Content Organization Strategies

Organizing files in your content library in a consistent way makes it easier, to manage find, and reuse content.

Content Library Overview

Heretto CCMS enables you to browse, filter, create, upload, and manage files and folders in the content library.

Content library

Content Library Structure

You can move and rename files and folders in the content library without breaking links between the resources. Your content library structure may freely scale.

Category-Based Folder Structure

The following is a sample folder structure that distributes files based on their categories.
Note: This is the recommended approach to structure your content library.
  • _Shared
    • DITAVALs
    • Warehouses
    • Variables
  • Business
    • Department_A
    • Department_B
    • Department_C
  • External
    • _Media
    • _Publication_Maps
    • Category_A (for example, “Installation and Configuration”)
    • Category_B (for example, “Troubleshooting”)
    • Category_C (for example, “Integrations”)
  • Internal
    • _Media
    • _Publication_Maps
    • Category_A (for example, “API”)
    • Category_B (for example, “Deployment_Models”)
    • Category_C (for example, “Feature_Flags”)
  • In_Progress
    • Development_Folder_A
    • Development_Folder_B
    • Development_Folder_C

Asset-Based Folder Structure

The following is a sample folder structure that distributes files based on their association with an asset (for example, a guide or a course).

Note: This approach may be more intuitive than Category-Based Folder Structure but is less scalable.
  • _Shared
    • DITAVALs
    • Warehouses
    • Variables
  • Business
    • Department_A
    • Department_B
    • Department_C
  • External
    • _Media
    • Courses
      • Getting_Started_with_Product_A
      • Getting_Started_with_Product_B
      • Getting_Started_with_Product_C
      • Mastering_Product_C
    • FAQs
    • Glossaries
      • Product_A_Glossary
      • Product_B_Glossary
      • Product_C_Glossary
    • Guides
      • Product_A_User_Guide
      • Product_A_Reference_Guide
      • Product_B_User_Guide
      • Product_B_Technician_Guide
      • Product_C_User_Guide
      • Product_C_Admin_Guide
  • Internal
    • _Media
    • Courses
      • Onboarding_1
      • Onboarding_2
      • Onboarding_3
    • Guides
      • Content_Development_Style_Guide
    • Knowledge_Base
      • Product_A_Internal_Settings_Reference
      • Product_B_Hardware_Part_Numbers

Folder Roles

_Shared
Contains global reusable content, including: content warehouse topics, variable warehouse topics, and DITAVALs.

For more information, see Conditional Processing Strategies.

Business
Contains internal business-related information divided into several subfolders that correspond to different departments.
External
Contains customer-facing technical documentation and learning content divided into subfolders.
Internal
Internal technical documentation and learning content divided into subfolders.
In_Progress
Contains files that are being developed.
_Media
Contains multimedia files like screenshots, GIFs, or diagrams.

Content Organization Guidelines

Keep the following guidelines in mind when creating a folder structure in the content library:

  • To avoid cluttering your production branches and search results, keep any sandbox or testing content on a separate branch.
  • To display a folder at the top of the folder tree, add an underscore “_” before the folder name.

    For example: _Shared or _Media.

  • Depending on the architecture of content that you develop, you can create more _Shared folders on lower levels.

    For example, there may be a separate _Shared folder for documentation and business.

  • Depending on the architecture of content that you develop, you can keep _Media folders on higher or lower levels. Keeping _Media folders on low levels may hinder reuse.