenues of support. The main resource is help.hannonhill.com, where all support requests are handled by staff but other users frequently contribute. Other avenues include the annual user training conference and the "Idea Exchange," where users vote on new features.
Because Cascade Server is XML-based, it can ingest any XML-formatted feed (e.g. RSS) from external platforms like Flickr, Tumblr and Wordpress. Conversely, content can be published in multiple formats, following the "Create Once, Publish Everywhere" (COPE) strategy. For example, a single page, published as a traditional HTML file, can also be published as a mobile friendly page and PDF document. Similarly, a groups of press releases can be published as an RSS feed and a group of website pages can be published as an XML Google sitemap.
Cascade Server user interface is customizable for different content types. We've created custom interfaces for admissions open house pages, job openings, staff directories, events and press releases.,One of the drawbacks of being an XML-based content management system is that any text entered, that isn't XML-compliant, triggers an XML error and the content can't be saved. The company seems to be working on this, as it recently released a new feature allowing content to be saved as JSON and CSS, which don't have to be XML-compliant.
There is room for improvement when working with images. While the company has made improvements to the image editor and recently added the ability upload images via "drag and drop", the system can't save multiple versions of uploaded images automatically (e.g. original, medium, thumbnail).
While Cascade Server's push architecture offers performance and security benefits, it can make maintaining a large website challenging. For example, the only way to re-publish template-specific pages is by writing your own web services application in either PHP or Java.,9,Our biggest return has been in allowing us to transfer content maintenance tasks to other offices. This has freed up our marketing and communications staff to focus on strategic marketing goals.
While we have yet to fully embrace Spectate, an inbound marketing tool that accompanies Cascade Server, the ability to measure the ROI of our content has made a positive impact in how we strategize our content. We've experimented with A/B testing and conversion tracking so far.
CMS customization must be done by in-house developers or be out-sourced to a Cascade Server partner firm. While Hannon Hill has launched http://www.cascadeserverexchange.com, a "plugin" repository that provides code solutions to common business needs, a technical person is still required to customize the plugin based on each client's setup and the specific business requirements.,WordPress,100,9,Professional services companyErik EspanaPower has a price2014-08-30T22:47:36.849ZCascade Server is used to maintain the official website for the college primarily devoted to recruitment and alumni/parent relations. It also supports many official office websites. It allowed us to transfer content maintenance duties to various office staff involved with the content development rather than funnel all updates through Web Communications.,Very flexible. The system is based in XML which allows for a lot of flexibility for distributed and syndicated content with XSLT and Velocity.
Large and active user community in Higher Ed. This system is used by many other higher education institutions so there are many relevant resources beyond the vendor and Higher Ed is an industry where other institutions help each other.
Distinct separation of content from layout. It is very easy to break content out into separate blocks for reuse while leaving a template and layout intact.,No inherit control over types of content that users can upload such as pdf, jpg, or other files. This has to be done via regular expressions. It's also possible for users to create files/folders that don't use web-safe naming conventions.
Requires an experienced XML/XSLT developer to implement and structure. Because it's so flexible it's also very complicated to implement a structured solution that allows users to maintain content without getting frustrated with layout and formatting challenges with the WYSIWYG.
The system doesn't support the latest XML/XSLT standards so you must use a lesser known scripting language Velocity to accomplish more advanced tasks.,3,We have distributed content maintenance duties to other areas of the campus thus freeing up resources. With a userbase of primarily infrequent activity and lack of general technical competence the support needs are also high but we still come out ahead.
All development must be done in-house as opposed to a solution like wordpress with many plugins available. This has required us to spent much more time creating a solution to a problem that is easily already solved by a plugin in Wordpress.
Because of user frustration and extended development needs our reputation has suffered.,WordPress,9,Implemented in-houseJason SlaterEasy to start and great for beginners, experts will be frustrated by point and click nature2015-06-30T15:21:58.733ZMy department uses Cascade Server as the main software to create webpages, following our institutions guidelines. In fact, Cascade Server is available to our entire organization. It allows any individual, study, or department to create their own website without much need for interventions from our IT department. The ability for any individual to create their webpage themselves is a big cost and time saver.,Easy to learn
Simple controls
Point and click functionality
Ability to use more advanced options,Cumbersome file layout
Certain instruction manuals can be difficult to find
Lots of clicking to get simple things done.
