Blogs - April 2007

Below are the blog entries for April 2007

New Flash Demos Now on CMS Tube

By Elizabeth Starkey

Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 1:00pm

If you’re a regular visitor to our rich media micro site, CMS Tube, you may have noticed that a number of new Flash-based product demos of Cascade Server have been recently added.  We created these demos to help new users become familiar with some of the elements that are often brand new when you start using a CMS.  Each of these demos introduces a specific concept or term, making them a great supplement to the Business and Technical Intros that are already online.

New Flash demos include:

Assets in Cascade Server – Explains how each asset works together to create a fully functioning website.

Roles in Cascade Server – Explores the different types of Roles and their functions.

Blocks in Cascade Server – Shows you when and how to use each type of block available.

What is an Asset Factory? – Describes how Cascade Server makes creating new content easy.

What is a Data Definition? – Illustrates how Cascade Server provides customizable structured authoring.

How Does Cascade Server Manage Metadata? – Explains how Cascade Server uses Wired and Dynamic Metadata to advance your site

We'll be adding more Flash demos soon, so check back with CMS Tube for updates.  We would also love to hear your ideas for new demos that would make it easier for you to adapt to Cascade Server and get the most out of using the CMS.

Category

• Resources

How is Purchasing a CMS like Buying a New Home?

By Joel Dixon

Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 1:00pm

Recently I’ve read a number of articles related to purchasing a content management system (CMS), including a great blog post by Blaine Herman (See Advice from a Vendor when creating your RFP).  Well, having just purchased a new home I recognized several basic principles that apply to the process of buying a CMS as well.  Like buying a house, buying a CMS is a significant financial decision, which requires great care and involves a certain degree of apprehension and uncertainty.

However, I found that, while the process of searching for my home wasn’t easy (nothing worthwhile ever is), the more thorough and specific I was about what I wanted, the easier it was to narrow my search.  It ended up not only saving time , but also allowed me to look at a larger percentage of properties that were actually good matches.  So here are several tips for CMS purchasing or buying a home:

• Establish your price range – I considered homes only within a narrow price range and this immediately simplified my search list from tens of thousands to a hundred or so.  Price should never be the sole decision-making metric for a CMS purchase, but having a budget for the project (license, support and services) allows you to save time and resources up front by qualifying which vendors you should even be considering.
• Determine the fundamentals of what you want – I compiled a complete list of features that I desired in a house (i.e. # of rooms and bathrooms, description of inside/outside, and proximity to various areas of the city).  Of course, while the “trendy” features available in a home or CMS are constantly growing, the list should really be personalized for your organization because general trends don’t make happy business users.  CMS features that appeal to your users, make their work easier and are easy to use make happy business users.  There are many CMS Functionality Checklists so use them as starting points and then create your unique list based on the interests and needs of your users.
• Prioritize your List – I probably would still be deciding on which house to buy had I not prioritized this “wish” list.  Most purchases require some give-and-take since it’s usually difficult to get all that you want, how you want, at the price you want.  However, when you have to address CMS trade-offs, knowing the things that can’t be compromised on (and why) provides a great guiding light in making the final decision.

I have completed my journey to home ownership and am enjoying every minute in my new home.  Your organization may be just beginning its CMS search, and while the process requires planning and patience, the benefits of a CMS-powered site is well worth the effort.  If you need some good resources to assist in your planning check our white papers.  Happy CMS-hunting!!

Related Content

• White Papers

Category

• Commentary

Integrating Cascade with Single Sign-On

By

Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 3:00pm

As you may already know, Cascade Server offers several different methods of authenticating users, including LDAP and native user authentication. However, with the usage of single sign-on (SSO) software such as CAS and Kerberos on the rise, prospective clients are increasingly interested in Cascade Server's ability to integrate with various third-party authentication frameworks. In fact, Cascade does have the capability to integrate with these types of solutions using what is known as a "custom authentication plug-in." This plug-in is a Java class, or set of classes, that handles the CMS's end of the custom authentication lifecycle.

Typically, the custom authentication lifecycle for Cascade Server goes something like this:

1. The user accesses the CMS at a particular URL.

2. The CMS redirects the user's browser to an external login page, appending some extra information used to forward the user back to the CMS's custom authentication service URL.

3. The user logs in to said external service. If authentication fails, the user remains at the external login until successful.

4. Once authentication succeeds, the external service sends the user back to the CMS's custom authentication URL, appending a "ticket."

5. The CMS contacts the external authentication service, using the ticket to verify that authentication was successful.

6. The external service returns a response notifying the CMS which user logged in.

7. Cascade logs the user in and establishes a session for the authenticated user.

In addition to the custom login procedure, the plug-in can also redirect the user to a particular page upon logout.

