What to Expect | Frequency and Scheduling (Drop-ins) | Cascade Training via Teams - Tips  
| What We Need from You  | Training Location[s]

NOTE: All Cascade CMS Basics training live sessions will be offered via Microsoft Teams or other UH approved tele-solutions. For more information please see the main Cascade CMS information page.

What to Expect

Cascade CMS Basics live training sessions last approximately 4 hrs depending on class participation/need and with short breaks midway. Training via telecommunication will involve either Microsoft Teams or other UH-approved training solutions.

Self-study may also be an option. Please see the Cascade CMS "How To" page for more information.

IMPORTANT: As of Friday May 19, 2023, the UH VPN using the full-vpn-uh.edu setting is required for  logging into Cascade from off campus. See the UIT site's VPN information to see how to set things up for your operating system. If you have the Cisco AnyConnect already installed, you need not re-install anything - just change settings.

The training will cover the following topics:

• The Cascade interface
• Creating pages within Cascade
• Uploading files to Cascade
• Editing content within Cascade
• Previewing and publishing pages from Cascade
• UH Web Best Practices
• Gaining Access to the Cascade CMS
• How to learn more

To ensure that all topics get covered in a timely manner, if you have a question which cannot be answered quickly or in the context of the session, please jot it down and save it for either break time, for the end of the session, or for an email to the trainer and/or WebTech's Cascade CMS team after the training is completed.

Please note:
Although a large part of the training consists of lecture, we do consider hands-on experience and exercises important to learning Cascade, and we therefore limit training session participation according to some reasonable restrictions.

• For trainings via telecommunication, participation may be limited by the timeframe needed to properly set up and prepare trainees for participation, and/or by limitations of the telecommunications application itself, and/or the time needed to prepare training 'sandbox' materials for each individual training candidate.
  
  

The Training Experience

For the Cascade CMS Basics, trainees may be working within a separate site dedicated to training only. You will be able to use the training area to learn and to practice how to:

• find your way around the Cascade interface;
• find the sites you have access to;
• find and use reports;
• use common editing and interface navigation tools (e.g. text fields, rich text editors, Choosers, etc.);
• set various settings and see how that affects your content and site navigation;
• create and edit content;
• publish materials to selected Destinations. 

NOTE: Live publishing features are not enabled in the training sandbox area, and trainee materials are preserved for only a limited time following the training session; however, the Cascade trainee sandbox should give you a very true “look and feel" to help you learn what working on your UH (or UHS) live site will be like in Cascade CMS.

Frequency and Scheduling

Training sessions may be offered throughout the remainder of the Cascade service life. A rolling invite list is kept for persons expressing an active interest in the training. See the Cascade CMS contact information to request training for yourself or others in your area.

Once a live training session has been scheduled, an invitation is emailed to the interested individuals on the rolling invite list. Invite is sent to the individual to be trained as well as to those who are sponsoring them or who may be otherwise responsible for the website they will be editing.

The training session itself is then held on a first-confirmed first-reserved basis, and is limited according to whether trainees using telecommunication applications can be properly set up in advance of their training.

If individuals do not attend or complete the session to which they have either been invited or to which they had confirmed, then subsequent invitations may continue to be sent to them until Cascade's end of service, or until training needs have been otherwise addressed.

Some training may be offered through online video presentations assignments, with followup with trainees prior to User setup.

Cascade Training via Teams - Tips

Participants must be able to join a UH-based Teams meeting invite (which will be sent separately, and only to those confirming for the specific session).

Familiarity with Teams

Attendees should have a basic familiarity with Teams, including:  

• join with audio;
• mute/unmute microphone;
• open chat/text panel;
• accept a screen-share (and optionally share their own screen);
• switch camera on/off (camera-off displays user icon instead of video).

Please see UIT information on Microsoft 365 and Teams.

UH VPN using full-vpn.uh.edu setting is required for login to Cascade from anywhere off campus

IMPORTANT: As of Friday May 19, 2023, the UH VPN using the full-vpn-uh.edu setting is required for  logging into Cascade from anywhere off campus. See the UIT site's VPN information and/or Full-VPN notes to see how to set things up for your operating system. 

Additionally, the Cascade CMS training does involve viewing materials at UH’s non-crawled Staging web address, which requires UH VPN to be installed and running as well if users are not connected using the UH Secure wifi.

Please see UIT information on UH VPN options, UH Wireless options, and UHSecure FAQs.

What We Need from You

When sending any email request or question please include full names, UH emails, and the departments or areas involved, as well as the specific website for which the individual may be training to edit, or to which the question applies.

New students or new hires who do not yet have a UH email address are allowed to use a personal email address for communications about the training. Be aware however, that before a Cascade CMS User can be activated in the system, the individual's Cougarnet account must be active. Any trainee, whether staff, student, or POI hire, must also have authorization from a UH/UHS office, website content owner, and/or website manager before being granted working access to an active UH/UHS website.

For training by telecommunication application specifically, we strongly recommend that a Cougarnet ID be active at least several days in advance of the training, so the trainee can be properly set up for access to the sandbox materials. Trainees without active CNIDs may still participate in and be considered to have completed the training, but should expect their hands-on experience to be more limited.

After training is completed we must receive an email from the trainee and his or her supervisor, including:

1. Enough information to definitively identify the new user; 
   ideally, the individual's PeopleSoft ID (aka the last 7 digits of an individual's "UH ID"/ "MyUH ID").
2. An exact idea of which website, and/or site area the new user will be editing.
   Ideally, send us a URL. If the site is to be developed, let us know what area of the university is sponsoring or hosting the new materials.
3. What level of Cascade CMS-publishing ability is requested for the new user.
   The most typical levels offered are:
   1. Editing only (no publishing);
   2. Editing with the ability to publish to the 'hidden' non-crawled staging area[s] only;
   3. Editing with full publishing privileges to both the staging and live site areas.

NOTES:  You must be university staff, a workstudy student with a UH/UHS-component sponsor, or have a POI in place, and your Cougarnet credentials must be active before you can be activated as an active working Cascade CMS User.

Many colleges and departments also have an office and/or website point-person (e.g. the dean's communications office) to manage that area's website users. That office and/or person may also need to approve access for any website editor within their area.

Persons otherwise eligible for training who have not been sponsored towards specific website access may still attend the training (e.g. as professional development interest only) and they may be set up with temporary access to a Cascade CMS sandbox area; however, they will not be set up for any specific live website as active working Users in the UH Cascade CMS.

Training Locations

Technology Bridge - Building 3 (formerly ERP)

Rarely, in-person CMS Basics training sessions might be arranged to be held at the UH Technology Bridge off-campus location where the main Web Technologies offices reside (formerly UH Energy Research Park, or ERP/UBP). Please check the actual scheduling information for time and location details for any announced training sessions. 

The UH Technology Bridge remote campus is approximately 1/2 mile from the central campus, and is accessible via the campus shuttles.

* Please be aware: Until further notice, UH shuttles no longer stop at Metro's Eastwood Transit Center. For a review of various transit options, please see the Houston METRO information and other transit options on the UH Parking and Transportation site.
 

Building 3 has visitor/handicap parking near the building, and an elevator closeby inside the main entrance. Building 3 second floor offers a limited kitchenette (microwave, refrigerator, sink without garbage disposal, water cooler with hot water option) and vending machines which offer beverages and snacks [$, card]. There is a handicap-accessible unisex bathroom available in the adjacent Building 2 (see the "How do I find rooms in Buildings 3 and 2?" map). 

For further information about finding and getting around Technology Bridge, please see the Find Tech Bridge page.