This project is a set of useful enhancements that may gradually improve the reviewing process in organizations using EPiServer as their CMS.
It solves a few major issues the Authors identified during their journey with EPiServer and after working on a number of EPiServer related enterprise solutions.
The list of features (click to see more details about each section):
- Preview unpublished content
- Preview unpublished projects
- Context aware smart reviewing
- Integration with default approval workflow
- External reviewers
- Expirable token based urls
- Visual content reviews
Install-Package Advanced.CMS.AdvancedReviews
https://nuget.episerver.com/package/?id=Advanced.CMS.AdvancedReviews
Allow end users to preview unpublished and unreviewed content.
As we all know, an EPiServer page is usually not self-contained but rather consists of many other content items like blocks or media files.
In such scenarios it is very hard for reviewers to see the "big picture". Let's say a page consists of several blocks and a few images. Now, in case the page author changed all those blocks and images the reviewer will have to manually go through all of them and approve them individually without, in fact, being able to see those changes in the actual page context.
This project gives the editors a way to generate a unique URL that will present the page exactly as they see it. The preview engine will ignore content status and the content approval process.
Allow end users to preview unpublished and unreviewed projects.
By default, Episerver allows the preview project only inside the Edit Mode. However, it is often useful to ask users that do not have Edit Mode accounts to review a project before publishing.
All external review links created with the Project Mode active will allow its users to access all project content items.
In the current workflow, the reviewer can just provide a single comment that has to include all comments for a particular content version. Then, it is the editor's responsibility to match the issues raised by the reviewer with specific parts of the page.
This project aims at moving the comments closer to the specific page fragments which will help editors to understand & fix the issues faster.
You can also take screenshots of your page and highlight specific parts to make it clear to the editor what the concern is.
It is also important to set the priority to each comment to make it clear to the editor which comments are important and which ones are just cosmetic or optional.
After receiving such comments the author of the content will see all issues raised by the reviewer.
The author can respond to each of them individually by adding a reply message or attaching another screenshot with explanations.
Once a Pin is reviewed it can be marked as Resolved
All pins are saved and can be reviewed at any time in a dedicated Review pane.
Let's say we configure a very basic approval workflow with a single approval step and a single reviewer.
We will also force the reviewer to provide a comment when either approving or declining the changes.
Later on, an editor decides to send the page for review.
The reviewer can now use Pins to comment on specific parts of the page and use those comments to populate the Decline message
If the reviewer ever tries to approve content that still has some unresolved Pins, a prompt will be shown.
Each pin is in fact a standalone Thread the can go on until both Reviewer and the Author are satisfied with the end result.
There are few settings related with external review. They are all set using Options class:
| Option | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| NotificationsOptions | NotificationsOptions | Allow to configure how notifications work |
| Option | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| NotificationsEnabled | bool | Adding a new comment triggers a notification to all participants |
This feature is a combination of the previous ones. It is to allow external reviewers, so the user that may not be a part of your organization, or simply users who are reluctant to learn EPiServer to access unpublished data and provide feedback if needed.
All generated links are token-based. You can generate as many links as needed, each of them can be revoked at any time.
Additionally, all urls are time limited (the TimeSpan can be configured, please look further down) which means that after a specific amount of time such link will no longer work.
You can visually express issues in reviewed content by highlighting or adding screenshots
Once you decide to attach a screenshot then we will automatically determine the dimensions of the EPiServer property that was clicked on and preselect it. The default crop can be changed according to your needs.
The highlighting tool allows you to clear and redraw.
Allow to display draft content version without logging to Episerver.
This is an Edit mode component used to generate external review links. There are two types of links:
- view - external reviewer can preview draft content version
- editable - external reviewver can add comments using advanced review widget
Editor can share external review links using share dialog. The [#link#] constant will be replaced with link to content.
Below is an email example:
/externalContentReviews location is only accessible to users who are members of the ExternalReviewers role. You will have to manually add personal user accounts or a shared user account that could be used by the external reviews.
