As makers of proprietary installed CMS software, we constantly run into prospects looking for the content management system that's right for their organization. However, oftentimes these prospects are unsure as to whether to go with an open-source or proprietary system. While there are some similarities between the two, there are also stark differences between an open-source and installed CMS system that should be considered in the CMS selection process. As is the case with most substantial business-investments, one factor that must always be considered is business risk mitigation and how your organization can avoid taking on unnecessary risks.
Flexibility & Cost
One of the 'pros' when utilizing an open source CMS system is that you are provided with extreme flexibility. This is because open-source systems provide the framework for you to build your entire CMS structure as you see fit.
However, along these same lines, this requires both extensive technical knowledge and a complete reliance on individuals from within your organization (or those to whom you outsource your work) to complete. Because open-source solutions are license-fee free, many organizations searching for a CMS are drawn to the low-cost option afforded to them with use of an open-source system. However, there are many "hidden" costs associated with this decision, because although the system is essentially free, the amount of human labor and energy needed to build and customize it is substantial. As costs of technology and hardware continue to diminish over time, costs of labor are perpetually rising. This is something to fully consider before going the open source route.
In addition, although the cost of purchasing proprietary software is higher than that of its open source counterpart, remember -- you are paying for something. Proprietary CMS software comes with a plethora of default and customizable options already set up in the system. This means creating new pages, templates, folders, dynamic navigation and the like is much simpler, as the default and standard structure needed to do so is already in place. If you'd like to accomplish the same with an open source system, (most of which lack comprehensive defaults and examples 'out of the box'), it requires starting from scratch and building out your entire CMS structure.
Should your developers one day find that they aren't able to build and/or customize your instance as anticipated, the next major issue to think about is product support.
Support
Imagine you decided to select an open source CMS. Although you may be aware of the risk of using an open source system, you're pretty confident your developers can make it happen. One day though, something in the system goes terribly wrong and needs immediate attention. Who do you call? Unfortunately, I can't answer that question for you. (In fact, take a look at the results when I searched the word 'support' on Joomla's site).
When you make a commitment to an open source system, realize that you are choosing to forfeit the immediate access to a support staff that you'd be getting with a proprietary investment. Maintenance and support are almost always included when purchasing an installed CMS license. This will typically include direct access (via phone or email) to a dedicated support team, in addition to access to an automated support (and/or 'ticket') system, user's forum, and listserv. Because use and maintenance of a CMS is always complex, the intangibles, like knowing you have someone to immediately contact for help, are crucial.
Additional Nice-To-Haves
Search Engine Optimization
Many CMS systems in general, whether open source or proprietary, leave much to be desired when it comes to SEO endeavors. Open source systems in particular, usually fail to provide the ability to create search engine friendly urls. In addition, to ensure ease of use for content contributors within your organization, utilizing a system that provides page level control over things like titles and metadata is crucial.
Accessibility Compliance
Where with many proprietary CMS systems, functionality such as accessibility checker(s) that ensure valid site HTML/XML is included, this same feature set is not available with open source options. More recently, web accessibility has become even more relevant with ground-breaking litigation and legal precedents being set for those who are not compliant with accessibility standards. The risk of maintaining a non-accessible site is now legally significant; for this reason, if using an open source system (or a proprietary one that doesn't ensure web accessibility), making sure that you have extremely accessibility-saavy developers will be important.
As Services Trainer for Hannon Hill, clients often ask me how to group a list of articles by category. XSLT 1.0, the version of the XML-based language used in Cascade Server, doesn't have easy-to-use grouping capabilities, but we can take advantage of other features in this version that will allow us to create groups. This technique is called Muenchian Grouping, after Steve Muench at Sun Microsystems.
Here's how to do it:
First, we will assume that you are going to group by a dynamic metadata field named "Category." The parts of an index block that we're concerned with matching look like this (a simplified version of a real index block):
Assume there are many more pages and more categories than above; there are no reasonable limits to the number of pages you can sort or categories you can group by.
The next thing we need is an XSLT stylesheet to match this index block. This first sample will list the pages in folder order. For simplicity's sake, we won't worry about subfolders or providing links to the pages; we'll just show the pages' Display Name in a list:
Now we need some way to figure out, of all the pages in the index block, which categories are present. XSLT 1.0 provides the xsl:key element that does just that, so we're going to add one just after the xsl:stylesheet element in the above example. I'll just show the xsl:key element below, but at the end of this post I'll show the completed stylesheet:
After this, we need to be able to find all the pages in a particular category. This can be done with the XPath function key. An example:
But what we really need is a way to create a heading for each category, and then list all the pages in that category. In Muenchian Grouping, we'll know that we should add a category heading when we've run out of pages in one category, and we're moving onto the first page in the next category. “What?” you may be saying. We're going to sort all the pages by category, and then display a header before the first page in each category. We'll do that by adding this to the stylesheet:
Feel free to ask questions in the comments, but what that code literally says is, “for each page in the total list of pages (sorted by category), check if it is the same page as the first page with the same category in the key named ‘pages-by-category’. Then display a heading with the category name.” If that explanation ties your brain in knots as much as it tied my fingers, don't worry; you'll just need to follow this pattern when you create your own grouping.
