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Conference Schedule

We want to extend a big thank you to all of our amazing customers and partners who submitted a proposal to speak at this year's event. We've prepared a balance of topics for both Cascade CMS beginners and highly-technical users, as well as discussions about digital strategy and content marketing.

Please note that this is a tentative schedule subject to change.

All times are Eastern Time Zone.

Monday, February 20

Time Title Speaker
10:00 AM SOLD OUT Workshop: Workflow (half day)
Get more familiar with workflows and the new workflow enhancements within Cascade that can streamline your team’s processes. Within this session, we will build a basic “approval” workflow that can be leveraged across your team’s site(s) for page creation/edits/deletions and publishing. Empower your users to manage their own content while still maintaining control over the outcome! *Please note, there is a maximum attendance limit of 30 for the one-day workshops, so we encourage you to sign-up quickly if interested.
Rebecca Crow and Matt Shirey, Hannon Hill
10:00 AM SOLD OUT Workshop: Implementing a Website in Cascade (full day)
An efficient and flexible approach to implementing a website in Cascade. Go from HTML code to a fully functioning website while learning velocity with objects (Internal Cascade API) and developer techniques, such as: using setup blocks, macros, shared system assets, and fields. *Please note, there is a maximum attendance limit of 30 for the one-day workshops, so we encourage you to sign-up quickly if interested.
Fernando Blanco and Elisabeth Hutzel, Hannon Hill
1:00 PM Lunch
1:45 PM SOLD OUT Workshop: Best Practices for Cascade Governance (half day)
As a CMS platform, there are many ways to implement a Cascade environment. How should your current content be divided into sites? One site or many? What are the considerations for publishing and for managing content providers? How should one organize and manage blocks, images, and other similar content? What is the best mix of groups and roles? Here we present some of the best practices for handling these basic implementation challenges in Cascade. *Please note, there is a maximum attendance limit of 30 for the one-day workshops, so we encourage you to sign-up quickly if interested.
Sam Skinner and Matt Shirey, Hannon Hill
1:45 PM SOLD OUT Workshop: Implementing a Website in Cascade (full day)
An efficient and flexible approach to implementing a website in Cascade. Go from HTML code to a fully functioning website while learning velocity with objects (Internal Cascade API) and developer techniques, such as: using setup blocks, macros, shared system assets, and fields. *Please note, there is a maximum attendance limit of 30 for the one-day workshops, so we encourage you to sign-up quickly if interested.
Fernando Blanco and Elisabeth Hutzel, Hannon Hill