Needs to be more streamlined
Publishing files seems redundant often,7,Improved connection with research participants
Allows ability to share files in a user friendly secure webpage
Customization to make your teams webpage your own and reflect the goals of your group,Developer,10-100 pagesCurtis Travers, MPHCascade Server - The Agnostic CMS2014-08-26T18:25:47.079ZCascade Server is being used by roughly 1500 people at Indiana University to manage around 400 sites from 7 campuses including IU Bloomington, IUPUI Indianapolis, IU Kokomo, IU Northwest, IU South Bend, IU Southeast, and IUPUC Columbus. We have a decentralized IT infrastructure so we needed a push CMS that would allow people to use one system to publish to many different types of web servers. We also decided to use Cascade Server to mitigate risk since other dynamic CMS sites were regularly getting compromised. The sites managed on Cascade Server include marketing gateway sites like www.iu.edu, as well as admissions, departmental sites, schools, news and much more.,Cascade Server is generally very secure because most of the time it publishes out static HTML content. We've not had a compromised site using Cascade Server.
Cascade Server is good at previewing your site before making it live. The built in page preview supports HTML, CSS, and Javascript so you can see exactly how the page will render once published.
The Hannon Hill team is very good at providing quick support. They have a support forum, a Knowledge Base and also an idea exchange where you can submit feature requests.
Cascade Server is good at being agnostic when it comes to installing the software and publishing the content to a web server.,Unlike most content management systems I was use to, Cascade Server has a publishing queue that takes time to render and then publish out your content. The queue is shared among all users of the site. We've set best practices to publishing (such as never publish the full-site during business hours).
Most content management systems provide community plugins and themes, however Cascade Server does not.
When you first come into Cascade Server as a developer, you'll find there are a lot of connections to piece together a page. In other words, the learning curve is steep.,8,We've moved some of our vulnerable sites to Cascade Server to satisfy our goal of reducing redundant systems and mitigating risk.
IU decided this is the CMS that will be supported and our users have been happy with the support we provide. In general we do not support any other CMS.
Our marketing department has retired most of their legacy servers/websites after moving to Cascade Server, saving time and money.,,5,8,7Josh LaMarCascade Server - Just do it.2014-08-31T01:12:49.049ZWe use Cascade Server across our entire university web site. It allows us to maintain consistency with branding while allowing individual departments to take control and ownership of their content.,It is very easy to customize to your needs as well as your users needs. You can build out custom editors for different departments based on what kind of content the need to display.
It is really easy to use one editor to populate multiple pages not only in the same site but using different sites as well.
Since you can have multiple publish points, it is really easy to test out different design options when working on a redesign.,A bit of a learning curve from administration stand point if you don't have any programming knowledge.,10,We are able to provide content in multiple locations for our prospective and current students.
Our users have a better editing experience.
If we need to make a change to something, we can roll it out faster.,,10,150,3,Website Content Updates
Digital Signage Content Updates,We use it to maintain our Digital Sign in our Residence Halls,Mobile app content,Vendor implemented,No,Change management was minimal,Making sure that the content import went smoothly,9,10,Support has helped me numerous time. If I am ever stuck on something, I know that I can e-mail support and have a response usually within the hour.,Easy to sync new users.
Very easy to edit content and publish entire site.
Easy to test scripts before submitting them.,Remembering steps can be a bit confusing at first.
Some terminology can take a bit to grasp.,Yes,10,10Graham LewisCascade Server Rocks!2014-08-26T20:46:40.014ZCurrently HCCMIS uses Cascade Server to manage multiple websites including 2 WordPress sites and a number of custom coded sites. The goal is to expand the use across other companies held by the parent company. Cascade Server has solved site consistency problems as well as providing us excellent compliance records.,By removing the core coding skills from the average user including non-technical individuals, Cascade Server allows all users to produce consistent content regardless of the content author.