After finding the first page in the category and displaying a heading, we need to display a list of pages in that category, sorted by Display Name:
The key ('pages-by-category', …) should look familiar. It's like the key ('pages-by-category', 'Oranges') I showed above, except this time it gives a list of all the pages in the current category (from the previous for-each element, the one with generate-id() in it). Then, the apply-templates element passes each page to the system-page template, which will be just like what I showed in the no-grouping, original stylesheet.
That's it. Those are all the techniques for grouping pages (or any other XML element). The complete stylesheet is below, though you'll probably need to change the text anywhere it says "Category" or "display-name," to customize it for your specific implementation. Ask any questions in the comments!
The release of Cascade Server 5.5 was an exciting one for the Hannon Hill team, as it included some important new features focused solely on enhancing the overall user experience with Cascade. Last week, we told you about Content Types, which allow users to easily apply a predefined type, such as a Blog Post or Press release, to a particular page of content while maintaining consistency among other pages of the same Content Type. Today, we’re highlighting another great feature from our recent release, Customizable Roles.
Customizable Roles enable administrators to change the default capabilities of each of the five user roles in Cascade. Complete customization of these capabilities is now available, which allows for more administrative flexibility than ever before in managing roles and their duties in areas such as Administration, Security, Home Area, Publishing, and Workflows.
To modify the capabilities of one of the 5 roles in Cascade:
- Navigate to the Administration Area and click 'Users, Groups, & Roles'.
- Click the 'Edit' tab for the role which you would like to modify.
- The selected role's default settings will be displayed as a list of "abilities" with a check box (or yes/no radio button) next to it.
- Toggle any of these abilities on or off as you see fit.
In addition to the Customizable Roles feature, we’ve also added a couple of new user preferences. Users can now specify whether or not the left navigation asset tree will appear by default upon login, and users with the ability to bypass workflows can now also specify whether or not those workflows will be bypassed by default.
The bad news -- July 15th, the registration deadline for the 2008 Cascade Server User's Conference, has come and gone.
The good news -- we still have five three two one room left!
Yep, that's it. When we first decided to hold this year's User's Conference at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center, we reserved a fairly conservative number of rooms. Along the way, as the registrations came pouring in and demand increased by the week, our friendly sales manager at the GTHCC graciously accomodated our requests for more rooms. And then some more rooms. And then a few more rooms after that.
Recently though, our luck ran out. We've reserved all the rooms we can. After these ones are gone, we'll only be able to guarantee day rate admission and offer recommendations for other comparable hotels in the area. As for rooms at the GTHCC, however, this is your last call. If you're interested, please e-mail Uran Piedra at uran.piedra@hannonhill.com for details.
How are Content Types set up?
Content Types are given intuitive and logical names such as "Blog Post" or "Press Release" to aid end-users in easily identifying which Content Type to use for each page.
How are Content Types created?
Because Content Types are first-class system assets that aggregate three commonly used assets - Configuration Sets, Metadata Sets, and Data Definitions, creating a new Content Type requires the use of an existing Configuration Set, Metadata Set, and Data Definition. To create a new Content Type:
- In the Administration area, select ‘Content Types’ from the left navigation area.
- Navigate to the desired container, or create a new container to hold the new Content Type.
- Click New Content Type.
- In the General pane, complete the following:
- Name – Enter a descriptive name for your Content Type.
- Configuration Set - Select a Configuration Set to use for Assets that use your Content Type (*required*)
- Metadata Set - Select a Metadata Set to use with Assets that use your Content Type (*required*)
- Data Definition - Select a Data Definition to use for Assets that use your Content Type (*optional*)
- Parent Container – This value will already be set to the current container, but it can be changed, if desired, by clicking the chooser icon.
- Click Submit to save your new Content Type.
How do end-users apply a Content Type to a page?
Content Types are assignable at the individual page level and can also be set for multiple pages using the Bulk Change tool. To assign a Content Type to an individual page:
- Navigate to the desired page, and select the ‘Edit’ tab.
- In the System pane, select the Content Type chooser and navigate to the desired Content Type.
