Choosing a CMS: One Management System to Rule Them All?
6 likes1,834 views
The document discusses the differences between various management systems (MS) including Document Management Systems (DMS), Web Content Management Systems (WCMS), and Component Content Management Systems (CCMS). It highlights the importance of content agility, metrics, and workflow control while outlining their specific features and use cases. The conclusion emphasizes that different types of MS serve distinct purposes, and large enterprises typically require a combination of all three to meet their content management needs.
Choosing a CMS: One Management System to Rule Them All?
- 1. One Management System to Rule Them All? Noz Urbina - @nozurbina Blogger - www.urbinaconsulting.com/blog Content Strategy Practice Owner, Mekon - www.mekon.com Congility Events Chairperson - @congility / www.congility.com congility.com
- 2. Agenda ~ Introductions – The session – Look who’s talking now (Me/Mekon) – What is an MS? (vs. a Database?) – Why do we need MSs? ~ MS overviews by type – DMS – WCMS – CCMS ~ Unification & Conclusion congility.com
- 3. Photo (C) http://www.flickr.com/photos/hhoyer/3249473645/ This Session is About Differentiation ~ A comparative overview, not master-class or specific product recommendations CCMS DMS WCMS
- 4. Me ~ Mekon Content Strategy Practice Owner ~ noz.urbina@mekon.com @nozurbina ~ Mekon has 20 years in content-driven business processes ~ Technology independent consultancy, tool selection support, training and systems integration ~ Congility Events Chairperson – Today’s content needs agility! – www.congility.com @congility ~ Co-Author – Content Strategy: Connecting the Dots Between Business, Brand, and Benefits www.thecontentstrategybook.com
- 7. What makes an MS? ~ Storage ~ Metadata ~ Integration ~ Capture ~ Indexing ~ Retrieval ~ Distribution ~ Security ~ Workflow ~ Collaboration ~ Versioning ~ Searching ~ Publishing
- 8. An MS is not a DB ~ Management Systems are “business logic layers” (basically a special kind of application) built on a repository (almost always a database) MS Application – Behaviours, user interfaces, features, integration, application programming interfaces (API) Repository – Storage, transaction management, fail-over
- 9. Reasons to use an MS ~ Content Agility – Right content, right platform, right format, etc.. ~ Efficiency – Publishing automation/single sourcing – Collaboration ~ Metrics, control & measurement – Publishing analytics – Workflow and auditability – Regulatory or procedural compliance and governance – Security ~ All vendors will tell you their system is great at all of these.
- 10. MSs for Another Day ~ We’re leaving out: – LMS – Learning MS – TMS/LMS – Translation/Localisation MS – PLM – Product LifeCycle MS – CLM – Client LifeCycle MS – CRM – Client Relationship MS – And Wikis...
- 11. Common MS Types Component Content Management System e.g. IXIASOFT, Trisoft (LiveContent Achitect), XDocs, Vasont, “Source materials” Building blocks and media ready for reuse in any document/format/output Document Management System e.g., SharePoint, Documentum... Whole, formatted documents Web Content Management System e.g., Drupal, Alfresco, WordPress, OpenCMS... Web sites, web pages, media files and downloadable documents CCMS WCMS DMS
- 12. Differentiation ~ Manageable Units: ~ Documents vs ~ Components (aka modules) ~ Fragments ~ Variables DMS WCMS/CCMS
- 13. Differentiation ~ Structure & metadata: ~ Unstructured, or Structure & metadata is UI- driven vs ~ Structured source ~ Structure survives across platforms regardless of UI DMS/WCMS CCMS
- 15. DMS Documents, compliance, release, libraries
- 16. congility.com Document Management System ~ AKA EDMS (Electronic Document Management Sys) ~ Static and Live Documents ~ Live = updated during day-to-day work ~ Static = unchanged until circumstance or schedule requires and update ~ e.g. Archives, Reference libraries, Authoritative Copies ~ Organisation-wide document control ~ Document numbering ~ Final formal release
- 17. congility.com Document Management System ~ Usually internal but often delivers either to secure extranet or hands off to WCMS ~ DMS + WCMS in one packaged application = Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) ~ List of systems: http://bit.ly/nysDMs
- 18. congility.com Document Management System Strong on: ~ Finance (Accounts Payable/Receivable, Records Management) ~ Supplier & Contract Management ~ Audit and compliance ~ HR and Policy Management (Benefits Admin, Performance Review) Challenges: ~ Requirements management ~ Content reuse and fine-grain publishing ~ Technical documentation ~ Any sort or content structural control – DMS manages at file level ~ XML management
- 22. WCMS Web Publishing, Analytics, Communities
- 23. congility.com Web Content Management System ~ Websites and web content (HTML, HTML5) ~ You consume content from WCMSs every day ~ Content structures are controlled usually with forms or not at all (unstructured) – Modules are “info-typed” (blog, article, overview, ad, link bundle, etc.) and assembled into pages ~ Over 1500 known systems in the world – A short list (still huge): http://bit.ly/cmscrWCM
- 24. congility.com Some information typing on modules.