Thus, the plug-in class simply handles browser redirection based upon the authentication phase (login/logout) and the authentication of the user against the third-party service. The plug-in class and any supporting classes are packaged in a separate JAR archive that is deployed to a client CMS's classpath (along with Cascade's authentication API JAR and any other necessary libraries). Finally, an authentication configuration file is placed in the client's Cascade Server installation directory. This file specifies the plug-in class to be used when authenticating users into the CMS.

You can find detailed instructions for developing your own custom authentication plug-ins on our knowledge base.

Hannon Hill's Professional Services team also develops plug-ins for clients on a regular basis. So, even if you don't currently have the resources to implement custom authentication for your particular framework, you're still in luck. Please feel free to contact us for more information.

Category

• Resources

Play Ball!

By

Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 11:00am

Well, it’s springtime again and you know what that means - baseball season!  So far, the Atlanta Braves are 8-4 this season and ranked first in the East Region.  Hannon Hill holds four season tickets and we’d be more than happy for any of our clients to come help us cheer on our Braves.  If you’re ever in town, let us know and we will make sure that you are able to see the game in style. Our tickets also offer access to the 755 club where you can enjoy an elegant dinner on the outdoor dining terrace and still get close-up action of the game.  Go Braves!

photo by: Joel Dixon 

Category

• News

Advice from a Vendor when creating your RFP

By Blaine Herman

Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 12:00pm

There was an interesting blog post on CMS Watch yesterday, which offers suggestions for writing a Content Management RFP (Request for Proposal).  From the vendor prospective, I agree with what Tony Byrne says about not using buzzwords like “Integrate,” “Intuitive,” “Robust,” and “Compliant,” to avoid giving real information, and that How a CMS accomplishes certain tasks really is the biggest differentiator. 

There are things you can do as a buyer, however, that can help us out as vendors, and in turn, help you get the information you really need to make your decision.

• Organization is key.  The more organized your RFP is, the easier it is to read and respond to.  RFPs that ask and then re-ask the same question in different sections are very frustrating and may lead to questions not being thoroughly answered. 

• A vendor “summit” conference call is rarely productive.  I realize these calls are supposed to benefit us as vendors – giving us a chance to ask for clarification on the RFP before submitting our response. The problem is, most vendors have not yet reviewed your RFP, since the due date is typically weeks away.  So questions often get asked just for the sake of being asked.  I find it easier if questions are allowed to be submitted by a certain date, and then after that date, all of the questions and answers are simply e-mailed back out to vendors.

• If you want a specific vendor to respond to your RFP, contact them BEFORE the RFP is released.  We receive a huge number of RFPs, making it nearly impossible to answer every one that we receive.  If you have time, verbally contact the vendor, and set up a demo.  This shows that you have genuine interest, which means they’re more likely to respond.

• If time permits, preclude your RFP with a more simplified Request For Information.  An RFI will allow you to sift quickly through a larger number of potential vendors.  You can then specifically invite the closest matches to respond to your RFP.  Typical RFIs are a couple of pages long and identify the main requirements.

The best thing to remember is that, even though we’re vendors, we’re still human.  The organizations that take the time to put together a well-organized and well-researched RFP will get the most responses.  And organizations that know how to ask good questions will get the most meaningful responses.

Some other ideas that might be helpful:

• Tell us what format you want your responses in.  We try to follow the original format as much as possible with our responses, but we’re happy to comply with any specific requests you have— even certain colors, fonts, and styles, if it makes wading through those responses easier. 

• Ask for a table of contents.  This ensures that the vendors that are responding will take a few moments to think about their own organization – and that no one forgets to include page numbers! 

• Ask for screen shots.  If you are going to share the responses with co-workers, this may be their first (and only) exposure to seeing the CMS and its UI.

• Don’t ask questions that can be answered Yes or No.   Instead of asking “Does the CMS…?” ask “How does the CMS…?”  I have to admit, these questions are a little harder on us vendors, but it also indicates to us that you are doing your research – which translates into a happy customer.

• If you are looking for suggestions on what to include on your RFP, vendors are always willing to provide you suggestions (why wouldn’t we?) J.  Have a look at the Functionality Checklist on pages 18-23 of our Buyer’s Guide for ideas. 

Related Content

• Free Content Management Buyer's Guide

Category

• Commentary

Taking Cascade Server demos to the next level...

By Kevin Goldstein

Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 2:00pm

As a sales consultant, I find myself talking about features and benefits a lot.  My job is to understand the problems that organizations are having with their websites and work with them to decide if Cascade Server can meet their needs.  Of course we believe in our product’s versatility, and we do our best to answer “yes” to most scenarios.  But a company like ours depends on having happy customers, and to that end, my goal is to make sure organizations make informed decisions and only buy Cascade Server if it really is the best fit for them.   