Tuesday, February 21

Time Title Speaker
10:00 AM Welcome Message Kat Liendgens, Hannon Hill
10:05 AM Accessible Accordions: Using data definitions, velocity, and little bit of JS to get there.
We'll walk through the remediation work we recently undertook to make our accordion components more accessible to all users and especially to folks who rely on assistive technologies such as screen readers. From creating the right structure in the data definition to rendering the necessary markup in Velocity to the lightweight JavaScript required to make the component accessible and interactive, we'll cover each step with code examples.
Winston Churchill-Joell, Sarah Lawrence College
10:05 AM Using Personalization to Optimize the Enrollment Funnel
Following a successful site launch, The University of New Mexico’s College of Pharmacy (COP) was ready to take the next step with Clive personalization. After reviewing several strategy options and prioritizing personalization paths, COP started with a focus on attracting talent to their doctoral program. In this session, we will cover: - How to get started with Clive - How to determine "what" to personalize - Understanding the user journey process for personalization - Setup lessons learned - Outcomes and feedback on new enhancements
Sandra Fancher, Stamats & Jose Rodriguez, University of New Mexico
11:00 AM Planning Components in a Design Language Systems
The session will cover Fractal, the Design Language System (DLS) we chose to house the web components, which we contracted with a design company. The session will also cover how we take components from the DLS and build them out in Cascade with what we learned in the Advanced Velocity course at Cascade Conference 2021. Other items covered will be: how we chose Fractal and how we structured our project, hosting the project on GitHub, how we track issues in GitHub, GitHub Actions, and how we mark items completed once we move components to Cascade.
Lallo Vigil, The University of Texas at San Antonio
11:00 AM Strategies for a Higher Ed Website Redesign
A web overhaul for any size institution is a daunting task. Having been a part of five higher-ed redesigns, Narmata Naguleswaran will share her top learnings and challenges faced during these projects to help future project leaders. The session will include tips on getting buy-in, the steps to build a solid strategy, defining project goals, and sticking to them. In today's evolving digital world, it's important to stay on top of digital trends while ensuring accessibility and user experience is complimented and not compromised. Narmata will share insights on best practices from her current projects and approaches she's taken to ensure that these three are kept at the forefront. She will also highlight ways to think outside the box to build a user-centric experience that speaks to our target audience, as well as the importance of taking risks and non-traditional approaches.
Narmata Naguleswaran, Western University
11:55 AM Exploring Digital Signage
In this session, I will show you a few creative ways Cascade can be utilized to manage web-based digital signage. Everything from feed blocks to pulling the latest athletic event information to data definitions that give users control over their department’s sign and even using the Cascade REST API to manage the day’s menu items.
Chris Halper, Concordia University Wisconsin
12:45 AM Lunch
1:45 PM Make it easy: Creating user-friendly component-based page templates
At Texas A&M University Libraries, new pages took too long to create. As a solution, we created a component-based template to allow users to create pages quickly. The template improves quality control and standardization and makes creating pages user-friendly. This session will go over the tools used to create these templates, the design process, and the impact they have had on the Libraries’ website.
Michael Nichols, Texas A&M University Libraries
1:45 PM How to Use Your College Website to Enhance Enrollment
In this session, I will give an overview of creating an enrollment-focused website experience for your prospective audiences. We'll take a look at it from traditional undergrad, degree completion, and graduate programs. Join us for a very practical and applicable session.
Bart Caylor, Caylor Solutions
2:40 PM Page Components - Easier Editing for the Common User
Wish your users had more power over their own pages but find they lack the ability to do everything they want? Discover how Reed College leveraged Page Regions and Data Definitions to give users a modular and flexible way to create complex web elements like accordions, tabs, and page navigation without complex training or the need for technical help.
Erik Gorka, Reed College
2:40 PM How Cascade can help with SEO
In this session, Hannon Hill's Head of Success, Charlie Holder, will share SEO concepts and how those tie into specific Cascade CMS features. He will also reveal how to leverage these features to accomplish objectives.
Charlie Holder, Hannon Hill
3:30 PM Break
3:40 PM #CUC23 Cassie Award Ceremony
We’re excited to announce the return of the annual Cassie Awards. Let’s celebrate our customers, who are doing amazing things with Cascade and with their website, by recognizing them at the virtual Cassie Award Ceremony as part of our User Conference in February.
Chris Rapozo and Rebekah Langston, Hannon Hill

Wednesday, February 22

Time Title Speaker
10:00 AM Cascade CMS & Clive Roadmap
The Product Roadmap has been one of the most highly anticipated sessions for many years. Hannon Hill’s VP of Product, Bradley Wagner, and CEO Kat Liendgens will share our product philosophy and themes, provide a quick summary of recently released features, and give attendees a sneak peek into what’s on the horizon for Cascade CMS and Clive.
Kat Liendgens & Bradley Wagner, Hannon Hill
11:05 AM Recent Releases
Join Charlie Holder, Hannon Hill's Head of Success, as he will walk you through recently-released features, polishes, and fixes in Cascade CMS and Clive.
Charlie Holder, Hannon Hill
12:15 PM Lunch
1:15 PM Academic Programs Web Redesign and JSON driven search utility
Recently redesigned a template to drive our academic program pages and added a JSON driven search utility for quick and easy searching. This might be old hat to some, but worked well for us. The url for the finished product is https://www.geneva.edu/academics/programs/
Michael Duncan & Caleb Hyatt, Geneva College
2:10 PM What We Do Differently: Thoughts After 12 Years of Using Cascade CMS
The University of Western Ontario began using Cascade CMS in early 2009. Fast forward to the summer of 2022 and we have 795 sites and 1282 users in Cascade and ongoing requests for new sites and new users to be added. After 12 years of experience with Cascade, there are a few things we would consider doing differently if we were just starting out on our CMS journey. This session will highlight what has worked well for us and our users, what we are in the process of changing and what we are considering changing in the future.
Judy Steward, University of Western Ontario
3:00 PM Break
3:10 PM SEO: the balance of technical and content
To make a sound SEO strategy, you must focus on both the technical and the content. Underperforming on either makes it challenging to perform well across the board. We will discuss the fundamentals of a sound technical and content strategy to make a well-performing enterprise SEO strategy, key areas of an academic program SEO content strategy, and how to get the work done.
Matt Herzberger, VisionPoint Marketing
4:05 PM Hannon Hill & Beacon Technologies Live Round Table Discussion
To keynote #CUC23, experts from Hannon Hill and Beacon Technologies come together to share their thoughts and predictions on Higher Education Web Trends for 2023 and beyond. Troy Singer, co-host of the Higher Ed Marketer Podcast, will moderate the roundtable discussion.
Team HH & Team Beacon