By providing excellent workflows content publishing is easily monitored and controlled, including scheduled after-hours publishes.
By allowing multiple publish destinations you can easily test things out and publish to development servers before making anything live on the public site
We safe a ton of time monitoring stale content and broken links now that Cascade Server handles these for us automatically.,Would love to see better integration with Spectate. We have need to manage our social media and the lack on connectivity via API prevents us from accomplishing this.
Would love to see the ability to parse code within the default content block. Think WordPress shortcodes.
The new button layout at the bottom (sticky buttons) are messed up. They are difficult to click as they start popping in to show the draft buttons. Instead of inserting them to the right and shifting the others to the left. Just put the new buttons in on the left to prevent this jumping around,10,Our marketing team has increased the amount and quality of content by making the content creation simpler and uniform coupled with better review and editorial processes.
ROI has been clearly demonstrated by the reduction in time to complete a full site redesign. We managed to cut our time well in half and produced a far superior website.
We utilize a third party vendor as well for some of our content. Cascade has allowed us to cut the time to print drastically by allowing the vendor to have content creation rights directly inside of Cascade and having an approval process that we control.,,9,1,News / Blog articles
Product pages
Quote Engines,Managing product DOC's
Streamlined interactive map
Manage blog author data,Fully manage social media content creation, compliance approval, and schedule publishes,10,Implemented in-house,10William WhiteNIU Huskies2015-07-09T15:52:44.270ZCascade Server is used as our main web client for NIU. We use it campus wide, especially in the Marketing and Web Communications Department. It helps us maintain our NIU website.,Analytic data
Web content
Storage,Loading speed
More custom templates,8,Efficiency
Cost
ROI,,Content Author / Administrator,More than 10,000 pages,200,25,Web content
Marketing
Communications,New website,Update web content,9,Not Sure,Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Prior Experience with the Product
Analyst Reports,N/A,Vendor implemented,Change management was a major issue with the implementation,Training,10,Online training
In-person training
Self-taught,7,5,You really needed all training if you had never worked with it before.,9,Yes - we have added extensive custom code,7,Yes,When the servers were running slow they helped us get back on line.,Training
Templates
Forms,Make multiple common pages,Yes,9,5,6,8,Mobile,Javascript widgets,6,It works to your advantage if you know what you are doing.,5,6,Long term commitment,Build those relationships,Faster service,Even faster service
New templatesCollan DavidsonThe true cost of Cascade Server: Hannon Hill understands that content management is more about people than technology2014-08-28T14:53:31.794ZCascade Server has been Philadelphia University's primary means of web content management for five years now and approximately 90% of our website is generated via a push from Cascade. With the web communications team (roughly 3 people in marketing and public relations) serving as designers, developers, writers, managers, trainers and consultants, faculty from almost every one of our 75 graduate and undergraduate programs along with staff from approximately 10 administrative departments act as content editors. Using Cascade, we have addressed the need to decentralize basic content updates while maintaining control over not only the technology, but in many ways more importantly, the brand.,In-context (i.e., in page as it appears) editing with a simple WYSIWYG editor that anyone who can use a word processor can understand
Push system that results in easier server management and clean, compliant output
Support from LIVE human beings that don't just refer you to a help document but will actually help you by telephone and email (i.e., great customer service),To be used to fullest potential, Cascade Server requires at least one developer who knows or is willing to learn Velocity script
Setting permissions for users could be simplified as, depending on your build, there are some redundancies regarding user setup,7,Non-technical people can become content editors with only a modicum of training; better still, they are kept from messing with the design templates! We have saved money in the form of labor that would otherwise be spent training and policing staff and faculty to abide by our web standards and guidelines.
