Accessibility

The CMS checks content for accessibility and spelling before it goes live. Results show in an Accessibility panel in the editor's right sidebar. You can also set the CMS to stop a save, stage, or publish until the problems are fixed.

There are three kinds of check:

Check	What it checks	Where it appears
WCAG audit (axe-core)	HTML markup against WCAG 2.x A/AA rules	HTML files, STML pages, Calendar entries
Spelling & grammar (LanguageTool)	The visible text in the content	Same places as the WCAG audit
PDF/UA-1 validation (veraPDF)	How a PDF is structured and tagged	PDF files

All checks run on the hosted OpenADA service. Nothing runs on your CMS server.

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Setup

Accessibility is set up under Admin → Providers. If no accessibility provider is connected, the Accessibility panel shows a "connect the provider" message, and the Accessibility_Scan object is left out of the API and MCP.

1. Accessibility (axe-core)

This connection is required for WCAG audits and PDF checks.

Settings:

Setting	Description
[WCAG Conformance Level]	(Required) The standard to check against: WCAG 2.0 A + AA, WCAG 2.1 A + AA (the default and recommended choice), or WCAG 2.2 A + AA.
[Block Save, Stage, and Publish]	(Optional) Stops Save, Stage, and Publish while there are blocking issues.
[Block At Impact Level]	(Optional) The lowest severity that blocks: Critical Only, Serious or Higher, Moderate or Higher, Minor or Higher (the default), or Do Not Block on axe Issues. Issues below this level still appear in the panel.
[LanguageTool Connection]	(Optional) The LanguageTool connection to use for spelling checks. If you leave it blank, the CMS uses the default active LanguageTool connection.
[OpenADA base URL]	(Optional) Defaults to https://openada.us.
[OpenADA API key]	(Optional) Needed only when your OpenADA deployment requires authentication.
[Keep checks private]	(Optional) On by default. Keeps CMS checks out of the public OpenADA directory.

2. LanguageTool (optional)

Adds spelling and grammar checks next to the WCAG audit. It has the same OpenADA fields (base URL, API key, private) plus:

Setting	Description
[Block Save, Stage, and Publish]	(Optional) Stops saving while there are blocking spelling or grammar issues.
[Block At Issue Type]	(Optional) Misspellings Only, Grammar and Misspellings, Style, Grammar, and Misspellings (the default), or Do Not Block on LanguageTool Issues.

3. Adobe PDF Services (optional)

Turns on the Remediate PDF button for PDFs. In the Adobe Developer Console, create a project, add the PDF Services API with OAuth Server-to-Server credentials, and then enter the Client ID and Client Secret here.

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HTML files, STML pages, and Calendar entries

When checks run

When you open the editor, the panel shows the most recent verified scan for the current version of the content.

A new scan runs whenever you click Save, Stage, or Publish:

1. The CMS scans the content as it is in the editor, including unsaved changes.
2. The WCAG audit and the spelling check both run.
3. If blocking is on and blocking issues are found, the save stops and a warning appears in the panel.
4. If the content passes, the scan is saved and attached to the save request. Once the save succeeds, that scan is marked verified for the saved version.

What gets scanned depends on the editor:

Editor	Scan mode	What gets scanned
STML page	page	The complete rendered page in the preview frame
HTML file	partial	The file's content as a fragment
Calendar entry	partial	The entry's content form

.tpl files have no Accessibility panel because they mix code with markup.

ADA Score

The panel shows a score from 0 to 100. Each violation takes points off 100, based on how serious it is:

Impact	Points deducted
Critical	10
Serious	7
Moderate	4
Minor	1

Score	Color
90–100	Green
70–89	Yellow
Below 70	Red

Under the score, you'll see:

• A count of violations by impact level.
• A list of violations. Click one to scroll to and highlight the affected element in the editor or preview.
• A Spelling & Grammar section, if LanguageTool is connected.

Save blocking

When blocking is turned on, the warning reads:

3 accessibility issues and 1 spelling/grammar issue found. Save, Stage, and Publish are disabled until all ADA and spelling issues are resolved.

Only issues at or above the configured threshold count toward blocking. If a check can't finish, for example because OpenADA is unreachable, saving is also blocked until it can.

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PDF files

PDFs have no HTML for a WCAG audit to read. Instead, they're validated against PDF/UA-1, the ISO standard for accessible PDFs.

When checks run

• On upload or replace: the PDF is checked immediately.
• When you open the file: the panel loads first, shows Checking… large PDFs can take up to a minute, and then shows the result.
• Results are saved for each file version. Opening an unchanged PDF again reuses the saved result instead of checking again.

PDFs up to 10 MB can be checked.

Results

Field	Description
Status	PDF/UA-1 Compliant or PDF/UA-1 Not Compliant
Counts	The number of checks that passed and failed
Failures	Up to 15 failed clauses, each with a description
Copy	Copies a plain-text summary you can paste into Slack or a ticket

Remediate PDF

The Remediate PDF button appears when all of these are true:

• Adobe PDF Services is connected.
• The PDF has already been checked.
• You have Modify (Editor or Admin) permission on the file.

When you click it:

1. The PDF is sent to Adobe's Autotag PDF service to add accessibility tags. Large PDFs are split into parts automatically and put back together afterward.
2. The tagged file is saved as a new staged draft version. The published file isn't changed.
3. The PDF is checked again, and the page reloads to show the new result.
4. Review the draft, then use Publish to make it live.

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Scan history

Every scan is saved as an Accessibility_Scan record with:

Field	Description
asset_file_id / entry_id	The file or Calendar entry that was scanned
version	The content version that was scanned
score	The ADA score, or the share of checks passed for a PDF
violations_count / violations	WCAG violations, or PDF/UA failures
spelling_errors / spelling_issues	LanguageTool results
wcag_tags	The standard used, such as wcag2a,wcag2aa,wcag21a,wcag21aa, or ua1 for PDFs
scan_mode	page, partial, or pdf
is_verified, verified_at, verified_by	Set when the scan is attached to a successful save
scanned_at, scanned_by	When the scan ran and who ran it

A new record is written only when the results change. Scanning the same content again reuses the existing record.