Point Dynamics CMS Blog

People engage with and remain loyal to an online community when you provide community members with easy access to each other (through collaboration tools) and easy access to the information they are seeking or discussing.
 
Let’s take a company’s intranet as an example. You want your employees to be active members in one or more local online communities, so you provide blogging and message board capabilities. But you also want to be a “one-stop shop” for information and company-related services.
 
Employees will adopt/embrace your intranet (or your internal “portal”) when they consistently find the information they need within the walls of your portal. When employees fail to collaborate as a community, access to information is reduced and your employees will wander across your network, trying to find what they need (and spending a lot of unnecessary time doing it!).

An iframe portal component is a built-in WCM (Web Content Management) function for organizing and providing access to frequently used sites, applications, and documents that may all be external to your actual portal – and possibly external to your company. Websites like Yahoo, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, or a business travel site can be “iFramed” within your portal for easy access. In addition, sell sheet wizards, CRMs, B2B apps, and time sheets can be placed as links on your community menu and accessed directly from within your portal.
 
An iFrame portal component allows a content manager to put a “page within a page” and to insert one HTML document in the middle of another. The actual page, document, or web site to be inserted on a page is determined by a source URI attribute (normally, a configuration option of the iFrame portal component). The source URI can be the URL of a website, the file location of an application, or a secured link to a document in your repository.
 
You might be thinking that your employees could just bookmark (or create desktop shortcuts) for everything they use on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. But honestly, how many bookmarks do you have? How often have you bookmarked something twice because you forgot what you named it the first time? Are you able to find what you bookmarked? And do you really want to look for a shortcut on your desktop?
 
Use an iframe portal component to help you centralize information access for your employees. The iFrame component will save time and will provide convenient information access for your community members. You can display external websites, applications, and documents inside a web page within your portal with an iFrame portal component.

In our 6-part series, we’ve been talking about building online communities by using social media tools you can find in a good CMS.

Social media on your intranet will engage employees and promote collaboration – improving productivity and innovation. Interestingly, research giant Forrester just released a report showing that while most companies invest in innovative and engaging customer websites, they “continue to inflict user-hostile internal systems upon their employees.” Ouch!

The researchers found that when intranets don’t provide the tools necessary to get the job done, employees find workarounds that are totally unproductive.
 
Forrester’s report is further evidence that your Intranet should be a unifying tool that improves communications, creates thriving online communities, and incorporates all of your employee applications.
 
This week’s discussion focuses on two functions that we’ve found to be especially important in fostering internal communication and increasing employee productivity: Message Boards and FAQs. Message Boards were the original building blocks of the internet; before there was Facebook there were Yahoo Groups, and way before Yahoo there were Bulletin Boards. The old Bulletin Boards were often very specific communication mediums in that each one served a group of people with similar interests with no regard for age, location, or language.

Like Bulletin Boards, Message boards can be used to create a communication media for employees with similar business interests and serve to bridge gaps in communication created by differing time zones, languages, and management levels.

An Intranet Message Board should do more than promote the random discussion of non-business topics; a good Message Board component should enable the categorization of topics and the easy creation of related FAQs. In addition, you should have the ability to attach documents that are relevant to Message Board discussion threads (for example, proposals, minutes, memos, images, etc.).

A Message board can be used to extend the discussion begun in a meeting or conference call by providing a place for follow up (for example, more in depth answers to questions raised during the meeting that may have required more research). Message Boards can also be used to avoid multiple meetings; a new sales strategy can be hashed out online before the first meeting takes place - talk about increased productivity and improved time management! It’s also the perfect place for employees working on a project to ask each other questions (from 10,000 miles away and/or in the middle of the night). The project can have its own Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section.

Your Intranet’s knowledge base (and yes, your Intranet ought to have a knowledge base) should be easy to set up, search, and update. The integration of a Message Board with an FAQ portal component allows John in London to ask about ASP.NET development: “Has anyone ever… ” and allows Simon in Jamaica to answer “Yes and here is the best way…” AND that conversation can then be added to the ASP.NET category in your FAQ by a moderator. So when James in Canada has a similar development problem, he will find Simon’s answer by searching the FAQ.

In addition to Message Board integration, you will probably want to give James (and everyone else) the ability to add a question directly to the FAQ. Your Intranet moderators/editors can then view, answer, and publish these questions so that others will find the answers they need.

Remember, a well designed and executed Intranet can create a robust communication portal where every employee has the opportunity to “join the discussion.”

