How Core dna Help Digital Agencies Build & Scale Websites [Video]
A 15-minute video overview about Core dna's platform assisting web agencies in creating superior websites with examples from agency partners.
A 15-minute overview of how Core dna's platform helps web agencies build bigger & better websites. The complete web agency toolkit. With examples of sites by agency partners.
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Experience
The Core dna platform is the product of a decade of experience in web solutions. Capitalize on our expertise across a variety of industries and leverage our reputation for excellence in web solutions by offering your clients the benefits of a trusted brand. Core dna Partners instill confidence in the solutions they provide through our reliable platform that evolves with the online environment and adapts to their changing needs.
Capability
Minimize risk and eliminate redundancy issues by ensuring your clients' brands are well supported, well understood and well communicated through a robust software platform that will evolve with you and provide you with comprehensive support. Our team of designers and developers are highly qualified and passionate about what they do.
Technology
Expand your range of business solutions and enhance your service offering by becoming a member of a program that combines complementary technologies, maximizing benefits and optimizing the use of resources. Share the value of technologies developed by Partners and save time, money and opportunity costs, safe in the knowledge that our experienced software developers are continuously innovating, providing you with a competitive advantage and allowing you to focus on what you do best. Core dna is flexible and can be adapted and implemented to fit.
Yes, we do. We offer product development, server management, security & performance, implementation & migration, sales & account management, and training & technical support services.
We tailor our relationship with each of our partners. We work closely to meet the needs of our partners and work collaboratively to deliver on their goals. Yes, we have a contract for our partners that describes the relationship and the commitments we both make to the partnership.
Yes, you can. However, your agency will need to go through the same application and training process every Core dna-certified partner go through.
As a solutions provider, you can advertise on your website, social media profiles, and in conversations with prospects.
Every Core dna partner goes through the same application and training process, run with a dedicated account manager, to become a certified Core dna partner. That applies whether the agency comes to us directly or you bring in one you already work with.
What partners get:
- Training and certification. A structured program with an account manager, so the team is signed off on the platform before it delivers client work.
- Technical support. Access to our developers and network administrators for implementation and migration questions.
- Commercial support. Sales leads, technical web advice, and online strategy, plus deal registration so opportunities you refer are credited to you.
- Delivery services, where you want them. Product development, server management, security and performance, implementation and migration, and ongoing account management.
The relationship is set out in a partner contract describing the commitments on both sides. It is tailored per partner rather than dropped into a single fixed tier, because a design agency reselling the platform and a systems integrator delivering enterprise migrations need different things. More on how we think about this is in our partner philosophy.
A 7-minute overview on deploying to different environments on Core dna.
Schedule a one-to-one consultation with your product specialist
Here’s what you can expect:
- Walkthrough: An introduction of the Core dna platform
- Analysis: Personalized recommendations based on your business needs.
- Case studies: How other businesses have used Core dna to scale more efficiently
Video transcription: How to Deploy to Different Environments on Core dna
So in this video we're going to see how development is done on coordinate by front end teams. The coordinate platform is completely decoupled from the UX. So front end development teams can actually build complex front end users lined interactions for customers while being able to use standardized language to talk to Core dna.
I've just logged into an IDE, just a normal IDE. And what you'll notice about this on the left hand side is a structure of how this particular site, this demonstration site that we're working from, is structured.
You'll see that it has assets that are there. It'll have the modules which are the Core dna applications that are being used. It will have a templates directory where we have the base templates. It'll have a template directory which is where the compile templates go.
It may have a web images directory. You'll see the node modules has been installed as we'll be using Gulp in this particular project to build out our JavaScript and we'll have our source JavaScript and then finally we'll have a distribution JavaScript.
So as a developer you can establish your own environment the way you'd like to work on it. And as long as you stay within the standards of the modules directory, the web images and the template directory, then your site should function normally.
In addition, what you'll also notice down the righthand side here is that this site is connected to the Git repo. And it's a very straightforward approach to once you have either use ours or use your own repo, you're able to look at all the remote branches, all the different branches that have been developed for this website, and you're able to create new branches and check out branches.
So Core dna has complete integration into Git and offers you the ability to push your changes to a QA environment for testing and then to merge those changes into production. But before you kind of get into the QA environments and pushing to the repos and all that, most developers just want to be able to quickly develop.
And what Core dna has is a SFTP environment development environment that we've established. And it's very simple to configure. You go down to deployment, you can go down to configure and you can establish your connection to the host.
You can set up your mappings for how you want the site to map, and you can then establish it as a connection. So really, to deploy to those environments is very simple. You make a change to a site. So I'm going to go into a site here, and I'm going to update this tag here to say Sam was here, and all we do is save.
And you'll notice that the changes are sent instantaneously to our dev server. And when we look at the environment, we can see here that if we press refresh on the dev environment, all of a sudden now Sam was here on the dev environment, and if we want to remove it, it's a simple case of just removing the content.
