How the “Offered by” and “Organization(s)” fields work

All content types in the CMS have an "Organization(s)” field on the first tab where you can list 1 or more Mass.gov organizations as the owners of that page. Visitors will see the organizations entered in that field in the “Offered by” area at the top of the page, along with a link to the Organization page(s).

The field has a few purposes, some for CMS users and some for Mass.gov visitors. For visitors, it signals ownership. They can quickly and easily see what organization is responsible for this content and who to contact with questions. It will also determine what organizations appear as options for any scoped searches from that page.

Within the CMS, any search that is filtered or narrowed by Organization uses this field to show the pages in the search results. The Organization field also determines what pages are listed in the Organization Dashboard when it is filtered by organization.

Which organizations should appear in the Organization(s) field?

Usually, it’s clear what should go in this field: The organization that owns the content. We strongly recommend using only one organization so visitors to the page aren’t confused. More than one organization may cause them to wonder who the primary owner of the content is and potentially lead them away from the information that they’re looking for.

There are some limited cases when adding a second organization is the right choice for your page. If you’re doing this, our recommendation is to limit that second organization to the main Service page of the content only. Then, on the child pages, limit it to just the main organization to prevent confusion. As well, keep the list as short as possible and make sure the most relevant organization is listed first. You should also provide clear contact information to the page so that visitors can easily know who to reach out to and how if they have questions.

Some reasons to include more than 1 organization include:

• If the organization is small or has a small presence on Mass.gov

• If the content is truly shared by more than 1 organization, even if there is a primary organization creating the page

• If the working relationship between the organization and its parent organization is especially close and includes a lot of overlap

• If you’re getting feedback on your pages relative to parent organization

• If it would be useful for the visitor to be able to easily go up a level to the parent organization