CMS Development

Content Management Website Design

The term Content Management System was originally used to publish management systems for websites. Early content management systems like on-line magazines, newspapers and corporate newsletters were developed internally at companies that were doing a lot of web publishing. In 1995, a separate company called Vignette originated from CNET and opened up the industry for commercial content management systems. Content Management systems take the following forms:

Content Management Systems allow for owner management of their Website

What does this mean? If your company’s product offering necessitates constant change, new uploads, security levels, chat rooms etc; then content management is the solution. Web content managements systems are often used for controlling, storing, versioning and publishing industry-specific documentation such as operator’s manuals, marketing brochures, sales guides or news articles. It may support the following features:Identification of all key users and their content managements roles.
Import and creation of marketing material and documents.
Assign roles and responsibilities to different categories or types.
The ability to manage and track multiple versions of a single instance of content.
The ability to publish the content to a repository to support access to the content.
The content management system may automatically set default colour, fonts and lay-out; making sure that your Company’s corporate identity remains in tact through-out your web site. This is the most important element of content management since multiple users might bringtheir own personal taste to their work – leaving your web site with a disarray of colour and designs.
Definition of the content workflow tasks, often coupled with event messaging so that content managers are alerted to changes in content.

• The work of a newspaper editorial staff company
• A workflow for article publication
• A document management system
• A single source content management system – where content is stored in chunks within a relational database

A critical aspect of content management is the ability to manage versions of content as it evolves.
Another equally important aspect of content management involves the creation, maintenance, and application of review standards. Each member of the content creation and review process has a unique role and set of responsibilities in the development and/or publication of the content. Each review team member requires clear review standards which must be maintained on an ongoing basis to ensure the long-term consistency and health of the knowledge base.

Content management often consists of the following basic roles and responsibilities:

• Content author – responsible for creating and editing content.
• Editor – responsible for tuning the content message and the style of delivery, including translation and localisation.
• Publisher – responsible for releasing the content for use.
• Administrator – responsible for managing access permissions to folders and files, usually accomplished by assigning access rights to user groups or roles.
• Consumer, viewer or guest- the person who reads or otherwise takes in content after it is published or shared.

Ultimately, content management web sites are more expensive than HTML sites since it requires customization and programming to tailor make your web site to your specific need. This will however save you money in the long run since you will be equipped to modify your web site when ever you feel like it – no need to instruct your design company… Just make sure that your content management web site is developed by a professional like 1021 design & media, or good intensions may lead to bad results.

Database Management

Every company has some form of a database that needs to be managed. Data means nothing if there is no structure and no way of retrieving a management report useful in making decisions concerning your company. An updated and structured database is worth more than gold, from giving you tools to communicate to your client base to negotiating power when negotiating benefits for your client base.

Database management is the methodology of storing, manipulating, and retrieving data. Some aspects of database management are entering, classifying, modifying and updating data and presenting output reports. Databases can vary in size from a few hundred names maintained on a user’s hard drive to hundreds of terabytes of data maintained on huge corporate mainframe computers. The benefits of using a database management system, although information is stored on a remote mainframe, end-users can still access that information from their computers via networking technology. In the past, reports had to be requested long in advance where it now can be generated within minutes by an average user by using a database management system.

Your database could be linked to your content management web site where customers can retrieve relative information. With today’s technology and database management systems, this is actually possible but only when your data is stored within a database that can be manipulated and presented within a report. This will form an integral part of the customization of your content management web site and can save your company lots of money- removing the human element by automating certain processes within your company. The more you know about your customer, the more targeted your product offering can be marketed. Know your customer…and capture it in a retrievable format – that is the winning recipe.