Structure of a FirstSpirit Web Project

A FirstSpirit project can contain multiple websites—for example, a faculty with several departments or chairs.

These individual websites share the same project settings, a centralized news board (with news and events that can be displayed on any site within the project), a shared person management system, and centralized administration.

In coordination with your project administrator or coordinator, the appropriate location for your website within the FirstSpirit environment will be determined.

Blueprint Bundle (BPB)

The so‑called “Blueprint Bundle” is the pre‑configured template that every website within a FirstSpirit project receives. It includes all the technical components and templates necessary to help you get up and running quickly with website creation.

Roles and Responsibilities

Within a FirstSpirit project, there are various areas of responsibility and associated roles. An overview of the key points of contact can be found under Support & Contact.

The project administration, or “project admin” for short, handles the technical and administrative tasks within the web project. This person works closely with the Internet Services technical team. Typically, there is one project admin per web project.

Responsibilities include:

Organizing and managing user administration across the entire web project
Approving requests for new websites
Working, if necessary, in the SiteArchitect and ServerManager tools

Special Case for Cross‑Unit Projects
In so‑called “cross‑unit” projects that are not directly assigned to a specific organizational unit, the technical and administrative tasks are handled by Division VI.5 Internet Services.

In addition to the technical roles tied to permissions in the WCMS, there are organizational roles that coordinate the implementation of the website or the entire web project. This role can be combined with that of the project admin.

Responsibilities include:

Acts as the primary point of contact for the faculty and channels inquiries within the institution
Coordinates, if necessary, the entire relaunch project within the faculty/institution with relevant content providers (e.g. departments, program coordinators) as well as faculty-internal decision-makers
Coordinates content analysis, content strategy, and information architecture within the web project and associated websites
Is responsible for content in terms of accessibility, SEO optimization, and accurate translations
Consolidates inquiries and requests from editors and forwards them to Division VI.5 Internet Services

For executing a web relaunch—for example, for a department—you need a site coordinator. Unlike the project coordinator, the site coordinator is responsible only for their own web presence. This role works in close coordination with the project admin and/or project coordinator.

Responsibilities include:

Serves as the point of contact for a FirstSpirit website
Coordinates the web relaunch for a department or academic entity
Oversees the content analysis, content strategy, and information architecture for that web presence
Is responsible for content regarding accessibility, SEO optimization, and correct translations

After completing the FirstSpirit training, editors receive permissions to work on the website. They create, edit, and deliver content in coordination with the site coordinator.

Responsibilities include:

Creating and deleting new pages
Writing, modifying, and publishing content on existing pages
Uploading images and documents
Adding people and news items
Editing and creating forms, where they have the respective permissions

Domain Concept – What URL Will Your Website Receive?

At the beginning, please coordinate directly with your project administration or coordination to determine in which FirstSpirit project your website will be placed. Only then can the specific URL be defined.

Note: Email domains and functional email addresses are issued independently of the domains or URLs used for websites created in FirstSpirit.

In particular, no rights to identical email domains or functional email addresses can be derived from the web presences created in FirstSpirit. If you require an email domain or a functional email address (e.g. as a contact email address for a conference), please contact your IT-Service group or the LRZ-Master-User of your institution.

Domain Rules for the URL

The leading URL is defined by the FirstSpirit project. For example: www.som.lmu.de. This is agreed upon with LMU’s Hostmaster.

Websites within the project receive a corresponding URL following the format:
https://[Domain]/[DirectoryName]/[Language]

Example: https://www.som.lmu.de/ai/en/index.htm

Naming Conventions

The name must comply with the guidelines for domain allocation as outlined in the naming policy.
The name must be unique within the FirstSpirit project. That means you cannot have multiple web presences with the same name within a project.
The name must be identical in both the German and English versions of the site—even if you implement the second language later.
Example: www.lmu.de/frauenbeauftragte/de/ for the german version. www.lmu.de/frauenbeauftragte/en for the english version.
No umlauts, special characters, or spaces are allowed (a hyphen “-” is permitted).

