Features

Everything you need to create, manage and host your content.


Content editing

Click-to-configure editing interfaces

Build well-designed and functioning websites with a few clicks of your mouse. Human-friendly interfaces for page editing and website configuration let you control your site using text and image inputs, checkboxes, selection lists, and radio buttons. No coding needed!

24 widgets to choose from

Create engaging user experiences using a wide range of configurable widgets. Including ones for text editing, page listings, banners, slideshows, image galleries, and webforms

 

Content workflow

Work on a new draft of a page while a published version exists. When you publish the draft, it'll automatically replace the previous published version. If you need to view an older version of the page, you can view the page's revision history

Create listings to signpost content to your visitors

Use listings to highlight themed content to your website's visitors. Create listings that filter content by page type, show a hand-picked page selection, show custom-made listing items, or pull in content from three different feed types

 

Create page templates

Set up templates for frequently created page types, like blog articles and profile pages. Templates make sure these pages have the same layout and widgets, and let your site's editors get on with making content with a consistent look and feel

Reusable content blocks

Create a block of one or more widgets that can be added to multiple places on your site. When you edit the original reusable block, the edits will be seen in all the other places the reusable block is used

 

Make pages by copying existing ones

Make an exact copy of a page. Once the copy is created, you can edit it without affecting the original page. Great for when you need to create a new page with a similar layout and content as an existing one

Share draft preview links with stakeholders

Generate a time-limited link for viewing a draft version of a page without logging in. The preview link stops working seven days after being created. Great for showing content to stakeholders before publishing

 

Advanced webforms

Use a range of webform components, conditional logic and bespoke email notifications to create user-friendly forms to manage bookings, newsletter sign ups, and more. All forms are protected by Google reCAPTCHA security by default

Export page content as XML and RSS feeds

Make your content available to other services by setting up an XML or RSS export feed

 

Tools to help you make accessible content

Tools to help you create content that meets AA and AAA accessibility standards — including colour contrast checker, automatically add Alt Text to images, and an accessibility checker in the text editor

 

 


Content management

Manage content by page type

No rigid folder structures here. Manage content flexibly using four main page types — article, event, person, basic page. Subcategorise your pages further into custom subtypes to easily sort your content and create listings based on common themes

Easy to manage site navigation

You can manage your site's navigation in two places: use the site-wide content management settings to change the order and structure of the menu links; use individual page settings to add and remove pages from the menu

 

Tag pages using custom taxonomies

Setup your own tag categories — or 'taxonomies' — and apply the terms you create to your pages. Use taxonomies to add an extra layer of filtering to your listings, and to give your website visitors a chance to filter listing results for topics they're interested in

Share pages with other Mosaic websites

Make your pages available for other Mosaic sites to use. When another site displays one of your pages, the page content will be rendered using that site's styling — but you keep control of content editing

 

User-friendly URLs automatically created for your pages — and add custom aliases

Human-friendly URL aliases are automatically created for your pages, based on their titles. Need to make a shorter page URL for that marketing email? You can also add as many custom URL aliases as you need for your pages

Restrict page visibility to Oxford SSO users or to University staff

To improve the user experience for non-University users, you can restrict viewing of a limited number of pages relevant only to University users — either all Oxford SSO users or just University staff

 

Create profile pages for University members and let them do the editing

Use the Person page type and page templates to generate profile pages for people in you unit. Add an SSO ID to each page, and let that person add their own content to it

 

 


Integrations with University systems

Display Symplectic publications data

Use the Publications listing widget to automatically display an SSO user's publications directly from Symplectic Elements. You can also display a group of SSO users' publications in one listing

Display job vacancies directly from CoreHR

Use the Vacancy listing widget to show current job adverts directly from the University's vacancies system

 

Display event information from OxTalks

Use dedicated item styles to display OxTalks event information in listing widgets

 

 


Site styling options

Choose from 8 pre-made colour settings...

Need to get a site setup quickly? Pick one of the eight pre-made settings and all your interface elements will be consistently styled for you

...or use granular colour and font management options

Have specific branding requirements? Use more than 200 colour and font settings to tailor your site's design

 

Tailor your site's theme

Apply your branding using site-wide theming options, including desktop and mobile header styles, custom logos, footer layout and site navigation styles

22 item styles for listing widgets

Select from 22 item styles to display your listing widget content in the Grid, List, Slideshow, Banner and Carousel widgets

 

Sites look great on all devices

Fully-responsive, Bootstrap-based theme means your website looks great whether your visitors are using a desktop or a mobile device

 

 


Website administration

User management integrated with Oxford SSO

Adding people to your website editing team is as easy as abcd1234 — just enter their Oxford SSO IDs

4 levels of user permissions

Manage what your website team can do using 4 levels of user permissions, from content contributor to the full range of admin rights

 

All sites get a platform web address by default

Every site gets created with its own web address — in the format mysite.web.ox.ac.uk. You choose what's in the mysite part and once created, your can edit and publish on that address

Add a custom web address to your site

Want a custom web address or already have one? You can add up to 2 custom domains to your site and use one of them as the main public facing address

 

Let your visitors search across content on multiple Mosaic sites

Set up search collections that not only search content on your site but also find relevant content on other Mosaic sites. Useful when your unit is operating several Mosaic sites and you want your visitors to find the right content regardless of which site they visit first

Create editor accounts for non-Oxford SSO users

Need to add a person who doen't have an Oxford SSO ID to your website team? You can create non-SSO user accounts for your site

 

Add analytics tracking

If you have Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager accounts, you can easily add your GA and GTM tracking IDs to your site and track traffic

Create redirect rules to manage your content migration

Add rules to redirect specific URL aliases to external URLs. Useful when your website migration to Mosaic includes links to content that has moved elsewhere

 

Customise your 'page not found' message

Customise what your visitors see when they hit the 'page not found' message — it could be a site map, links to commonly requested pages, or a Rickroll

Own your site's launch process

Your site is hidden from search engines by default. Once you're finished building and ready to launch, make it visible to search engine indexing

 


Secure & cost-effective hosting

Hosted in the Acquia Cloud

Mosaic is hosted in Acquia's Cloud platform. We get 24/7 support from the Drupal-hosting specialists to help make sure your website is available all the time. The servers that host Mosaic are located in the EU, making our data processing GDPR compliant

All sites are delivered over HTTPS

Whether creating content or browsing a site, all pages on Mosaic are delivered over HTTPS to make sure your and your visitors' information is secure

 

4 charging tiers — starting at free — and no extra costs

Four charging tiers based on: number of pages, amount of disk space used, page requests per quarter — that's it, no extra costs. Sites are free to setup and stay free in the first charging tier

Regular patform backups

All Mosaic sites are backed up regularly on the Acquia Cloud

 

Newly-developed features are rolled out to everyone

When new features are built for Mosaic, they are rolled out to every site on the platform — at no extra charge to you

 

 


In-house support

Wealth of online resources to get started

Documentation, how-to guides, a Pattern Book of widget examples, training videos and more — all ready to use when you need them

Dedicated user support

Report issues, request changes for your site, and ask questions directly to the Mosaic team using our contact form. If you're currently working on a Mosaic site and have content build questions, you can speak to a member of the team in a consultation session

 

In-house development and maintenance

Mosaic is built and maintained by the Oxford Mosaic Web Platform team within the University's IT Services department. Mosaic is dedicated to being a web publishing solution that works for all members of the University

Built and tested to meet WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards

Accessibility testing is built into the Mosaic team's development process. We make sure all code related accessibility issues are prioritised and fixed as soon as possible