This section defines essential ATG content development terms.
Assets
Assets are persistent, publishable objects that are used by one or more ATG applications. ATG Content Administration supports two kinds of assets:
If a file asset is created in an external application, you can upload the file into ATG Content Administration. Users can edit the item either through the ATG Business Control Center or by downloading the file, changing it and uploading the file again.
In this guide, asset refers generally to repository and file assets. The terms file asset and repository asset are used for more specific references.
For technical information on file and repository assets, see the chapter Understanding the Content Development Environment in this guide. For information on working with assets in the ATG Business Control Center, see the chapter Creating and Managing Assets in the ATG Content Administration Guide for Business Users.
Project
A project is a persistent entity that encompasses additions, changes and deletions to a set of assets. Each project moves independently through a workflow that typically includes these basic stages:
Development
Staging/QA
Live deployment of project’s assets
For more information, see the Creating and Managing Projects chapter in the ATG Content Administration Guide for Business Users.
Project objects are defined by the project itemdescriptor in the publishing.xml repository definition file, located in:
<ATG2007.3dir>\Publishing\base\config\atg\epub
Process
A process acts a project’s parent object. A process has its own workflow, which invokes the subordinate project workflow. For more information, see Process Workflows.
Process objects are defined by the process itemdescriptor in the publishing.xml repository definition file.
Versioning
Content administration servers maintain versions of all assets, to ensure that the latest changes are deployed to target sites, and to facilitate multi-user access to the same assets. For more information, see Versioning Assets.
Workflow
Workflows define and control the user tasks that make up a project and modify its state. Workflows also define actions that are triggered by state changes, such as workspace check-in, email notification, and tagging of versions for deployment. For more information, see Adapting Workflows to Content Management Projects.
Task
A task is a step in a workflow, such as Author, Review, or Deploy. For more information, see the Managing Tasks chapter in the ATG Content Administration Guide for Business Users.
Deployment
ATG Content Administration defines a standard deployment model that incorporates server clusters for production, staging, and development. Several default workflows are provided with ATG Content Administration that let you fine-tune the deployment process for your business environment. For example, you can choose to deploy to several servers at the same time, or you can choose a model that lets you review assets on a staging or production server before checking them into the versioning system.
The ATG Business Control Center permits any authorized user to monitor and manage deployment, down to the granularity of a single project. For more information, see the Understanding Deployment chapter.
