Before you reuse a CMS entry, decide who can change it

Two branch pages show the same opening hours. Someone puts the hours in one reusable entry in the content management system (CMS) and links both pages to it. A few months later, the South branch stops opening on Saturdays. An editor updates the shared entry, and now both pages show the South branch's hours.

This example is fictional, but it shows a specific modeling decision. The text matched when the pages launched. The facts belonged to different locations and could change on their own.

Reuse links future edits together

In Contentful, a reference links one entry to another. Its documentation explains (opens in a new tab) that updating a reused entry can change every place that uses it, once the published content reaches each page. That is useful when those pages should change together.

The second model still reuses content. If the South branch appears on a landing page and in a directory, both can use the same South Location entry. Its hours have one owner, and the pages that should agree change together.

Contentful lets you define these relationships with content types and fields (opens in a new tab). The useful question is who maintains each fact and which pages should follow an edit. Matching words do not always mean one shared fact. Martin Fowler describes (opens in a new tab) how different parts of an organization can use the same term to mean different things.

Walk through a change before approving the model

Give an editor a realistic request, such as changing one branch's Saturday hours. Ask them to find the entry, say where the change will appear, and preview it. If they cannot tell whether another branch will change too, the model or the editing instructions need work.

The model is ready when an editor can name every page a change will reach before publishing it. For the next reusable entry someone proposes, name its owner and list the pages that should change when it is published.