University of Michigan-Flint

The Catalog CMS component is a new component that allows you to include Course Catalog information that is always up-to-date on your deparment's website.  It is very easy to use, and once you include it on your page, you never have to worry about having up-to-date catalog information on your page again.

The Catalog component is available to both generic and deparment templates.  To use it, add it to your page as you would with any other component.  On the "block," click the "+" sign and click "Catalog."  This will add the "Catalog" component to the bottom of your "block":

From here, you will see 3 options:  "Display Mode," "Show Heading," and "Item Type." 

*NOTE*: All links generated by the Catalog component will link back to the most current catalog.

"Display Mode" tells the CMS whether you want a plain list of catalog links, or a more detailed view of catalog items. 

"Show Heading" tells the CMS whether you want the name of the Program/Course to be displayed in a large font at the top of your component

"Item Type" tells the CMS whether you want to display Programs or Courses

When you select an Item Type, another box will appear.  If you picked Item Type "Programs," the Programs box will appear, and if you picked Item Type "Courses," the Courses box will appear.  Either way, you will need to pick a "Criteria Type."  This basically tells the CMS what attribute you want to filter the Catalog items by.

The two different Criterias available for "Programs" are "Program Type" and "Program Name."

The two different Criterias available for "Courses" are "Course Type" and "Course Prefix."

When you select a Criteria, you will see a dropdown box appear with your choices of Programs/Courses.  You will then be able to select the Programs/Courses you want to display.

After you select an item, you can click "Finish," and Submit the page.  After it is deployed, you will be able to see the content you have chosen appear on the page.  This content is pulled directly from our Catalog system and will always be up-to-date.

*NOTE*: For now, you will not be able to see the Catalog content using the Preview feature of the CMS.  We are looking for a solution to this problem.

The catalog component can be used for specific information about Programs or Courses in the online catalog.  For more general information, say you just want to link to the Catalog home page, just link to http://catalog.umflint.edu.  The catalog home page will always be there.

1. Let's say you want to display a list of all Graduate programs on your website, with the heading "Graduate Programs".  You would add the Catalog component to your page, select "Link" as your Display Mode, set "Show Heading" to "Yes," and your "Item Type" to "Programs."  When the Programs section opens, set "Criteria" to "Program Type," and finally, select "Graduate" from the list of Program Types.

2. Let's say you want to display all course numbers, names, and descriptions for BUS courses.  Here are the choices you would select:

    - Display Mode => "Detail"
    - Show Heading => "No"
    - Item Type => "Courses"
    - Criteria => "Course Prefix"
    - Course Prefix => "BUS"