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CMS - Enterprise-wide Content Management System
Why do I need a Web Content Management System?
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While many design efforts are outsourced, most content is generated in-house. That requires the organization to engage a large number of contributors to participate consistently. The organization becomes an "accidental publisher", but with neither the knowledge nor the professional publishing background to deal with the ever-increasing volume of content. Suddenly, a content management system seems like an excellent idea:
1. Decentralized Content Maintenance
Many companies that use an agency to create and maintain Web sites, send their change requests for pages via e-mail or fax, and a Web designer has to take the task to create and edit the pages. For a company’s Intranet, one or more Webmasters or web-savvy employees handle these tasks, but often it is not their primary job responsibility and the task takes them away from their core job requirements. These people likely have a large daily list of tasks consisting of converting received documents into HTML and uploading them to the Web server, many times according to unclear directions of the contributor. All manual approaches like these are time consuming and add unnecessary expense to Web site and Intranet maintenance. A CMS will help save your company time and money and help prevent errors in content transmission
2. Efficient Production Without HTML Knowledge
While it takes HTML code to make a Web page, not every online editor or employee who contributes to a company’s Web site should or can become a part-time programmer. With a content management solution, the need for editors to even know what the letters HTML stand for eliminated. Ideally, the person responsible for the content should not be concerned about the underlying technology. A powerful CMS solution ensures that current information is always in the right shape and place, without editors having to worry about HTML or technical complexities.
3. Roles and Authorizations
How do you keep the folks from other departments from making changes to areas of the site they are not supposed to access? Simply assign authorizations. Web sites, Intranets and Extranets create new roles for employees, system administrators, site supervisors, and editors. Some organizations need to develop access authorizations and process workflows for managing these sites. Employees should be able to change only the information that is specific to their department or responsibilities. And companies must protect confidential data from unauthorized access. The system administrator must be able to map the company’s reporting structure to the workflows in their content management system to ensure content accuracy and security.
4. Quality Control with a Release Process
When more than a few employees are involved in a project, you must set up mechanisms to retain quality standards. Someone needs to check contributions and content before they can be released for publication. In many cases the “second pair of eyes” principle is sufficient: a new text must be submitted to the next senior person to check it before release. Your content management system should be able to handle this and even more complex review processes.You are free to configure your review workflows as needed, even when they involve multiple reviewers.
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