Leveraging the power of Gato CMS

In June 2023, the Division of Information Technology unveiled an updated version of Gato, Texas State’s official content management system (CMS) for administrative and academic websites. The robust system boasts many new and improved features that are making waves here at the university for their beneficial impact on the editing experience.

Feature highlights

A project years in the making, our Mobile/Web Systems team completely overhauled the system powering Gato – Magnolia CMS – and rebuilt the system from the ground up. Here are notable features from the June release:

• Drag and drop – You can quickly move content (sections, layouts, and more) across pages without being confined to the same column or section, making editing much faster and more efficient.
• Version history – You’ll never lose an edit with the new version history feature! Each time a change is made, Gato automatically creates a new page version. You can roll back changes or compare page versions as needed.
• Side-by-side page edit comparisons – See your latest changes against a live page to ensure your editing needs are complete before you publish.

These are just a few highlights, and there are many more! For the complete listing of updated features, tips on how to view them, and FAQs, visit the What’s New in Gato page on the IT Assistance Center website.

Making an impact

It’s only been a month since the new release, but it’s already making an impact. Twister Marquiss, marketing and communications manager for Texas State’s McCoy College of Business, has been a Gato user since its inception in the early 2000s. A bonafide superuser, Twister managed forty of the university’s websites during his tenure as director of the Common Experience. He’s seen several iterations of Gato and calls this one “fantastic.”

The drag-and-drop feature has been a tremendous help to Twister, making a breeze out of a previously time-consuming task.

“One of the things we have to update constantly is the McCoy College Newsroom, and the way that it’s set up is just blocks, and moving things from one column to another could take 10-15 minutes per news update. So, you know, we lost significant portions of our lives just updating the news,” joked Twister.

“But I updated our Instagram links page with the drag and drop. Instead of building a link tree, we built a web page in Gato that our Instagram connects to, and it’s the same thing – just columns. I updated the whole thing in 60 seconds. Not 10-15 minutes, 60 seconds. That was the thing that I’d hoped for four years ago. So, it’s a big relief.”

Nichole Black works alongside Twister in the McCoy College of Business. As a digital marketing strategist, she oversees online advertising efforts for their graduate programs. In her tandem role as an editor for all McCoy College of Business websites, she uses Gato daily. Nichole shares Twister’s enthusiasm for the drag-and-drop feature.

“It is like night and day! It’s almost been difficult to adjust to it because I’m so used to copying and pasting or moving something in the old-fashioned way. But now that I can drag and drop, it’s so quick. I’m just not used to it yet. That’s probably the best part so far,” Nichole said.

Words of wisdom

Twister and Nichole also shared some words of wisdom for fellow Gato users. Twister alludes to the importance of brand identity and recognition.

“A lot of new users get frustrated when they look at their site and say, ‘Ours looks like everyone else’s.’ Yes, there’s a reason for that! They look at their site, and I think they want it to do more. They want it to look different, and they don’t think about it the way that a high school student, somebody looking at a graduate program, or anybody from the outside looking at our websites for the first time and knowing that they need to see the brand to recognize that it’s Texas State.”

“There’s a lot you can do with Gato. Pages do not have to all look alike; let the content management system do the work for you.”

Nichole reassures users it’s okay to take things slowly.

“Take your time and learn all the different processes. It doesn’t have to be done in a minute. It can take a little bit of time to get the groove of everything, and it’s important to have the most functional and user-friendly page possible and ensure that all the functions and features are working seamlessly together. You don’t want to throw something together really quickly and hit publish. It’s better if you take your time and go step by step and have a better product to look at in the end.”

Resources

Are you a current or potential Gato user? Visit the Gato Content Management Support website for training information, release notes, and more. Keep an eye out this fall because we’ll share more about the Gato project here on the DOIT Blog in the coming months.

Angela Smith is a marketing and promotions coordinator for the IT Marketing and Communications Office.