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Link authors to content

Jan Cerman
2 min read
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Create relationships between articles and their authors to show who wrote what. The easiest way to do this is by modeling your articles and authors as separate content types. You then create content based on the types and link it together to define the relationships.

Table of contents

    How content linking works

    Watch this video to get familiar with the concept of linking content together.

    Video about linking content together in Kontent.ai

    Play video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW-uvPkLRDE

    Create a content type for your authors

    First, you need to define what your author model will look like.

    1. In  Content model, click Create new.
    2. Enter a name for your content type, such as Author.
    3. Add at least two elements:
      • A Name text element
      • A Bio rich text element
    4. Click Save changes.
    Content type of an author with two elements.
    1. In Content model, open a content type you use for articles.
    2. Add a Linked items element.
      1. Name it Author.
      2. Make it required.
      3. Limit the allowed content types to Author.
    3. Click Save changes.
    Author element added to a content type.

    To link an author to an article, you first need to create an author. You can create an author separately (as you would create any content item) or create it directly from within an article, as in this example.

    1. In  Content & assets, open one of your articles.
    2. In the Author element, click Create new author.
      1. If multiple workflows are available, select one for the new Author content item.
      2. Enter a name for your content item, such as the author's first name.
      3. Enter the author's name into the Name element.
      4. Enter a bio into the Bio element.
      5. Publish your author.
    3. Click in the top left to go back to your article.
    4. Publish the new version of your article.

    Now you've linked one of your authors to an article.

    New linked items inherit a collection from their parent item

    To change it, open the Author content item you've just created and select a different collection. You can do that also for already published items without creating a new version.

    Author added as a linked item to an article.

    In this example, the author Jane Doe is connected to the article The Origin of Coffee.

    You can follow the same approach for other types of standalone content like blog posts or case studies.

    What's next?

    You created a content type for your authors, created an author, and linked your author to an article. Now that you've linked the items inside Kontent.ai, you can retrieve the items and display their relationship in your app.