The report “What’s Holding Back Your Intranet?” can be purchased on the Forrester website or you can read more about it here.

Nothing promotes collaboration more than the ability to quickly and easily access and share documents. Whether it is a system manual, a product sheet, or the minutes from last week’s staff meeting, global access to these important assets is key to building your community(s).

Let’s review the way that documents are managed outside a good community based content management system. Documents are typically stored on one or more shared drives in folders that are secured (sometimes). In a company with many divisions and departments within those divisions, this could mean a salesperson in New York has stored a copy of his contracts on his local computer, and the same contracts are stored on several other drives (his manager’s, the Contracts department, the Sales department, the Legal department etc.). What happens when a contract needs to be changed or updated?  Someone ends up with a version that is no longer relevant. The reality is there is no real document sharing going on here; everyone is operating in a silo and considers themselves the owner.

A good content management system assists in the collaborative effort by providing tools which help create “one source of the truth.” A collaborative environment is most easily achieved when the focus is placed on ease of use and on relevancy (of the content a person has access to). Here's a list of tasks you should perform (using your content management system) to ensure you create an environment of collaboration and the proper communities for accessing and sharing documents.

FIRST - design an environment that eliminates silos. This will include the use of virtual folders for those who need the big picture and don’t want to be lost in a forest of documents that have no relevancy. A good example is the executive in charge of the Sales division; he needs fast and easy access to contracts, sales proposals, and invoices. He does not want to search for this content, so virtual folders are setup and point to the documents he views most often; he only sees the type of content that interests him - organized the way he wants - the perfect solution!

SECOND - create a folder structure that is simple and easy to navigate. Eliminate runaway and complex folder structures where documents are buried so deep that a librarian is required. An example of a simple structure would be Division => Department => Function => Documents. You can use virtual folders to customize document access and eliminate redundancy.

THIRD - plan your folder/document security in advance. A good content management system provides a role-based security model with an easy to use interface for creating roles and adding users to roles. Establishing security up-front will involve your community members and help you verify the requirements for document access and sharing.

FOURTH – decide how you will access your document library. A good content management system should provide alternatives for accessing content in a portal repository. One choice would be to view and manipulate content (for example, a document) using normal operating system tools like Windows Explorer, providing the same drag and drop, copy and paste, open, create, and save functions you are accustomed to using. Another choice is to use a web interface for creating folder structures and for uploading/downloading documents. A web interface can provide secured global access to content from any browser and also provide sharing features like check-in/check-out, rating and email links.

FIFTH - add personalization to your community with customized "My Documents" access and Subscription/Alert Services. Personalized "My Documents" folders based on a user's access requirements will provide community members with a view of their documents and folders and will protect/secure the full document library. Subscribing community members to documents and folders means they will be kept abreast of any changes made to specific documents and any additions, updates, and deletions from folders to which they are subscribed. Community members are notified (with "alerts") via email or displayed on their community dashboard.

Workflow in a content and document management system can best be described as “the automation of a business process, in whole or part, during which documents, information or tasks are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules” (for more on workflow go to http://www.e-workflow.org/).

Point Dynamics workflow process moves documents and content elements through one or more pre-defined stages. At each individual stage, an actionable item is assigned to a person or role; when an action is completed, the content element automatically moves to the next stage of workflow. The diagram below shows Point Dynamics standard 5-Stage workflow.

Although the system ships with several built-in workflows, each business situation is different and every organization may require the ability to design their own workflow.  Content elements can be tied to any workflow process defined by the customer within the Point Dynamics CMS.

But how does applying a workflow to the content and document management process increase employee productivity?

Consider the way that content is normally managed:

1.  Someone creates the content.

2.  The content has to be reviewed by one or more persons, who may approve it, reject it (or go to a seminar in London and temporarily forget about it).

3.  Once the content has been approved, it may then have to go through a change management process for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, regulatory compliance or corporate policy.

4.  The content is published (via snail mail, email, to the internet, intranet, etc.)

This entire process can take weeks and is dependent on a manual process of emails, phone calls and countless follow-ups. If there are a series of dependent changes, the content creator can only wait for approval. This is definitely not a productive publishing process.

Now consider a piece of content created and work-flowed in Point Dynamics Enterprise CMS.

When content is created using workflow, it is automatically moved to the next stage (in our example, the reviewer stage), and an email is sent to the reviewers. In addition, the reviewers will be notified via their “workflow” dashboard. Every time a reviewer logs on to the CMS, messages will be displayed, notifying them that they have pending work (with links to their pending work). Workflow can also be set up to send email reminders.