There is breathing room within the CMS for our team of designers and developers to use jQuery, Javascript, etc. to develop unique call-outs and features otherwise not built into the system; not having tyrannical coding restrictions makes for happier developers on staff and less need for outsourcing (again, saving us time and money),Drupal,Joomla!,WordPress,Omni Update,Ingeniux CMS,9Christopher DavisIs Hannon Hill's Cascade Server Right for you?2014-08-27T20:29:59.582ZAt our college we use this CMS for our main website and a few smaller sites. We have been using Cascade Server since 2004. We were one of Hannon Hill's first customers. Cascade Server runs the college's main website. With any organization we have business problems that need to be met. The biggest is having a large number of users that work in different departments on campus that need to update their department's site. These users do not have coding experience. Cascade has a simple solution to do this by using your standard WYSIWYG editor. To add to this we are also able to add student interns into the mix of using Cascade Server by using "workflows". This allows a student to make changes to a page. Once the page is submitted it goes to someone higher up in the chain for approval of that page. If the page checks out okay it gets published. If changes need to be made it gets rejected and sent back to the student. Cascade has answers for our biggest hurdle of having so many users that need to update the site.,One thing that is nice about Cascade Server is it sits on a different server than where it publishes to. The thought process behind this is if you ever need to upgrade or do maintenance or if your server running Cascade Server crashes, your site will still be live because the content that gets published sits on a different server. Unlike a CMS like WordPress. If WordPress crashes, your site crashes.
Another awesome thing the Cascade Server does very well is they offer great customer service. You can give them a call at anytime and speak to a user support specialist who will walk you through a problem. You can also expect an email back within the day if you chose to send an email to user support instead. You might not even have to send an email if you search through the very well organized knowledge base they have on their site.
Hannon Hill specialized in higher education. So being in Higher Ed, it makes it easier on both the college and Cascade Server to troubleshoot/compare/contrast with other colleges.
Hannon Hill does have a handful of sites that they run that are not Higher Ed sites. So if you aren't in Higher Ed I wouldn't let that scare you away.,One major thing that I would like to see differently is how often a new version gets rolled out. Recently, they decided to start rolling out a new version every few months rather than just having one big rollout once a year. It sounds great on paper that they are making so many improvements. But to gather the time it takes to upgrade Cascade Server at a particular time when it isn't affecting a ton of users across campus is tough. This usually ends with me being in my office upgrading Cascade at 3am every few months.
Going based off of my last example, they have a remedy for this but it's a costly one. They have service plans that include Hannon Hill doing all of the hosting instead of you having Cascade hosted in house. With this plan they will upgrade Cascade Server whenever an update becomes available. Once again, sounds great on paper but it comes with a heavy price tag that makes it not affordable to do.
Being web based makes for some clunky user interaction. It is a very robust system. With it being web based it makes it hard for Hannon Hill to make it portable. If you had a quick change to make on a page I wouldn't suggest trying to conquer that task on your phone. A tablet even is pushing it. Also going off of usability, it is very friendly in all browsers. Works wonders in Chrome and Firefox, works not so hot in any other browser.
For all of their backend functions, they use Velocity. Which is a Java based language. It is very similar to your typical languages but to do anything other than your basic functions you need to know Java in order to accomplish something.,7,I provide the Support on campus for Cascade Server. If I ever get an issue that cannot be solved I know I can easily contact Hannonhill and they will get my issues solved. For this my customer service on campus has greatly increased and makes it easier for me to troubleshoot.,MS SharePoint,Drupal,9Casey GatesWhatever you want, Cascade Server can do it!2014-08-26T18:59:34.453ZWe are currently using Cascade Server in the College of Sciences and Mathematics, but it is also being used in other colleges and offices across campus as well. In our college, it helps us manage the website easily by letting multiple users in each department/office manage their own pages without having to be proficient in website code. Also, it allows us to control exactly what they can edit, which helps keep our pages uniform and makes it less likely the other users could mess something up.,Cascade Server can be used to break down pages into "blocks" which are basically snippets of code that can be reused over and over again. Using index blocks makes many things on our site so much easier because the block basically finds the information for us, and then all we have to do is write a small XSLT or Velocity format to process that information. Cascade Server makes use of this very well so that we can easily make our pages more dynamic. It's almost like they write themselves at times.