That’s where the sales engineer comes in.  I can talk about features all day long, but there’s no substitute for having someone actually showing you in real time how a product can meet your needs.  Whether it’s helping to download and install a trial version (yes, we’re happy to do that!), integrating a portion of your site to ensure that it will work, or creating specific examples relevant to your organization, the sales engineer’s entire job is to make sure all questions are answered and expectations are set before a purchase order is signed.

Related Content

• Demos

Category

• Commentary

Meet the Team with Kirsten Eidsmoe

By

Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 1:00pm

Jamilla: Hi, you’re listening to “Meet the Team” and I’m Jamilla Murray. Today, I’m here with Kirsten Eidsmoe, Marketing Director. How are you Kirsten?

Kirsten: I’m fine, thanks Jamilla!

Jamilla: Let’s start with you telling us how you first came to work at Hannon Hill.

Kirsten: Well, my background is actually in literary development and script analysis for theatre, but I also worked in non-profit marketing in New Zealand and when I came back to the states, I really wanted to do something that was a little bit different. So, I worked in IT for education and really enjoyed that, so Hannon Hill was kind of an easy step from there. I had been working with a different content management system at my job and so I had some experience in knowing what I did and didn’t like there. When I came to Hannon Hill, I was actually working as a Technical Writer and I made the transition over to Marketing and became Marketing Director.

Jamilla: So that’s a bit of a jump from Theatre to Technology Marketing, do you use some of the same skills or is it vastly different?

Kirsten: Of course the industries – going from non-profit to corporate – are different, but the actual job is using a lot of the same skills. The things that I was doing for theatre were very analytical.  Basically, my job was to make sure that the writers were communicating what they wanted to communicate to an audience. And that’s very similar to Marketing; I’m here to make sure that the company is communicating what we want to, to our audience, which is potential clients and professionals in the industry.

Jamilla: So, what’s a typical day for you?

Kirsten: Well, of course in Marketing there is no really “typical” day, but it’s a lot of writing, a lot of editing, a lot of reviewing – everything that comes into our office usually comes through me, so maintaining brand consistency is really important. And, of course everything we do is in a state of revision – it’s a fluid market. We recently re-launched our website, but that doesn’t mean that we’re done with it, obviously.  We work really hard to track analytics, continue to review the site, and see what’s working and what’s not. So, a lot of my day is spent maintaining that and seeing what we can improve.

Jamilla: You mentioned the recent re-launch of Hannon Hill’s website, what was the most difficult thing about the re-launch?

Kirsten: Well, of course Cascade Server made the technical side a lot easier. We were able to move a template over into the same content, so we didn’t have to work from scratch – that was really nice. But at the same time we were improving the layout, we were also changing a lot of content and restructuring how things were laid out. So, there was a lot of work that went into it.   It was just a really big project and we’re really proud of it.

Jamilla: Why was it important for Hannon Hill to refresh its website?

Kirsten: Well, I really felt that it was something that we as a company had been neglecting for a while.  We’ve got a lot of really brilliant people here and we’ve got so much talent as far as web management, web architecture goes. But, all of those people are always working on client websites. So, it was sort of the case of the Cobbler’s children having no shoes. I really wanted to get a website that was really slick and really do justice to how we feel about the product – what the product can actually do. So, the new website is taking advantage of more features in Cascade and hopefully showing it off a little bit better.

Jamilla: What do you think visitors will find the most valuable on the new site?

Kirsten: Well, I think that the design makes everything a lot easier; it makes content easier to find on the website. It hopefully communicates a lot better what we’re trying to show off about the product. I would like to think that people, who are searching for a content management system, can find what they need on the website to decide whether Cascade Server is a good fit for them – and also feel comfortable coming to us with any questions. That’s really my goal; and of course we are revising as we go, so we’re looking for feedback. We’ve got the blog, and we encourage any interaction with people that are looking at our site.

Jamilla: Well, I personally love the new layout and we all appreciate your hard work and thanks for being on the show!

Kirsten: Thanks! I appreciate it.

Category

• Commentary

A New HannonHill.com

By

Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 1:00pm

If you're reading this you've probably already noticed the new hannonhill.com design.  I think you'll agree that it's a pretty drastic change, but it's a change that we think was long overdue.

We're really proud of what Cascade Server is able to do, but the old site didn't showcase it well.  We spend a lot of time bragging about what our clients have been able to accomplish on their websites using our CMS, but now it's time for us to brag a little about ourselves!

Related Content

• Web Content Management Systems

Category

• News