And it will automatically transfer and then just press refresh and the change will be gone. So in this way, developers can quickly create UX's and themes and solutions for their customers in a very localized approach.
And then when they're ready, they can then push those changes into production. And so we have here the production version of the Media Center and you'll notice that it has a number of similar directories.
You'll see here is the source files we can return and then we have the all JS files. We then have the modules that are being used and they generally mimic the modules that are here. Now, once a developer is ready to push their changes into testing, they're able to then come to their IDE and do a commit and a push.
And what happens then is through the use of webhooks, Core dna is able to then apply those changes to the production environment. If we take a longer look at the repo itself, we're able to see that this keeps all the commits that you do.
And so this hasn't been updated in a number of months, but we can actually go into those commits and have a look at what were the changes, what exactly changed, and if we want to, we can actually back those changes out.
In addition, we can see all the branches that are currently available and at what progress these branches are in terms of the master branch. So we can actually switch between them. We can also see the pull request that have occurred and so on.
So all the sites that you work on actually can be found here and you're able to navigate between them. You could do a you can go into a site, clone the site, pull it down, it then becomes available in your IDE, and you can begin work either by doing a deploy to your deploy environment or by doing a commit and push for small changes straight through to your Bitbucket account. The IDE itself supports the inclusion of Git. It's very simple to set up and also includes the ability to deploy. So as long as your server or your ID can support it, you can then use Core dna to develop out of the box.
A 17-minute overview of the Core Content and Core Marketing. Learn about Pages, Blogs, News, FAQs and more!
For more, explore the best types of content creation for eCommerce.
A 2-minute overview of some of our digital workplace solutions using Core Teams. Learn about Projects, Support, Ideas, Timesheets and more!
A 10-minute overview about Pages app on Core dna. Learn about configuration, permissions, setup, and many more via the Core dna DXP admin.
Video transcription
Welcome to the Coordinate Pages application.
Through this video, we will explore how the Pages application can be used to create content for your website. We'll then look at the Admin interface to see how Pages actually works. And then we'll deep dive from a technical standpoint to see how the Pages application can be built.
So the Pages application is one of the most commonly used applications within Core dna.
When you scroll down a page, most likely the Pages application is being used to render the content, whether it be Video content, image Content or different types of components within the site.
The Page's content also has the ability for us to create what we call Style Guides, which are the various components that we create for our website user to use. In this case here we can see the variety of components that have been constructed for that particular site.
The Pages component also can have content that comes in from other parts of the website. So as we scroll down the bottom here, we can see two blogs that have been posted inside the Style Guide. And when you click on them, it takes you into the Blog Posts area.
So how does the Pages module work? Well, let's log into Core dna.
The Pages application sits within the Content family over on the right. So when we kick off the Pages application, it serves two major functions. The first one, it provides the various navigations for the different parts of the system. And secondly, it provides the content. So when we look to the left, we can see here the main navigation pane which highlights Insights, Editors, Reader Group, Resources and Sample Page.
If we go back to our website, we'll notice media room, insights, resources and sample page. There are a number of menu options missing. The reason for this is one of the first features of the Page's module is its ability to segment content. So if we click on the Editors page, we can go across the top and see the Authority tab. The Authority tab is what allows us to segment content.
When we look down the Authority tab, we can see the major components. Firstly, we have what we call Inherited Access. Inherit Access tells the system to go to the parent and look for the access control at the parent. In this case, we've unclick the Inherit Access and by default, if we don't know who you are, you won't see the page. So, because we don't know who's logged in, the system will not show this particular page.
If, however, you're part of the Editor Group, you will have all access to this page. So let's see this. In practice, we go over to the login, we log in as Editor and now we'll find the Editors page.
When we log out of the system, the system will say no editors Page. This is a really cool feature that can actually allow you to create multiple segments and you can see here, we've used it for the reader group, and within the reader group, we've broken it down into internal readers, external readers and common content.
One of the other features of the Pages application is its ability to create multiple menus. And so here when we look down the main navigation bar, we can also see the footer navigation, which corresponds to the bottom of the page, and the info navigation, which is used somewhere within the system to provide linkages.
We can also create what we call landing pages. Landing pages are the ones that we define, that customers are sent to and may not see a menu or may want to have specific content that's part of a promotion or a campaign that we may be running. So let's go back to the home page.
Now, the Page's application allows you to put content in many as forms. In the details page. You can see here that we can create content. We have publishing settings. We also have some custom fields that we've created to provide us some tagging.
In addition, we have the SEO button across the top. This allows us to create focused keywords, the metadata and meta description, and also the social media overrides that we may want to put in place for when people copy the page.
We've spoken about the Authority module. We then also have what we call Linked Content. Linked Content provide us the ability to create components that are linked to other parts of the system.