In Cascade Server, templates can be used in a way that can make updating the design of your site a breeze. Basically you have one or two base templates that every page on your site references, plus your css files. When it's time to change the design, all you really need to do is replace the css and change your template. You can rearrange and modify your blocks to make sure that they don't go crazy, but once the css and template have been updated, the rest is a piece of cake.
User management is handled well in Cascade Server. We have ours tied in to Active Directory, and we add our users through the ldap connection. Once they have been added, however, managing them is easing with groups. I just give a group the permissions it needs and drop the users in. I think it's vital to be able to restrict what a user can edit, and at times, what they can even see. Cascade lets you show your users as much or as little as you want.,For me, writing formats has been the bane of my existence at times. Now I am not technically a programmer, so it may come as no surprise that XSLT does not come easily to me. I can modify formats that have already been written, but not write new ones. That being said, the formats do work great, it can just be very technical for those who may not have those skills. However, I have found Velocity much easier to write and understand, but the only problem I have with it is the lack of documentation at times. Hannon Hill has been working to provide more support for Velocity though, so even though the formats can be very technical, they are becoming easier with Velocity.
Workflows are great, but they can be confusing. Using the workflow builder is the way to go, but for the ones I have made, I have had to follow a tutorial each time. They can definitely take some getting used to as far as setting them up.,10,I honestly have not paid much attention to ROI, but I do know that by being able to allow our departments to manage their own pages, it has taken a lot of work off me... which of course frees up my time for "other" work.,WordPress,MS SharePoint,10Phillip CoxwellSimplicity at its best!2014-08-27T16:24:31.345ZMy organization uses Cascade Server on a daily basis. It's very easy to learn for all users across our organizations, not just techies. The great benefit Cascade Server offers is, it allows us to let everyone in our organization update and mange their web pages.,Allow the use of multiple users and groups.
With working in such a large organization, it makes it easy to manage multiple web pages, by allowing users to update their pages.
Cascade Server is very simple and easy to learn.,Cascade Server could have more updated "How to" content.
Improve the documentation and offer more plugin features,8,It increases efficiency for our organization.,5,8,9Nicolle HansonGood But Not Great2014-09-06T16:36:08.731ZI used Cascade Server when I was managing my residential housing website. I found that while I was able to input text and pictures quite easily, I found the other features less accessible. Facets such as, background design and enhancements, were difficult to navigate and took away from the overall experience of website development. At another position, I used the software for a similar purpose, but again I was not pleased with the ease of use. As an individual who is at a beginner level with website management, I struggled to produce the creative ideas that I wished to implement. I would prefer an interface that allows for easy transitions and apparent features.,Text editing
Picture implementation
Basic display functions,User interface
Media implementation utilities
Basic start-up guide,3,Lack of accessibility
Poor navigation utilizes
Decrease in employee efficiency,,4Alexander ChristianCascade Server review by student2014-09-05T22:06:42.351ZWe use Cascade Server as a content management tool for managing the websites for the Purdue University College of Science. There are several departments within this reach (Math, Stats, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Computer Sc.), plus the College of Science itself. We manage their websites according to their requests of new information, new design of their websites, or delete old information. Furthermore, we also look for broken links and errors by making use of another software called InSite, and try to fix them. Mostly, we manipulate the individual web pages to include new information by using their HTML scripts. There are only around 5-7 of use in charge of using this system for the College of Science, three of them being full-time, and the others including me being part-time since we are students.,Content addition including pictures, text, video
Template creation common across various pages, thereby greatly reducing time
Making header and footer blocks
Managing the left and right panes,Individual pages need to load faster
Publish message sometimes takes a long time to be pushed across all machines, perhaps increase the speed of the publish message
There is a problem with the hierarchy of the publish message pages, in other words, we have to publish the individual pages before publishing the page that calls them. This is a little confusing. Perhaps this could be addressed.,10,Increased employee efficiency
Easier addressing of customers' problems,None,9Pranjit KalitaCascade Server - Easy to design, tough to bring down2014-09-02T21:51:26.136ZCascade Server is being used across all the departments at Syracuse University. It is primarily used for maintaining the university website and the websites for individual departments. The common IT department at the university holds the administrative privileges for defining and maintaining the style sheets and design of all the websites. This takes care of maintaining the uniformity among all the websites hosted.,Dashboard - This gives the summary of all the major notifications and status updates. For example, the documents that are pending or need to be published.