As the document moves from one stage to the next, the appropriate individuals are notified of pending/completed work.

Managers of the publishing process have their own dashboard that shows the overall status of each document/content element being work-flowed. This means that time-sensitive documents can be monitored and kept on-track. It also means that missed (or soon-to-be-missed) due dates can be managed with timely follow-ups as opposed to manually figuring out where a document is in the approval process (remember all those phone calls and emails?).

Workflow automates the create/review/publish process, moving content quickly through the publishing pipeline and provides an automated mechanism for tracking the status of a document in the publishing pipeline. As soon as a document has been created/edited/reviewed/published, the appropriate individuals are automatically notified (in multiple ways), insuring that the next stage of the workflow is started as soon as possible. In addition, since workflow is an automated process and each step is logged by the CMS, statutory/regulatory requirements can be easily satisfied.

Georgia-Pacific is one of the world's leading manufacturers and distributors of tissue, pulp, paper, packaging, building products and related chemicals. The organization required a solution which would allow them to get a handle on the ever increasing number of documents created by their 55,000 employees, as well as manage the intranet sprawl created by multiple divisions and departments in 300 facilities spread across the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia.

Georgia-Pacific decided to cut costs significantly by eliminating expensive licenses and consolidating servers. Document management at the time consisted of local folders, shared network drives, and Microsoft Share Point Portal. In an effort to create a collaborative environment, custom applications utilizing HTML/ASP had been written to share documents across divisions and borders. Document versioning was non-existent and there was no mechanism in place to search for a document.

When employees accidentally deleted documents, they would call the Help Desk. This resulted in the deployment of a support person responsible for requests made to specific servers; the support person would contact another group to retrieve and forward the appropriate back-up so the document could be restored.

The Georgia-Pacific intranet was made up of the usual suspects: a spider web of custom websites with no standardization. Content owners were frustrated by the inability to manage their own content and IT was focused on other priorities. As a result, changes to content became low-priority and resulted in out-dated content and “dead” sites. IT was also tasked with doing more work with fewer resources, creating large backlogs of maintenance projects and no resources for implementing new technologies.

The rollout of Point Dynamics Enterprise CMS meant different things to different departments/divisions:

• For some, it was a chance to have a true document management system with workflow, versioning and collaboration tools such as email, message boards, and RSS.

• For the owners of intranet sites, Point Dynamics CMS heralded a breakthrough – they were able to create their own websites and update their own content daily, weekly, monthly, or whenever the business dictated a need. Non-technical users rapidly adopted the new technology, resulting in an early boost of productivity (using built-in components for Flash and media players).
 
• Intranet sites went “live” quickly using Point Dynamics’ innovative cloning technology which allows an entire repository (including documents, images, and pages) to be duplicated in seconds.

Point Dynamics worked closely with Georgia-Pacific on site rollouts, providing the leadership and innovation to meet the needs of content managers. The calendar, image gallery, and live rotator built-in components became essential for sales team sites. The shared calendar allows scheduling of events and can be personalized using Point Dynamics’ security model; calendar events can also be downloaded to Microsoft Outlook or Exchange. The image gallery and live rotator components provided two “out of the box” solutions to display products for use in the creation of sell sheets and presentations.

One of the major obstacles overcome was integrating local applications into the new intranet sites. Point Dynamics delivered an “iframe” portal component which integrates secured sites into the Point Dynamics framework.

The success of the Point Dynamics CMS implementation is reflected across the different divisions of Georgia-Pacific:
 
• The North American Tissue Manufacturing group used Point Dynamics Enterprise CMS to create a site where documents could be shared and managed, and all of the applications used by their facilities could be integrated into one site.
 
• GP’s Gypsum division designed a portal for the various areas of their business; each group is able to have its own look thanks to page templates, and information and documents are searchable across the sites.
 
• The Commercial division site caters to sales and marketing teams across the country; each team area is personalized and secured based on the type of information being shared.

Teck (www.teck.com) is Canada’s largest diversified mining, mineral processing
and metallurgical company. Headquartered in Vancouver, BC they have locations around the world. Working with a constrained budget and a need to create a huge website with limited IT involvement, Teck took a look at several content management products before settling on Point Dynamics CMS. Our product was chosen over MS Office SharePoint Services because it is easier to use and more affordable.

