Deploying Contribute and website connections

To set up Contribute users, you need to make sure that every user has Contribute installed on their machine. Then, you need to provide them with the basic site connection information for the web server. You do this by sending them a connection key.

Contribute lets you share website connection information by embedding website information in a connection-key file. Because the connection key is encrypted with a password, any network or File Transfer Protocol (FTP) login information you send in the file remains secure and can be accessed only through Contribute. You can either e‑mail the file to users, or save it to your computer for users to download and import.

After receiving a connection key, a user double-clicks it to start the connection process. Because the file is encrypted, the user must know the password that the administrator defined for the key. Connection keys also specify what role settings to apply. When the user supplies the correct password, Contribute automatically makes a connection to the site and allows page edits as defined for the associated Contribute role.

If you are using CPS to manage users, you must add users to your website before they can connect and begin using Contribute to edit the website (see Adding users to your website (CPS only)). After you have added users to the website, you can send them a connection key to connect.

You can also have users type connect:server domain name (where server domain name is the name of the server where CPS is installed) in the Contribute browser address bar to connect to the website.

The procedure for sending a connection key varies depending on whether you are using CPS to manage your website or not. If you’re not using CPS, see Sending connection keys for websites. If you are using CPS to manage users, see Sending connections for CPS managed sites.

• Sending connection keys for websites
• Sending connections for CPS managed sites