Drupal is the content management system powering www.ithaca.edu

As a Content Manager, Drupal is where you create, edit, and publish the pages your audience sees.

This guide is a high-level overview of the basics: signing in, how content is organized, what the publishing states mean, and the everyday tasks you will use most. Throughout, you will find links to more detailed pages in the Reference Library and Support Guides.

Signing in

You sign in with your Ithaca College credentials. There are two ways to reach the login screen:

  1. Go directly to www.ithaca.edu/saml/login.
  2. Or scroll to the footer of any page on www.ithaca.edu and click the copyright icon.

Once you are signed in, an admin toolbar appears at the top of the screen. This toolbar is your home base for managing content.

All faculty and staff receive automatically created profile pages. To see everything you are able to edit, select the "My Content" tab from the admin toolbar. This list shows the content tied to your account and the site groups you belong to.

Finding your sites

Site Groups are collections of sites that share the same permissions. To view every site group you belong to, use this quick link.

Learn more: 
Roles & Permissions
Faculty & Staff Profiles

How content is organized

Drupal content is organized into four primary content types:

  • Sites: the top level, and the container for everything beneath it.
  • Topics: a grouping that lives inside a site and can hold pages.
  • Categories: another grouping that lives inside a site or topic and can hold pages.
  • Pages: the individual pages of content.

A Site can hold any of the other three types. Topics and Categories can each hold Pages. In practice, content nests like this:

  • Sites > Topic
  • Sites > Category
  • Topic > Category
  • Topic > Pages
  • Category > Pages

The content blocks available to you (text, images, heros, calls to action, and more) vary by content type. Sites have the most flexibility, followed by Topics and Categories, then Pages.

Learn more: 
Content Types 
Paragraphs (Components)

Understanding publishing states

Every piece of content is in one of three states:

  • Published: The content is visible to everyone, unless its "Page Access" settings limit who can see it.
  • Draft: A published version already exists, and there are unpublished changes saved on a newer revision.
  • Unpublished: The content is only visible to people with editing access to your site.

Caution: If you unpublish a Topic that has child Pages, those child Pages stay publicly viewable. For this reason, it is best to unpublish at the deepest level first, then work your way back up.

Learn more: 
Publishing States & Revisions
Access Controls

Creating new content

  1. From an existing site, find the content management options near the top of the page.
  2. Select "Add Topic," "Add Page," or "Add Category," depending on what you want to create.
  3. Fill in every field marked with an asterisk (*). These are required.
  4. Add at least one content block before saving. You cannot save without content. To add one, click "Add Content" and choose a component from the selection tool.
  5. To limit who can see the page (for example, Faculty, Staff, and/or Students only), expand the "Page Access" dropdown in the right-hand menu.
  6. When you are ready, save the page as draft.

Preview before you publish

Saving as a Draft lets you review your changes, and share them with your site group, without changing what the public sees.

  1. After making changes to new or existing content, find the "Change to" dropdown in the right-hand sidebar, under the publishing status panel.
  2. Select "Draft."
  3. Click "Save" at the top right of the screen.
  4. Your changes are now saved as a draft revision, and the published version stays live. You can copy the page URL and share it with members of your site group for review.

Returning to a saved revision

Drupal keeps a history of changes so you can revisit earlier versions.

  1. Locate the published version of the page you revised.
  2. From the content management options near the top of the page, select "Revisions."
  3. You will see a list of every change, who made it, and when.
  4. To view or edit a specific revision, click the datestamped entry you want.
Looking for additional support?

The Web Team is standing by to answer any questions, either via email, ticket, or open office hours.

Learn More