- Once you've selected the Content Type, click on the Metadata pane. The available Metadata fields displayed will be updated and are determined by the fields that exist in the new Content Type. The Data Definition fields and the page configurations will not be updated until a subsequent edit of the page.
- Click ‘Submit’ to save your changes.
How will the addition of Content Types affect other elements of Cascade Server?
For System Administrators, the addition of Content Types to Cascade Server means the addition of a new Administration area Component. This allows administrators to select the appropriate Configuration Set, Metadata Set, and Data Definition to be used by the Content Type.When defining Content Type elements, three choosers are available:
- Configuration Set (required)
- Metadata Set (required)
- Data Definition (optional)
Additional System Changes with the release of Content Types:
- Page Changes - The choice of Content Type in use by a given page is editable. However, once a Content Type has been assigned to a given page and submitted, that page's Configuration Set, Metadata Set, and Data Definition will no longer be editable or displayed on the page form (located on the "System" pane).
- Versioned pages - Previous versions of pages will continue to be associated with previously selected Data Definition(s), Metadata Set(s), and Configuration Set(s) until use of Content Types is implemented. **Please Note - Past page versions previously associated with selected Data Definition(s), Metadata Set(s), and Configuration Set(s) will still be available. However, if these Data Definitions, Metadata Sets, and Configuration Sets were to be deleted, their association with a particular page is lost. If this is the case, upon reactivation of that page version, users will be prompted to select one of the new Content Types.
- Integrate Folder & New Site Wizard Tools - When integrating new pages using the Integrate Folder or New Site Wizard tools, new pages must use either the base page’s Content Type or a Configuration Set.
- Bulk Change - Bulk changing of Content Types will be available for any and all assets that have a Content Type assigned.
To prove to you how proud we are of Cascade Server, and how confident we are in its abilities as the web’s premier content management system, I could start off by telling you about our clients. I could tell you that we have over 150 of them, including some of the leading names in the fields of education, business, healthcare, and non-profit management. I could tell you that they use Cascade to power their blogs, create their calendars, and optimize their URLs for search engines. I could tell you that our clients rely on Cascade to generate their RSS feeds, lay out their site maps, and publish their course catalogs, online and in print. I could go on and on about the hundreds of ways in which our clients use Cascade Server to create and maintain rich, robust, and up-to-date websites. But I won’t. I’ll show you.
Millersville University in Millersville, PA keeps students, faculty, and staff abreast of all types of campus events, from bio labs to baseball games, from dance recitals to the dinner menu. Check out their calendar:
The Juilliard School in New York, NY, is the nation’s most prestigious performing arts conservatory. With an internationally renowned faculty composed of preeminent actors, dancers, and musicians that consistently perform, teach, and create new and innovative works, they have a near-constant need to issue press releases. Juilliard creates these press releases, and updates and maintains their archive of them, with Cascade:
Sitemaps are useful to users and webmasters of all sorts of sites – particularly ones that contains massive amounts of information and thousands of pages, like that of Eastern University in St. David’s, PA. As they needed a clearly laid-out overview of their site, they used Cascade Server to create their clean, logical site map (a condensed version is shown below):
As a top-tier research university, a regional cultural center, and a member of the powerhouse ACC athletic conference, Clemson University in Clemson, SC doesn’t go a day without a newsworthy event or announcement. To broadcast this information to prospective and current students, faculty, staff, and alumni, they use Cascade to power their University Headlines newsroom page:
....and that's only a few of them. So what'd you think? Were they impressive? Engaging? Innovative? Inspirational? All of the above? Whatever you think of them, know that they were all made possible with Cascade Server. Imagine what your organization can do with it.
Don't miss out -- the July 15th deadline for the 2008 Cascade Server User's Conference is right around the corner!
This annual event is a great way to meet, interact, and share ideas with your fellow Cascade users. In addition, our user's conference provides an interactive opportunity to learn more about Cascade from the Hannon Hill team, and find out what is in store for our flagship CMS product in the coming year. Our introductory end-user sessions, in-depth technical discussions, client-led sessions, and open Q&A are all great platforms for you to get your most burning questions about Cascade answered, and gain insight into best practices. This year, we've also implemented a conference session sign-up, which allows you to customize your conference schedule, independent of the business and technical tracks.
We hope to see all of you on September 22nd and 23rd, so don't forget that space is limited! After July 15th, we will only be able to guarantee day rate admission ($350) to the conference, and unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that there will be accommodation availability at the conference site. If you are interested in attending the conference and staying at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center (GTHCC), register now to reserve your spot!
See you in Atlanta!
Note - Choosing your conference schedule does NOT automatically register you for the conference. Attendees must register in order to attend; schedules submitted without registration will be disregarded.