Saves draft of edited pages before publishing them. This helps in continuing the work back from where it was left.
Assets can be uploaded from anywhere in the document. For example, while creating hyperlinks to internal documents, cascade gives you the ability to upload documents from that position without having to navigate to a different screen/page.,If changes are made and published in one page, I've often had to publish the entire base folder to push forward the same changes and see them on the front end.
Pages stored in cache memory can create some problem. I had to open a new incognito window and refresh the website to see the changes in the front end.
The biggest problem I've had is ghosting of pages. If by any chance while moving or deleting the pages, Unpublish is unchecked the pages still remain in the backend and they are tough to find for deleting them. Because of this, they cannot be over written, old versions load on the website and new updates are not seen.
One thing that can be done is display a popup of Unpublish checkbox or give a tool tip to explain what will happen if the user doesn't unpublish the pages while moving or deleting them.,7,Well Syracuse University has had Cascade Server since long before I started working for them. But I did notice a performance increase when the newer version was upgraded.
Website loading time is relatively less thus creating customer satisfaction
Pages and modules can be edited easily.,WordPress,10Hrishikesh DeshkarGood product overall. Recommended for content creation by non-technical staff.2014-08-27T15:38:41.435ZCascade Server is used mainly by people without hands on experience with web technologies like HTML/CSS. I am a member of the technical staff and advise non-technical people of the usage of the Cascade Server. The main business problem it solves is abstraction from the underlying technical details of our website and allows for easy content creation.,It handles the underlying HTML/CSS details very well. In my experience, in most of the cases, our accounts and HR department was easily able to create content quickly on the Cascade Server without needing help from any technical staff.
It provides the ability to define multiple kinds of layout. This is essential for creating a decent UI without too much hassle.
The style sheets are centrally located. I can change the logos for the entire website with just a few clicks. Also, I have restricted access to these config files to ensure that the site is not tarnished unknowingly by other employees. I thus don't have to worry about any sudden changes on the live server.,Cascade Server does not allow for easy integration of JQuery plugins. Every time I hit enter on the content manager, it creates a new div. This really messes up my JQuery.
The publisher queue SHOULD be multi-threaded especially when pushing to different sections of the website. It will greatly reduce waiting time for users.
The "new" feature on the menu bar inside the Cascade Server takes forever to load. Why are the links on generated dynamically while the page is loaded like a normal menu-bar? It starts to load when I click on it and it takes about 3-6 seconds to load. Thats very bad response time.,6,It greatly reduced the need for technical staff intervention when creating new content leading to increased employee productivity.
It made life difficult for developers trying to integrate some JQuery plugins.
Modifying content was much simpler with the CMS since it provided a representative interface.,Google App Engine,7Amey GhadigaonkarCascade from a Support Staff member2014-08-26T16:30:19.038ZBeing at a large university, Cascade Server allows us the easiest method and Web Content Management System for a wide array of users. We have staff, students, and faculty that all have very unique needs, yet Cascade's easy navigation and quick response time lead to a very efficient web publishing environment.,Cascade Server has a simple user interface. Along the left side there is a menu that is very easy to learn.
Cascade Server responds very quickly. Some user interfaces take minutes to respond; Cascade takes only a couple of seconds.
Cascade Server is very powerful. It is able to address a variety of web needs.,It would be nice to customize the color scheme across the whole platform. More customization would allow for more comfortable use for some users.
There are a lot of folders that are named something that a lot of users may not understand. Having a clean default name for top directories would be very helpful to newer users.
Migration into Cascade server isn't the easiest. There could be many ways to improve this functionality.,9,It has helped with better customer service in the fact that we can support them better.
It has helped with allowing websites to be more easily created by more users.
Cascade Server has had a negative impact in the fact that it increases the web experience for thousands of web editors. It is definitely a huge ROI.,,9Steven Naji
Windows, Linux, Mac
Cascade Server
51 Ratings
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