CMS Tutorial
What is a Content Management System (CMS)?
A Content Management System (CMS) is a combination of large database, File System, and other related software modules which are used to store and later retrieve huge amounts of data. These systems are different from the databases in the sense that these can index text, audio clips, video clips, or images in a database. Users of the content management system can find relevant content from within a database by searching for keywords, authors, date of creation, etc.. Content Management Systems can also be used to create information portals which serve as the backbone of data management. Along with the database handling facilities, the software modules also allows anyone to contribute information to a website via a graphical user interface (GUI). They are usually based on a pre-written template that acts as a platform for each page in the site as those pages are created.
At the company level, Content management systems (CMS) store and manage an organization�s electronic document and Web content so that the employee of the company can reuse the information across different applications. The web content can also be distributed to customers and business partners outside the organization. The core application of the CMS is to manages content during its entire lifecycle i.e. from creation through publishing. The content of the CMS can also be shared by e-commerce and customer relationship management systems (CRM). Web Content management system enables you to establish a consistent look and feel throughout your site, but gives your non-technical content authors the power to publish and update their own content using simple, but powerful, browser-based tools. Some of the CMS systems integrate with content delivery applications to deliver the content via a web site.
There are three basic participants in the Content management system:
· Content Editors (Decide what content to publish and where)
· Content Publishers (Publish the content on the web)
· Content Authors (Create the content for the web)
A CMS allows non-technical authors and editors to easily and quickly publish their content which is otherwise done by technical programmers. A CMS establishes defined publishing processes and specific publishing rights to various individuals. By using these facilities, the company can save the time for training, while facilitating more people to publish. It also reduces the daily stream of calls to the IT department for changes to the website. A CMS reduces time-to-publish, allowing you to get content published faster. This is an important issue for the modern organization. The quicker you get key content published, the more value and emphasis it creates. A wide range of content can be published using the CMS.
This can be characterized as:
· Simple pages for normal presentation
· Complex pages, with specific layout and presentation
· Dynamic information sourced from databases and will change on regular time intervals
· Training material
· Online manual
· General business documents
· Thousands of pages in total for different categories of customers
· Extensive linking between pages
Who needs a Content Management System (CMS)?
In today's world of e-Businesses, content flow is almost as crucial as cash flow. If an enterprise cannot refresh the information about its product on a continuous basis then it will not be able to fulfill the today's Internet based expectations. If any company wants to increase the content flow without spending lots of money and with less problems then the content management systems are chosen as a way to automate the content gathering and delivery process. Any company or organization will need the CMS if it meets minimum 4 requirements out of the many listed below:
· A big organization where web publishing is spread over many places, and to communicate the content between different branches is very time consuming
· The web site of the company is big and there are frequent updates of content or structure
· The online operation perform personalization
· Very frequent content integration between the web site and retail outlets, call centers, email newsletters or other channels
· Strong requirement to manage specifications from R&D to customer support
· Company has customers which also contribute to the site
· One individual has intimate knowledge of the entire site (and others have intimate knowledge over their own sections) so if there is a requirement for changes then it is not possible to change it without the help of a specific individual.
If the organization/company finds that it needs the Content management system then before selecting one, organizations must also evaluate the cost of not having a system in place. These questions asked should be:
· What are the costs associated with your content being unavailable either through the Web site, or from your primary content storage systems?
· What is the risk of having inaccurate content on your Web site?
· How much does the insurance for that risk cost?
· How do you recover and replace inaccurate content when your Webmaster is unavailable?
Features, Benefits and Advantages of a Content Management System (CMS)
In any Content management system, there are many basic features which should be present so that the system works efficiently and saves money. These are
· The CMS database or the central repository for corporate content must be accessible to a wide range of technical and non-technical individuals. Its interface must be easy to use, and its architecture must fit within the framework defined by the IT organization. It should be menu driven so that the pages can be added and linked easily.
· Creating, designing and deploying the web content should be automated according to the need of the organization.
· It should reduce the time programmers have to spend on building custom forms for content management. The programmer can spend that time on the front-end of the web site.
· The user interface design of CMS should be changed using templates. Different templates for different level of users should be present.
· The CMS Management Tool should be present which is used to manage groups, users and rights from a central point. There should be a facility to import groups and users in the domains like Windows or Unix.
· It should be powered by the latest database and internet technologies and should be used in any operating system on any computer platform.
· CMS should facilitate better content security. It should control who is allowed to publish to the website, and who is allowed to see what content.
· It should eliminate the constant and large volume of updates by redistributing the publishing work among the content authors, who can now publish and update their own content using easy-to-use, browser-based tools.
· It should reduce Web site maintenance time and costs. Most of the maintenance operations should be automatic.
· For the content authors, the facilities like, selecting different types of content from the inbuilt content library, cut & paste from other applications, set publication dates and times for finished pages in advance and have them publish automatically and easy, automatic page indexing and linking should be present.
· Content management system should provide tools for adding and managing content for administrators including Content Owners, Content Editors, Page Owners and Site Administrator.
· The system should be able to scale in terms of performance, integration with other applications and the addition of custom features.
· The system should provide multi user options for controlling the user privileges at multiple levels. The security keys should be provided to restrict the users to work according to their access rights.
· The database model should not be rigid but it should be able to analyze the database structure and build the forms for database tables accordingly.
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