I won't go into too much detail into this application. It's part of the application as I'll cover some other areas in terms of attachments. So attachments in this particular implementation of Pages is the way that the site is created. And what we can see here is all the different components that have been created for the page to render.
So as we go through, we'll see we have the top image, which is a hero full.
We have tapped content. Further down, we have posts by tags from the blogs. And if we go back to the home page of the site, we'll notice that there's the Hero, there's your Tabbed Content. And then these are the posts from your blog posts. And we can continue to build these pages for as far as we like.
Editing these pages very easy. Just press the edit button. You asked for the title, you asked for a category. And we'll talk a little bit more about how we construct these categories. And these represent all the components.
We then have a link heading, and within here we can also have custom property. So here we've created some custom data, we've created some background colors, we've created some button colors and various other aspects that we want to run for the component.
Pages also has the ability for you to allocate layouts. So layouts are the different page layouts that you may want to construct. In this case, we have five different layouts, content layout, a features layout, default layout site, an XML layout and a pricing layout. And we can also see here we have the ID of the page and a Gui ID that can be used to transfer the page across sites from a share perspective, we also have the ability to share the page using social media as long as we configure the social elements that we need.
Finally, the config area of the site allows us to configure the various aspects of managing the page's application.
So the first part is our Blueprints. Our blueprints are the descriptors for the different types of layouts that we have and also and are used within the layouts area. We also have the categories. So we saw these categories earlier. These are the definitions for the components that we create in the page and where they're actually used.
So here we can see the two column, three row blue is used in three pages or four pages and we can go and modify those pages. When we get into the technical aspect of Pages, we'll discover how the ID here is used within the coordinate system to connect the component to the actual descriptor.
Here we can also manage properties and these are generally the custom fields for the pages. And here you can see the various dropdown types of properties that we've created for us to use within the categories. And we also have the layouts.
And the layouts allow us to connect the layout file and give it a description so we can use it within the system. Finally, we have the manage configuration.
So manage configuration throughout the system is where we can extend the platform or provide features to the platform that customers have asked for in the past that allow us to set the application up in a way that makes sense for our use. And you can see here that we have various elements. For example, takeover pages.
We may have an upgrade that we've done, we may have metadata that we want to apply and also some SEO bits. That's the first part of our discussion on the Pages application.
Core dna is a unified digital platform that combines content management, ecommerce, integrations, and workflow orchestration in one system. Instead of stitching together separate CMS tools, commerce engines, and middleware, Core dna brings those capabilities into a single platform that teams can manage and extend from one place.
In practical terms, that means businesses can run their website, online store, member portal, learning platform, or multi-site ecosystem without maintaining multiple vendors or complex integrations. Content, products, users, and workflows all live in the same environment.
The goal is simple: reduce operational complexity while giving teams the flexibility to build custom digital experiences without assembling a large stack of third-party tools.
If you want a quick visual walkthrough of how the platform works, you can watch the overview here:
As a partner, you can let us know about opportunities you are talking to about Core dna. Simply fill out this form so we can flag these leads.
You can nominate an agency to work with us. Alternatively, we can find an agency that we think would be a great fit for your business and Core dna.
The Core dna Partner Program aims to provide an opportunity for partners to expand their website services and easily manage their clients' requirements through our scalable and flexible enterprise level website management platform, designed for even the most demanding websites, intranets, extranets, and microsites.
We strive to develop and foster mutually beneficial relationships; ensuring collaborations reflect the integrity of both Core dna and Partner brands.
The challenge we set ourselves is to help grow our users’ businesses by optimizing the opportunities available to them in the online environment.
Core dna provides partners with sales leads, technical web advice, and online strategy. Wherever possible, we look for opportunities to facilitate partners to expand their business networks.
We have partnerships with image and branding specialists, graphic design companies, marketing experts, online media consultants, IT specialists, copywriters with SEO and SEM expertise and work efficiency consultants. These partnerships are business resources we can draw on to augment the specialized skills of our team.
Our partners go through training with a dedicated account manager to help them become a certified Core dna partner.
A 10-minute overview of development on Core dna. Learn about Smarty, GIT, our deployment environment, and more!
A 4-minute overview about the Shipping Application on Core dna. Learn about Companies, Packages & Zones and how they all come in to play for shipping options!
A 4-minute overview showing you how to add pages with Attachments on Core dna.
A 15-minute overview of the administration panel for Core dna's digital experience platform (DXP).
Video chapters
- 1. Log in to Core dna platform (0:38)
- 2. Core dna dashboard overview (0:47)
- 3. Managing websites (2:23)
- 4. CoreContent overview (4:32)
- 5. CoreCommunity overview (6:22)
- 6. CoreMarketing overview (8:24)
- 7. CoreCommerce overview (9:06)
- 8. Hooks application overview (13:01)