A CMS allows your content authors to edit your web page directly, usually with a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (a.k.a., WYSIWYG or Rich-Text) editor. Administrators can lock down styles and layout, which helps keep all content in alignment with established look and feel standards. Workflows allow for a full approval chain, and a security system makes sure that only approved users can get in. Finally, robust CMSs allow search-engine optimization, internationalization, and web standard compliance - all without a call to your tech team.
The CMS project
A Content Management Engagement starts with identifying the right platform for your situation. Some of the questions we'll ask are:
- What traffic volume do you expect to see at your site? What are your growth predictions?
- What enterprise technologies have your company adopted?
- What external applications will need to be tied in to the CMS?
- What are your security and workflow requirements?
- How much control of the look and feel of your site should be controlled by your content editors, and how much should be locked down?
- Do you support multiple languages? Do you need to export XLIFF files to facilitate translation?
- Do you need to integrate document management, commerce, or social networking technologies in your site?
- What languages and platforms are your developers using?
Once the CMS is determined, we work with our creative team to flesh out the structure of the site. Once a sitemap and wireframes are built, we identify which parts of each template that will have special functionality in the CMS. For example, in an Ektron CMS400.Net implementation, we'd identify reusable mini-templates for use as widgets in the Ektron PageBuilder. If we were using Microsoft SharePoint Server, we'd identify features and web parts.
The site build is generally little different than any other custom development. Pages may be in the .net framework, Java, or PHP, depending on the CMS. Most content-management systems make heavy use of XML to store structured information, and as such the they make frequent use of XSL transformations.
Deployment, delivery, and training
Once the site is built, it's typically delivered as a combination of web pages (aspx, php, jsp, etc) along with a copy of the database backing the system. Acsys works closely with your IT department to make sure the setup is smooth and the cut-over painless.
However, setting up the CMS is just the beginning of the process. If you already have a high-quality web site, you need to get that information into the new system. Acsys has wide and deep experience importing data between content management systems, as well as from static HTML sites into a CMS. Such imports can be from inside your network - that is, reading directly from a previous CMS or file-based site, or external by "spidering" the site like a search engine.
Finally, a CMS isn't much use if it's difficult to maintain. When we deliver a CMS solution we fully document all new functionality, so your users find the information they need quickly and easily. We can also train both your end-users and your development team so they can handle later updates.
Acsys has years of experience with a large number of content management systems, fitting a wide range of site management needs. Acsys can help recommend, architect, implement, and deliver your CMS on time and on budget.
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