There are few settings related with external review. They are all set using Options class:
| Option | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ContentPreviewUrl | externalContentView | path prefix added before token for "View" preview links |
| IsEnabled | true | is the add-on enabled |
| ReviewsUrl | externalContentReviews | path prefix added before token for "Edit" review links |
| EmailSubject | [subject email template] | email subject template |
| EmailEdit | [email template] | email body template used for readonly content links |
| EmailView | [email template] | email body template used for editable links |
| EditableLinksEnabled | false | When true then Editor can create editable links that allow external reviewers to add comments |
| ViewLinkValidTo | 5 days | For how long view link is valid |
| EditLinkValidTo | 5 days | For how long editable link is valid |
| PinCodeSecurity | PinCodeSecurityOptions | Settings specific to links security |
| Restrictions | ExternalReviewRestrictionOptions | Restrictions around external reviewers |
| Option | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| MaxReviewLocationsForContent | int.MaxValue | How many pins can be added by an external reviewer |
| MaxCommentsForReviewLocation | int.MaxValue | How many comments can be added by an external reviewer to one pin |
| MaxCommentLength | int.MaxValue | Max length of a comment |
| Option | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Enabled | false | When true, then PIN code check is enabled |
| Required | false | When true, it would not be possible to create a new a new link without a PIN |
| ExternalReviewLoginUrl | ExternalReviewLogin | URL for login page |
| RolesWithoutPin | WebEditors & WebAdmins | Roles that can access links without PIN |
| AuthenticationCookieLifeTime | 5 minutes | For how long authentication cookie should be valid |
| CodeLength | 4 | PIN code length |
This snippet turns on editable review links:
[InitializableModule]
[ModuleDependency(typeof(FrameworkInitialization))]
public class ExternalReviewInitialization : IConfigurableModule
{
public void ConfigureContainer(ServiceConfigurationContext context)
{
context.Services.Configure<ExternalReviewOptions>(options =>
{
options.EditableLinksEnabled = true;
});
}
public void Initialize(InitializationEngine context) { }
public void Uninitialize(InitializationEngine context) { }
}This snippet additionally turns on pin security:
[InitializableModule]
[ModuleDependency(typeof(FrameworkInitialization))]
public class ExternalReviewInitialization : IConfigurableModule
{
public void ConfigureContainer(ServiceConfigurationContext context)
{
context.Services.Configure<ExternalReviewOptions>(options =>
{
options.EditableLinksEnabled = true;
options.PinCodeSecurity.Enabled = true;
options.PinCodeSecurity.CodeLength = 4;
});
}
public void Initialize(InitializationEngine context) { }
public void Uninitialize(InitializationEngine context) { }
}This snippet makes the pin required for all VIEW links:
[InitializableModule]
[ModuleDependency(typeof(FrameworkInitialization))]
public class ExternalReviewInitialization : IConfigurableModule
{
public void ConfigureContainer(ServiceConfigurationContext context)
{
context.Services.Configure<ExternalReviewOptions>(options =>
{
options.EditableLinksEnabled = true;
options.PinCodeSecurity.Enabled = true;
options.PinCodeSecurity.Required = true;
options.PinCodeSecurity.CodeLength = 4;
});
}
public void Initialize(InitializationEngine context) { }
public void Uninitialize(InitializationEngine context) { }
}While this one completely disables the add-on, all custom routes, ui elements etc.
[InitializableModule]
[ModuleDependency(typeof(FrameworkInitialization))]
public class ExternalReviewInitialization : IConfigurableModule
{
public void ConfigureContainer(ServiceConfigurationContext context)
{
context.Services.Configure<ExternalReviewOptions>(options =>
{
options.IsEnabled = false;
});
}
public void Initialize(InitializationEngine context) { }
public void Uninitialize(InitializationEngine context) { }
}This is our personal project that we intend to maintain.
If you would like to contribute in any way, create a new feature, fix a bug or help with the documentation then we would really appreciate any kind of contributions.
We really appreciate bug reports. But please make sure that you include as many details as possible. We spent a lot of time on setting up the solution so it's possible to run the whole thing by just cloning the repo and calling a single command. That makes it super easy for you to fork this repo and create a reproducible environment. That will significanly speed up a potential bugfix release for you.
Please remember that this is our personal project developed during our free time and any kind of help from users is highly appreciated.
$ setup.cmd
$ site.cmdAnd your IISExpress Alloy with all dependencies should be up and running.
There are a few more useful commands like:
build.cmdwhich builds both C# code and bundles all javascript dependencies, and
pack.ps1that creates a nuget package.