Staff editing, authentication, and publishing requirements
Discovery date: 2026-09-07. Status: proposed requirements for office-manager validation.
Confirmed scope
The requested replacement must let staff maintain website content using authentication and authorization. The office manager is the user's wife. Existing source code and administrative access are unavailable. No identities, staff counts, identity provider, approval policy, or technical owner have been confirmed. Public inspection cannot establish the current administrative permissions.
Proposed content model
| Content type | Proposed editable fields | Why it is needed |
|---|---|---|
| Practice settings | Approved practice name, address, phone, normal and holiday hours, directions destination, social links | Repeated header/footer information should have one source |
| Service page | Name, existing slug, category, summary, approved clinical copy, image/alt text, related services, CTA, SEO fields | Existing multi-level service hierarchy and mixed URL conventions |
| Dentist / team member | Name, credentials, role, biography, portrait/alt text, display order, active status | Separate dentist and team pages |
| Article | Title, existing slug, body, author, publication/review dates, category, hero/alt text, related service, SEO | Substantial existing blog archive |
| Promotion / savings plan | Offer, eligibility, approved prices, exclusions, start/end dates, CTA, approval reference | Homepage promotion, VIP Savings Plan, giveaway and sponsorship |
| Gallery case | Before/after pair, meaningful labels, treatment category, display order, rights/consent verification status | Clinical gallery imagery must be paired correctly and approved for reuse |
| Office tour / media | Approved images and videos, captions, alt text, poster, order, rights owner | Tour and embedded videos |
| Policy page | Approved copy, effective/review dates, approving owner | Multiple linked policy/disclaimer pages |
| Navigation and SEO redirects | Labels, hierarchy, source path, target path, reason, review state | Existing menus and URL migration |
Assumption A1: use constrained content fields and approved page sections so routine edits do not require code or allow arbitrary scripts. Assumption A2: staff need mobile/desktop previews and a media library. Assumption A3: content editing and handling patient inquiries are separate permission domains; website editors do not automatically receive form submissions.
Proposed role matrix
These are capabilities to agree, not existing or already provisioned roles. One person may hold more than one role if explicitly approved.
| Capability | Staff editor | Office manager / publisher | Clinical reviewer | Technical administrator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read public website | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Read drafts / previews | Assigned content | All marketing content | Clinical content | As needed for support |
| Draft approved page types / upload approved media | Yes | Yes | Clinical copy | Support only |
| Approve clinical claims / treatment copy | No | Only if also authorized reviewer | Yes | No by default |
| Publish routine content | No by default | Yes | Only if also publisher | Emergency support, recorded |
| Publish clinical copy | No | After recorded clinical approval | Review; publishing permission separate | No bypass by default |
| Change offers / prices / policies | Draft only | After designated owner approval | Relevant clinical review | No editorial approval by default |
| Manage staff invitations / disable access | No | If designated account owner | No | Yes under owner policy |
| Configure integrations / deployments / credentials | No | Business approval | No | Yes |
| Export inquiry or patient data | No | Separate explicit role, if required | No by default | No by default |
| Hard-delete content / audit history | No | Retire content through workflow | No | Restricted recovery procedure |
Authentication and authorization acceptance criteria (proposed)
- Named accounts; no shared office password. Invite-only staff membership, owner-approved role assignment, prompt offboarding and session revocation.
- Confirm existing Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace identity and MFA preferences before selecting login technology. Document recovery and a backup account owner.
- Enforce permissions on the server and CMS APIs as well as the editor UI. Hiding a Publish button is insufficient.
- Anonymous requests cannot read drafts, private media, staff accounts, audit records, or inquiry data. Preview links are authenticated or scoped, short-lived, revocable, and excluded from indexing.
- An editor cannot elevate their role, publish through an alternate API, change an approved redirect, or insert an arbitrary external script. A publisher cannot unintentionally gain infrastructure access.
- Record actor, time, content revision, approval, and publication action. Retain enough revision history to recover an accidental edit; agree retention rather than inventing it.
- Role tests use synthetic content in a separate environment later: draft/edit, forbidden publish, approved publish, rollback, offboarding, and draft access denied for anonymous visitors.
Proposed publishing workflow
Draft → review requested → clinical/business approval when applicable → manager preview → publish or schedule → verify public page → retain recoverable revision.
An edit after approval returns the affected revision to review. Offer expiry and holiday hours should be scheduled if staff need that feature. Publishing must expose clear success/failure and time-to-live expectations, including cache refresh or build failures. Define who may issue urgent office-closure notices and who covers absences.
Editing scenarios to validate before CMS selection
- Change Friday hours, preview the header/footer/contact impact, publish, then restore.
- Replace a staff portrait with alt text and reorder team members without disturbing the layout.
- Draft a service change; demonstrate clinical review and denial of unauthorized publication.
- Add a dated promotion that disappears when it expires.
- Add a gallery case only after verifying the right to reuse the images and the practice's publication approval.
- Publish an article with its correct author, date, canonical URL and internal links.
- Retire an old page with an approved destination and no redirect chain.
Unknowns: who edits today, staff skill level, edit frequency, number of seats, approval turnaround, ability to work from phones, languages, simultaneous editing, account recovery, contractor access, and whether staff need inquiry management at all.