Frequently Asked Questions

The current CMS houses all of our website’s content, and this migration will include moving content to the new system -- Omni CMS. The website domain www.uwyo.edu will remain intact along with the structure of all our website sections. While editing functions will be vastly improved, you can expect the website to look fairly similar to what it is today -- though we will be making intermediate design improvements leading up to a greater design refresh in the near future to help improve our overall user experience.

Our decision to switch to a new CMS provider stemmed from a desire to address common issues our site authors have been facing within our current CMS (Cascade) while leaving room for future design and development to bring UW’s website up and above the standard in higher education websites. All that to say, this migration is the first of many improvements you can expect to see!

Preparation is already underway for the transition to Omni CMS. We have not yet selected a go-live date for our new system but are anticipating late spring 2023. Generally speaking, migrations of this size can take several months to prepare for, while the transfer of content itself occurs in a very short window of time.

Please be sure to check out our migration timeline for information about the process and important milestones.

Due to our transition to Omni CMS, site authors must be trained in both Omni CMS and Cascade in order to receive CMS access. This will be a requirement through the remainder of our conversion, at which point we will transition to training focus solely on Omni.

If you are an existing site author inside Cascade as of January 26 and you are unable to log in to Omni CMS, please open an Omni help request ticket.

If you are not an existing Cascade CMS site author, you are required to take both Cascasde and Omni CMS training in order to gain access to the CMS due to our double system edits requirement during our content prep phase. This requirement will be removed and replaced with a single Omni CMS training later this spring.

Site author training is verified prior to being granted access to the system.

Mandatory Site Access Training
All site authors must take the following training to gain access to the CMS:

• CMS Level 1 Training (CASCADE)
• Accessibility Training (CASCADE)
• Omni CMS Onboarding Training (3 Courses)

It would be rare to not need editing access to Cascade for the remaining duration of our conversion to Omni CMS. The reason this is important to observe is due to our double system edit phase which began January 26 and will last the remainder of our transition to Omni CMS.

If you feel you only need access to Omni, you may contact us at webhelp@uwo.edu and we will evaluate whether your needs fit the criteria to take only one training.

If you do not plan to be a site author moving forward, please open a ticket to be removed from the CMS. 

If you are the only remaining site author on your site and no longer wish to have your site, please also contact webhelp@uwyo.edu so that we may remove your site's directory from the CMS.

If you are the only remaining site author on your site and no longer wish to have your site, please also contact webhelp@uwyo.edu so that we may remove your site's directory from the CMS.

Yes! All site authors must sign off on their site's pages inside Omni CMS during our content prep phase which will last from February 27 - May 19, 2023. In order to review your site's pages and make corrective edits, you must be trained in Omni CMS.

Our go-live date inside Omni CMS will be determined 30 days in advance and is highly dependent on our site author's participation in reviewing their pages. The content prep phase will not be extended.

Yes! Please do not stop editing your website as having the most up-to-date and accessibility-compliant web page will help ensure your pages and site content are transitioned over as smoothly as possible. You can check out the site author responsibilities section for more information about best practices.

We will communicate with site authors during our testing phase when site edits, new site editions or major website restructuring will be impacted.

Site authors who have made plans to restructure their website prior to the CMS migration may do so, however, there are some considerations you should make before engaging in this process, including:

Avoid Site Restructuring after November 1
While our timeline remains agile to the process of a major migration, we expect to begin testing content in the new system in early 2023. In order to do so, we must complete early stages of our migration scripts that help us test the content. We are discouraging site authors from completing any major restructuring after November 1, 2023.

New Templates in Omni CMS
Part of our long-term website strategy is to offer BETTER templates in the new Omni CMS system. While these will not be available immediately following our conversion, we feel confident we will begin to release templates that look much better than UW's current pages in the coming months post-migration.

Avoid Major Web Development and Custom Coding!
Major web development or custom coding refers specifically to the use of custom code that is not available in the current CMS. We are highly discouraging this type of web development within your departments or with external third-party vendors at this time. Certain levels of custom HTML code may not be supported in the new CMS, which could cause major issues for your pages at the time of transition. Institutional Marketing may not be able to support errors that may occur due to custom coding. We recognize it can be difficult with the limitations of our current CMS but appreciate your understanding in working together in this matter. 

Yes. Website accessibility is a critical part of serving equitable content to people with visual impairment or other disabilities. We have recently sent out accessibility violation reports to all site authors. If you have not taken the time to correct these violations, please do so at your earliest convenience. WAVE tool is an excellent browser plugin that can help you easily identify accessibility errors.

Additionally, we are offering CMS Open Labs each week where you can ask questions about ADA violations. Please do your part in ensuring all users can access our website without disruption!