Meeting Intranet Needs


As a CMS is usually a significant investment for a business, it's important that you choose the right system from the start, and that it can handle all the needs that will be placed upon it by the intranet, as well as allowing for future growth.

Supporting Intranet Size and Structure

It's likely that if you are using an intranet already, you'll want to keep a similar structure, since the staff will already be familiar with it, and it will be easier to integrate your existing intranet with CMS.

This should be a requirement when you're evaluating different CMS packages, as they need to be flexible enough to support your existing structure, rather than having to change your intranet structure to fit round the CMS.

Note

Make sure that the CMS is powerful enough to cope with the huge amounts of information that most businesses generate on a day to day basis. Bear in mind that the volume of information business's processes always rises, especially as businesses become connected to each other and to various information services. This being the case, the CMS should be designed to cope with the current volume of data, but should also have enough capacity to cope with increased amounts of data in the future.

Helping Staff Find Information

The ultimate purpose of CMS is to make data retrieval easy, and so staff members don't have to waste time searching for the information they need.

There are many different systems available, and the search facilities they offer vary a lot, usually depending on price. The search facilities are one of the most important parts of CMS, and should be extensively evaluated to make sure they can live up to your needs. The system should have the ability for custom searches to be specifically adapted for the company's needs.

We mentioned earlier that the system should also be able to understand relationships between documents so it works in a similar way to a folder in a filing cabinet: if a document is opened, other documents related to this document are linked. Take a customer's record, for example; when it is opened, the system will show links to any information that is related to that particular customer. To do this the CMS should have a good search facility and indexing system. This obviously has many benefits for staff; they always have all the information about a subject to hand, allowing them to make more informed decisions.

Simple Authoring for Busy Staff

Another important factor to consider is how usable the CMS is, and whether it can be used intuitively by people with basic computing skills: the easier the system is to use, the more staff will use it.

The CMS should offer a wide range of input options so that the CMS management staff can create HTML documents, including those containing JavaScript. However normal users of the system who work with the data and have no web design knowledge shouldn't need to know any specialist languages to enter information into the system. It's important that information already entered is easy to find and update, otherwise staff will be unlikely to update it, defeating the object of the system.

Usually with a system such as an intranet, the interface for the CMS is web-based, and allows the user to view and edit information through their web browser. Most staff will already be familiar with using a browser, so they are at home right from the start without having to cope with a new application interface.

It's important for there to be a system in place so that separate user types can be set up. The everyday staff should only be able to see the sections of the interface that they use, while the rest of the application interface for more advanced setup is hidden. There's no point in showing the staff options they cannot use, as it only serves to confuse and add extra clutter to the interface.

Mix-and-Match Authoring Tools

The aim of CMS is to draw from a wide range of authors, and it's almost certain that the staff will be using many different programs to create content: word processors, spreadsheets, graphic applications, and so on.

The CMS needs to be flexible and should be able to interpret many different forms of information and data formats, for example reading common word processor formats. The aim is for the system to convert the data from one form to another, rather than the author having to convert the data from one form to another before inputting into the system. Introducing CMS should ideally cause as little disruption as possible, and the CMS should fit round the business, rather than the other way round. This means that the CMS should allow users to continue working with the tools they were using before the CMS was introduced.

Note

It's important that the CMS caters for all of the tools that will be used to create content, and allow users to use their tool of choice, rather than being dictated to by the system.

Centralized or Decentralized Authoring

An important decision to make before selecting a CMS package is whether to allow decentralized authoring (where all staff can freely add and maintain content), or centralized authoring (where only a dedicated CMS team enter and maintain content).

Decentralized Authoring

Most companies using CMS will opt for a decentralized authoring model, and allow all staff members to add content if required, because this is, after all, one of the goals of the CMS. Using decentralized authoring saves on having to have a specialized team that creates and edits intranet content, which saves money and allows all staff to be involved in the system so they use it to its maximum potential.

It is however important that you allow employees the time to enter new content, rather than expect them to just fit it into the schedule. If staff are busy and are not given time to enter new content, it's likely that the content will not get entered, rendering the CMS pointless; however the extra time needed to add content can be offset against the large amount of time that the system saves.

Centralized Authoring

Centralized authoring involves setting up a special team; that will solely be in charge of the CMS and entering and maintaining the content it contains.

