Hello everybody.
I am trying to get my head around how to implement versioning and content approval for my DNN websites.
I need to update a couple of websites, and I am hiring some freelancers to make content updates and look into SEO issues. For this, I need some kind of content approval workflow in place, so I am not worried that they unintentionally mess up my live website. Another reason is, I do want to see the changes they make.
One option is to use Live HTML module from mandeep which has approval workflow and versioning where you can compare the content and see all changes pretty highlighted. However, this means I need to replace every single HTL module with a new one, and, since mandeep doesn’t have any tools that can do this automatically, it’s going to be a long and boring manual job. Another problem is I still won’t be able to see and approve changes to the page title or description.
I am currently playing with the idea to make a copy of a website and give it to the editorial team. Once they finish I would compare changes to the live website and copy if I approve them. I can probably use a combination of SQL Compare and Winmerge and write some script to copy changes between two databases.
Alternatively I can write an application that can access DNN portals via WebApi and copy the changes. However it would take time and I would rather use something that is already available.
None of the options is ideal, so I am thinking if I am missing something. It seems like a quite common task, and I am just wondering if someone else has looked into it.
Thank's a lot!