- 25. congility.com (Simple) Semantic Metadata, but completely custom-form driven, and only on the whole module. No sub-structure is allowed inside the main content. Can reuse whole module only
- 26. congility.com Reusable, but limited. Needs IT intervention.
- 27. congility.com Web Content Management System ~ Strong on – Websites ~ Including responsive design and mobile web if implemented properly – Community management – Analytics, metrics, measurement – Easy-to-source skills – Out of box social media integrations (twitter, facebook) ~ Challenges – Everything else – Professional quality print – Content structures are tied into the (forms) implementation (not portable like XML) – Single sourcing and reuse can often be a significant hack if not totally unfeasible
- 28. CCMS Multi-platform, multi-format, source-material management
- 29. congility.com Component Content Management System ~ Structured, “typed” content components ~ Enables compilation of deliverables from smaller, reusable components and fragments ~ Usually XML-based (often DITA these days) ~ Authors can restructure content without IT support ~ Web CMS and DMS publishing systems, CCMS is about creation and source management across publishing channels ~ List of systems (DITA only): http://bit.ly/ditawrCCM
- 30. congility.com Component Content Relationships ~ Changes in status of any related files will be visible to the owners ~ Cross-references can easily be managed: – Across chapters or documents – To any published deliverables with a known location (web, intranet) Fragment (Variable/Inset) Map (Collection) Sub-Map Image
- 31. congility.com CCMS versioning and status ~ CCMS systems can support complex composite objects – Able to reuse, compare and edit content from various points – Branching allows parallel work on topics – separate projects don’t disturb each other – Trace back metadata like specific requirements or for compliance – This table applies to collections/maps as well
- 32. congility.com Composite Image Objects ~ CCMS topics link to “image objects” which handle all format and version relationships. – The publishing process selects the appropriate image type for the output
- 33. congility.com DMS WCMS Case Study CCMS Doc Owner: “I’m going to publish soon. I want to see what’s happened to every section, image and text inset that my document uses.” ~ Interviewees regularly complain about content relationship issues: ~ “When stuff changes you don't know what's what. Things only go into the DMS once they are ready.” ~ CCMS allows flexible relationship management and auditing
- 34. congility.com
- 35. congility.com
- 36. CCMSs Need a Publishing Tool CustomersB CustomersA Partners …out to multiple formats Check / Manage Plan / Write Use multiple times... CCMS Rendering Engine ?
- 37. congility.com Component Content Management System ~ Strong on – Complex documents ~ Tech Docs – manuals, help, web help ~ (e)Learning material ~ Proposals and requirements – Automated publishing, reuse ~ Challenges – More complex by nature – Not many reliable open- source / very low cost options – Require implementation of publishing channels – Requires niche skills to implement and maintain – Some have usability issues
- 38. Unification
- 39. Unification ~ The systems can share content either programmatically or with manual updates across MSs ~ Metadata is the key – Tagging things with the same top-level metadata allows sharing without deep integrations – XML / DITA publish out in other formats like PDF and HTML to live new lives in the downstream systems (DMS/WCMS)
- 40. Standardisation Enables Reuse & Integration ~ Some standards are company-wide, some are local
- 41. MSs in an Enterprise Systems Context CustomersB CustomersA Partners Translate …and back comes business intelligence (metrics, user contributions, feedback) Review Testing & Quality Checks …out to multiple formats Check / Manage Plan / Write Use multiple times... CCMS WCMS DMS
- 42. Socially enabled across silos Let users build and share their own deliverables, for any format
- 43. Hits are tagged with their source Search across MS and silo boundaries
- 44. Conclusion ~ The common types exists for very different reasons – Apples, Oranges and Bananas can be compared, but they are not the same. Don’t end up with an Orange Pie or a Duck a la Banane ~ Large enterprises and even many small-to- medium enterprises need all 3
- 45. Conclusion ~ Some vendors are looking to buy up a “whole set” ~ Few are still pushing the “master system” approach