Content Management Systems
 How & Why
Karolina Horvatinčić, CARNet
Dobrica Pavlinušić, PLIVA
Kristijan Zimmer, FER
WS2 CUC 2002

TOC
CMS: what, how and why
Content
Building a CMS
Technology
Designing the data
Almighty users and their wishes
Conclusion

It was a long way…
HTML
Generated HTML
HTML + some forms and scripts: interactivity!
Different scripts have trouble intercommunicating to provide common authorization, permission system, layout etc.: common and specialized programing modules.
CMS – clickable management of all kind of content (important for content providers), rich interactivity (important for users)

Why CMS
A CMS generally increases the efficiency of an author / editor by introducing a consistent environment specialized for rapid delivery of content combined with sophisticated administration.

CMS & ordinary dynamic Webs
Dynamic Web sites: querying databases, intelligent logic, process and data visualization, etc.
Managing of content is hard! No forms, lots of handwork.
CMS: no handwork for authors and editors – all is clickable. Authors can be dummies. No need for engineers any more, so fire them all!

Managing Content
Content Management means:
Adding,
Editing and
Deleting
of native content and integrated (relational) data sources.

“Content” usually means:
News articles
Text & image based half-static content
Forums
Files
Workflow
Calendars
Polls
Links
Search

Untypical content
Multimedia in news
Static integrated in dynamic
Forums with voice option – throw away your keyboard!
File Maps, Black Hole Maps, Document Flow
Advanced Polls with radio buttons, checkboxes, option/select and input and text areas
Self-checking Links
“Find only important” Search
etc.

During the making of a CMS, workgroups will have to cooperate

During building it, we will have to cooperate
Developers:
Have: their system which needs changes
Talk to: customer, designer…
Customers:
Have the idea what they want
Talk to: designer, developers and their potential users
Designer:
Have skill, don’t have time for customers, while working on project – risk his/hers life

Content Management Systems
Tour through the unknown...
...we'll stop at technologies
and review some prequisites
and problems.

What types of CMS exists?
Based on technology (1)
Static html pages
edited by desktop web editors, e.g. Dreamweaver (yes, this could be called pre-CMS!)
Static html generated by some kind of batch processing, scripts or cron job
Static html pages with CGI scripts

Static web pages
Strengths
Easy to setup
Exploit full power of web server (khttpd)
Easy to setup mirrors and load-balancing
Weaknesses
Updates
Personalisation
Exchange of content with other sites
CGI can be resource-hungry
Hard to do common navigation

What types of CMS exists?
Based on technology (2a)
Dynamic pages with peaces of code inside html
Mod_perl, php, asp...

What types of CMS exists?
Based on technology (2b)
Dynamic pages with usage of templates
Every language has at least one

What types of CMS exists?
Based on technology (2c)
Dynamic pages with layout stored in RDBMS

What types of CMS exists?
Based on technology (3)
Components communicating with XML-RPC or SOAP
Mobile agents (CORBA, anyone?)

Watch out! CMS is coming!
O.K., so you decided that you want to implement CMS...
Know your needs then decide which type of CMS to implement!
Don't just take CMS based on marketing presentation! (not even technology presentation)
Do you want to (this depends on your knowledge, resources and time):
start from scratch
buy components (what about support?) or
buy complete solution? (what about customisations?)

What else is important for CMS?
People
How many editors has site (or will have)
Are editors IT skilled?
Often misconception is that CMS will solve all possible errors in making of pages
What about knowledge of html? And picture quality, formats and re-sizing?
Are there people who know how to program site engine for changing needs?
Do designers know how to make html design?

What else is important for CMS?
Structure and content
How often does site structure change?
This is important when deciding which technology to implement – KISS makes sense!
How often does content of site change?
What about content that is linked with changing one?
Who will provide content and structure?
HR problems – don't underestimate them!
Who will provide updates?

And now…
IT’S TIME TO THINK!

CMS – from a information
architect’s perspective
Think in 5D or die!
Categories (Web pages in a CMS)
Functional Modules (per category)
Layout and design (of a category and function module – portlet)
Content (of every module of a category)
Permissions (of a user using a category, which determines module's behaviour)

CMS – from a user’s perspective
TIME TO THINK HARDER!
(I’ll shock you to make sure you remember that!)

CMS – from a user’s perspective
Q: What does user really want from a CMS or Web in general?
A: You don’t know, but neither a user
DEAR AUDIENCE: What do YOU want from a Web site?
Current news, accurate official documents, meaningful polls, non-missing links? That’s a lie! Come on, you know that, you perverts!!!

Giving a user what he/she wants
5 minutes of pure, naked truth.
Open your mind to me.
“Ms. Christian, those are
seriously disturbed people.”
Nicholas Cage in 8mm

To make magic with CMS…
You need:
Authorization of users
Permissions
“If you have known users with given permissions using the same Web site asynchroniosly and syncronously, there is nothing you can’t do!”
Unknown genius, 21st century

Is that all technology?
...of course, not!
Technology is a tip of a iceberg.

When is the right time for CMS?
Wast amount of information
Frequent updates
Lot of different formats and data providers
Distributed content owners (and producers)
Organisational decision, not technical!

Change for people
Before
Content creators
Webmaster
Sysadmin
After
Content provider
Programmer
Sysadmin

CMS for what?
Presentation site
News site
Collaboration site
Learning site
Bussiness (B2B, B2C)
archive
CARNet
CNN
/.
Wt.edu
Amazon
Freshmeat.net

How do you obtain CMS?
Buy off the shelf solution
Instant implementation, short lifetime, short time frame, fullfill most needs, enough money
E.g. Web site for event or conference
Buy customised solution
Develop one by yourself

How to choose right vendor?

How to choose right vendor?
Define a project
Information needs
Required resources
Choose a vendor
Make a vendor your partner

Joint work
Who is a partner?
Someone with whom you can work your action items and strive to common goal and resposibilities
Let the vendor develop CMS with you!
CMS won’t swallow all other bussiness applications!
It’s about integration not replacement

CARNet’s new CMS
Sneak preview

Final notes...
Don’t start project without needed resources!
Don’t plan for CMS – be prepared for future
Do you need it?
People are most important aspect
Don’t take thing you can’t support!