Carnegie Mellon University

Cascade Commons

Your home for Student Affairs website management resources

The Thread  ›  Student Affairs (Internal)  ›  Marketing & Communications  ›  Cascade CMS Training and Resources

Welcome to the Student Affairs Cascade resource hub.

Whether you’re new to Cascade or just need a refresher, you’ll find the guides, videos, training materials and tips you need to manage your website with confidence.

Start with Cascade 101 for an overview of how the CMS works, or jump directly to a topic you need help with. You’ll find guidance on everything from formatting pages and uploading images to accessibility, SEO and content strategy.

Not sure where to start? Begin with the resources here, and if you still can’t find what you need, bring your question to a Cascade office hours session.

Resources

Cascade Happy Hour: Fall 2026 Sessions

  • Logging in
  • Navigating Cascade
  • Site architecture
  • Pages vs. folders vs. assets
  • Working with blocks/components
  • Publishing 
  • Version history / reverting
  • Page structure
  • Components
  • Headings
  • Lists
  • Tables
  • Page titles
  • Search-friendly URLs
  • Image sizing
  • Compression
  • Cropping
  • File naming
  • Alt text
  • Accessibility
  • Uploading/replacing files
  • Recommended image dimensions for different placements
  • JPG vs. PNG vs. WebP
  • Uploading PDFs
  • Naming PDFs
  • Reducing PDF size
  • SEO fundamentals
  • Calls to action
  • Keeping pages current
  • Headings
  • Link text
  • Alt text
  • Accessible PDFs
  • Auditing your site
  • Finding outdated content
  • Broken links
  • Updating profiles
  • What to do when something changes
  • Updating faculty/staff information
  • Updating dates
  • Updating contact information
  • Updating policies
  • Maintaining department information

Existing CMU Cascade Resources

Carnegie Mellon University's CMS team has created resources, how-tos and guidelines for using Cascade. This is not a comprehensive rundown of everything Cascade can do (and everything that will cause you problems) but it's a good place to start when troubleshooting an issue with your site.