Our website now also based on iiRDS

Learn how site content interacts with iiRDS in this blog post.

On the picture you can see the term API in a circle surrounded by symbols for computers and other systems

Since the beginning of November 2022 our new website is live.

As we did with our blog, we broke new ground. We use standards such as DITA, iiRDS and of course our own software to publish content automatically to the web via an API.

Learn how site content interacts with iiRDS in this blog post.

How we create and publish our new website

DITA as a data source
We create the content with DITA. We use specialized topics for this purpose.
Publication at the touch of a button
The website is published automatically. For this purpose we have developed plugins based on the DITA-OT.
We use these plugins for our own website as well as our blog and provide them to our customers as part of our DITA-based CDP projects.
Integrated with the DITA-OT, it is thus possible to publish in an automated way, even in daily/nightly build processes.
c-rex.net DITA-OT-Plug-ins
Transformation according to iiRDS
For the transformation from DITA to iiRDS we use our data service c-rex.net DTS and integrate it into local transformation scenarios.
oXygen transformation scenario
Publication on the website
The publication takes place via the c-rex.net IDS API.
The content is made responsive via the API and RDF with HTML5. Keyword Content as a Service!

This means that the website is completely data-driven. For example, employee and company information is pulled entirely from VCard.rdf. Other content is generated by querying iiRDS and metadata.

Other features:

The website is fully automatically translated into three languages. To do this, we use Machine Translation and incorporate our terminology.
For the languages German and French, users can choose between different gender forms.

Relationships between iiRDS and website content

In the following screenshots you can see the correlations of iiRDS and the content of our website.

Source for slider graphics, URL for homepage and functionality of search slot.

We link to the RDF backend via the search slot. This is the Triple-Store where the iiRDS metadata is stored. This makes the full-text search available for all content that exists in the backend. This allows users to perform comprehensive searches. If they are authenticated, they can access content on the website, the blog, and the customer portal.

The table of contents, i.e. the navigation structure, results from the hierarchical metadata structure iirds:DirectoryNodes provided for this purpose in iiRDS. In order to be able to distinguish these from the tables of contents of a "normal" documentation across data sets, we have defined the WebMenu and typed the directory this way.

In DITA, the editor defines where slider graphics should appear using a simple reference. As a result, these standard graphics stored in the system are automatically included at the defined position via typed fragments.

<pagearea id="pagearea_sliders" areaid="slider-area"/>

Screenshot of the c-rex.net website. Arrows and their corresponding labels are used to point to the elements of the website: here iiRDS Fragements of Type Slider Graphic, iiRDS Directory.

Source for customer logos and display of the last three blog posts

Our customer references are stored in the system through a CRM export. Complex VCards in RDF format are generated from this export. A VCard is then assigned to an iirds:Party with the iirds:PartyRoleCustomer as defined in iiRDS.

The editor defines a simple reference in the DITA content in the form of a specialized page-area-id, where the information is dynamically loaded from the backend. Regular synchronization with the CRM system means that this data is always up to date, without the editorial team having to adjust the content.

<pagearea areaid="customer-area" id="section-customer-area">
   <title>Kunden</title>
</pagearea>

The next step is to specify the position where the last three blog posts should be displayed.

<pagearea id="section-blogteaser-area" areaid="blogteaser-area">
    <title>Blog</title>
</pagearea>

Screenshot of the c-rex.net website. Arrows and their corresponding labels are used to point to the elements of the site: here iiRDS Party, Party Role Customer, Query last 3 iiRDS Topics of Type Blog Post.

Source for c-rex.net logo and display of imprint and privacy policy

A VCard in RDF format is also stored in the Triple Store for c-rex.net. With this, we automatically pull the information about our company to be displayed in the header and footer from the database.

The contents are rather static in nature, are specified together with layout requirements from marketing and implemented accordingly in the web design.

However, even here the information updates automatically from our CRM, so if the address information in the CRM changes, the change is immediately visible on the website.

Screenshot of the c-rex.net website. Arrows and the corresponding label point to the elements of the website: here iiRDS Party, Party Role Manufacturer, Topics of Information Subject Imprint and Privacy.

Source for display of contact persons

It works similarly for the contact persons. Since we currently do not use a Human Resources Management System in which our employees' data is managed, we create the VCards manually in this case.

What can be done with reasonable effort for our company size is too costly for larger companies. Here, it makes sense to extract and generate the data from an existing source system.

Screenshot of the c-rex.net website. Arrows and the corresponding label are used to point to the elements of the website: in this case iiRDS Party, Party Role Sales Employee

Source for displaying the language selection

The most important point from a data point of view is that we can establish a relationship between a topic and its language variants, as well as versions if applicable, for each individual page.

This relationship is established via the iirds:InformationObject. This one triple iirds:Topiciirds:is-version-ofiirds:InformationObject alone enables language and version control in user interfaces.

Screenshot of the c-rex.net website. Arrows and the corresponding label point to the elements of the website: here iiRDS Information Object

You too can use c-rex.net software for data transformation and content delivery!

Have we convinced you of the power of our approach to content delivery based on iiRDS?

We can easily imagine publishing your content from different sources in a similar way on your website or in your existing customer portal or service portal.