This allows stricter control of the content, but has the disadvantage that you're limiting the amount of content that can be added, and you miss out on a lot of potential input from your staff. Centralized authoring limits the power of the Content Management System.

"Centralized authoring limits the power of the Content Management System"

Centralized authoring is typically used when there is a limit to the amount of content on the intranet, and where the information is complex, highly structured, or available to external users.

Delivering Single Sign-On

One function a CMS which runs an intranet needs is security with different user levels so that access to certain information can be controlled. Although the point of the CMS is to share information, there will be times when you want to make sure that some information, such as business accounts, for example, can only be seen by certain staff.

In order for a secure system to be effective, it needs to be simple for authorized users to access the information without having to spend time going through many different levels of security. If it's complicated to log in, staff will usually write instructions including their usernames and passwords, and stick them somewhere convenient such as to the side of the monitor, which renders even the best security system useless.

Most business computer system "break-ins", where a system's security is compromised and confidential information leaked, are "inside jobs" carried out by staff working for the company. Many businesses underestimate the importance of security in the workplace when it comes to accessing the company intranet, but break-ins usually occur where staff have easy access to someone else's login information.

The system is actually more secure with a single sign-on, with a username and password that are strong but also memorable. This avoids the temptation of staff to write down their passwords, and they won't need instructions to log in. It's also important for the login to apply to all areas of the system that the user has access to instead of repeatedly asking the user to input their username and password when moving between different sections of the intranet. Single sign-on also cuts down on the amount of time needed to administer users, and cuts down on the number of user accounts that need to be created.

If the CMS is going to be serving a web site as well as the company intranet, security needs are higher, since you are greatly increasing the access to the system and it will now be open to attacks from outside the company. A good firewall and virus-checking system are essential to protect the CMS. Alternatively the intranet and Internet sites could be split onto separate networks and servers (but still accessing the same central data store) to minimize the risk of the system being compromised.

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)

We previously mentioned the importance of integrating the CMS with other applications that are currently in use in the company: the CMS should also be able to access reports generated, for example, by the accounts system, without requiring the user to convert the format of the data.

It's important that the applications used on a daily basis can communicate with the back-end servers running the CMS, and are able to use information stored in the CMS from within the application. The CMS must be able to use the company's LAN or WAN and have the correct protocols to be able to send data over the network. Businesses like to get the maximum usage out of equipment, so the vast majority of the system should run with the existing hardware available.

As we mentioned earlier, most interaction with the CMS will take place through a browser so it's important that the existing company browser base is looked at, and possibly upgraded to work better with the CMS. With browsers, most version changes typically affect the back end of the browser: the interface doesn't often change. This means that staff are familiar with the browser, even after an upgrade. Many of the earlier browsers are fairly limited in their abilities, so in this case, a browser upgrade in order to work with the CMS can be justified.

Implementing Workflow

Another factor that must be considered is the workflow, or system that is used by the CMS, and how close that is to the existing business system.

Workflow is the automation of a business process and describes the chain of events that occurs as information or tasks are transferred from one stage to the next, according to a set procedure. Each stage in the chain is referred to as an Activity, and an Activity could involve interaction between one person and another or a person entering data into a computer for processing.

Often when you study your existing workflow, you may finds steps which may be unnecessary, or are repetitive and are ideally suited to being automated.

The CMS should allow you to use a workflow and processes very similar to the ones the business is used to, and should allow you to create custom workflows to ensure that the system is up to date with the business's practices you use, even if they change in the future.

Before the CMS is chosen, the existing workflows should be analyzed to get a clear overall picture of the current system, and to ensure that the new CMS is compatible with the current workflows in use. It should be a case of the CMS adapting its workflows to fit with the current business workflows, rather than the other way round.

There are however, some extra workflow tasks that come with the content management system, that need to be carried out periodically by staff. Examples of these extra workflow tasks are managing users, for example adding or deleting users, maintaining log files and backups, maintaining security, and so on. Each CMS will have its own workflows, and you need to consider who will be carrying out these tasks, and how much time it will take them, and how much training they will need to learn how to carry out these tasks. Once the CMS is in place, It's important to periodically review the system to check that the CMS workflows are still aligned to the current business workflows in practice.

It's also important to decide who will implement the content management system and customize it with the company's existing workflows, and whether this will be carried out in-house or by external consultants. This will largely depend on the skills of the existing intranet staff.




Practical Intranet Development
Practical Intranet Development
ISBN: 190415123X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 124

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