Relaunch from Fiona to FirstSpirit

The previous subdomain used in Fiona can generally be adopted as the directory name:

Example of previous URLs: www.softmatter.physik.lmu.de and www.en.softmatter.physik.lmu.de
Example of new URLs: www.physik.lmu.de/softmatter/de and www.physik.lmu.de/softmatter/en
During the transition phase, Redirects can be set up.

Individual or short-URLs can also be used, which then point to corresponding pages within the project.

Special Case: Cross-Unit Websites

For websites that cannot clearly be assigned to one of the major institutional units, there are cross-unit FirstSpirit projects. These accommodate institutions or projects that are organized across multiple faculties.

he decision about whether, and in which project, a website will be placed is made on an individual basis in coordination with the LMU hostmaster.

Special Features of Cross-Unit Websites:

The URL is located directly under lmu.de, e.g., lmu.de/mycenter
The same URL naming rules apply as in regular projects (see above), with the exception that the chosen website name must be unique not just within the FirstSpirit project (e.g., www.som.lmu.de), but across the entire web ecosystem of all websites located directly under lmu.de. Coordination with the LMU hostmaster is therefore especially important.
Data sets (e.g., people, events, news, media) cannot be shared with other organizational units (e.g., a cross-faculty project between Mathematics and Literary Studies cannot access data sets from either faculty), but data sets can be shared within a cross-unit project (e.g., between several centers).
There are no defined project admins for cross-unit websites, but instead site coordinators who manage their own websites. Individual customizations to the website or project (e.g., custom permission concepts, global page customizations) are not possible. The website receives standard support from Division VI.5.

Prodlink – Preview Link

During the setup phase, your website is not yet publicly visible.
However, through the so-called Prodlink (preview link), you can already see how the website will look later. This allows you to monitor progress or share the link with supervisors and colleagues.

You also need the Prodlink for the final quality assurance (self-check), for example, to verify content, structure, and design before publication.

The link is generated automatically as soon as the Blueprintbundle for your website is set up and sent to you via email. If you no longer have the Prodlink, you can request it again fromi Department VI.5 Internet Services.

Note: The Prodlink is not accessible to the public world; it is only accessible from within the Munich Science Network. If needed, enable the EduVPN client to access the web presence. Instructions for the EduVPN client from the IT Service Desk.

Languages

The internationalization of LMU is supported by a one-to-one language switch between German and English content. All websites in FirstSpirit offer the option to set up this bilingual structure in German and English.

Master Language

For each FirstSpirit project, a master language is defined, which can be either German or English.

The master language is the language that is shown by default when users access the site.
In your blueprint bundle, the master language is automatically activated for all pages you create. The second language is initially deactivated and must be consciously activated by you for each page.

Organizational units that primarily communicate in German and only create few websites and content in English choose German as the master language. Organizational units that primarily communicate in English accordingly choose English as the master language.

During the scoping discussion at the conception phase of the project, the master language is coordinated with the project leaders and is then fixed permanently.

Yes, it is possible — but a few things need to be considered in practice.

Background:
Both languages are generally available in all FirstSpirit projects. However, the master language is displayed by default and is also automatically activated for all pages in the editorial system. The second language is initially deactivated.

Example:
Faculty XY: Most departments in the faculty primarily communicate in English. The majority of the pages are intended to be in English, with only a few individual pages in German. Therefore, the faculty decided to set English as the master language for its FirstSpirit project.

Since English is the master language, when new pages are created in the editorial system, the English version is automatically activated, and the German version is deactivated.

But: There is a Department of Didactics within the faculty that communicates exclusively in German. This is possible even with English as the master language!

For all pages of the department, the editorial team must manually deactivate the English (master) language.
The German language must then be manually activated.

Yes, this is possible. For the go-live, please tell us via the go-live form which languages should go online. Languages that you do not specify in the form will be deactivated by us for the entire website and can be reactivated later if needed.

Instructions for this can be found in our WCMS Wiki on Bayerncollab/Confluence

Structure of a FirstSpirit Web Project

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