Teck had several requirements which had to be met, including:

1.   No restrictions on web page formatting.

2.   A web page creation process that was simple and repeatable.

3.   Built in security for documents and content which could be created and maintained by the content manager.

4.   Dynamic search for web content and documents.

5.   Ability to translate entire sites into multiple languages.

Susan Hooper was selected as the Content Manager shortly after the purchase decision was made. Susan created several different page templates which she then used to create over 100 web site pages.

Point Dynamics page templates are created from a blank page which is then populated with built in components such as menus, breadcrumbs , left navigation menus (which are created specifically for a certain group of pages or section of the web site), and editable content areas.

Sections of a page template can be locked so that the content manager cannot change them. The editable sections can be workflowed, which means only approved content is published to the website.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can be added to the page templates to further limit the need for the content manager to know or use HTML. This also helps to standardize colors, fonts, and headings across the website.

Even though she has built an extensive website, Susan is able update the website quickly and easily with news releases, financial reports, and other documents. The News Release component, which ships with the Point Dynamics CMS product, has 3 parts:

1.   An editor to create and date the news release and give it an expiration date.

2.   A module which displays excerpts from all active news releases with a link to the full story.

3.   A details module to display the full news release.

Susan can choose to display a link to a document via an image or text. She is also able to create documents components to group documents by type. For example, in the investors section of the site there are quarterly documents including presentations, podcasts, and financial reports.

The Teck website publishes many documents and reports. The Point Dynamics CMS role-based security model is used to make certain documents available only to users who are logged in and assigned to a role that can view the documents (web pages can also be secured by the individual user).

Using Point Dynamics CMS, a non-technical person (with very little training and assistance) can quickly and easily create a professional and highly trafficked website.

Contact us today for a live demo of Point Dynamics CMS.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is the strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes" this according to AIIM.
 
The advent of Web 2.0 and it's increasing influence and presence in everyday life has caused a paradigm shift in the focus and use of content management systems in business environments.
 
An ECM should improve the ability of businesses to collaborate internally and externally, locally and globally. Therefore, a well designed Content Management System (CMS) must provide "social media" tools which allow users to share their thoughts and ideas via Blogs and Forums and provide the ability to integrate video and audio content as well.
 
Many CMS providers arrived late to the social media party and will provide newly created 'add-ons' in 2009, at an additional cost to the Enterprise. In contrast, early versions of Point Dynamics Enterprise CMS were designed for collaborative environments and already provided built-in, easy, one-click integration of audio, video, and Flash content, as well as RSS for importing content.
 
Point Dynamics CMS officially entered the Web 2.0 space in 2006 by adding:

• Blogs - portals can have just one blog or users can create their own, bringing Blogger.com possibilities to the enterprise. The system also provides blog subscriptions similar to Feedburner, which allows blog content to be pulled into feed readers like Google Reader.
• Forums/Message Boards - create a forum for every department in the company or every group in every department in the company. Forums utilize role based security to keep confidential information secure.
• Survey tools - can be used to create lengthy surveys with yes/no and multiple choice answers, or simple one-off "what do you think?" polls.
• Team Spaces - a functioning site within a site designed to enhance team communications and promote collaboration on project work among team members.
• Knowledgebase manager - with categorization levels and search capabilities for frequently asked and answered questions.

Entering the social media space early on has allowed Point Dynamics to integrate these features into its powerful and stable Enterprise CMS product, with little customization and no additional cost to the enterprise.

Learn more about how Point Dynamics CMS can help you promote collaboration and utilize social media tools in your internet and intranet environments.   xj7vy5m2e4

The goal of a CMS is to provide an easy way to create and publish content to the web. Your small business or corporate entity can streamline its business process using a CMS and save a lot of money – if you understand what a good content management system (CMS) is and how it can help your business.

Take my friend John for example. John has a very large team in one of those internet marketing businesses.

• Each member of his team has a marketing website where people go to learn about the business and opt in to receive more information.
• There is also a "back office" website where team members can track their business transactions, check email, and receive information from the parent company.
• Of course new team members have to be trained, so there is a training website.
• Team communication is facilitated by a message board that is hosted by a company specializing in these things.
• And finally there are various websites created for training leaders and disseminating information.

Each of these websites requires the team member to login using different login user ids and passwords…a lot to remember! Members of the team have also started creating their own blogs to grow their piece of the business. John's problem is that he can't afford to hire someone full time to keep each site updated and he doesn't have the time or knowledge to do it himself - so the sites look just the way that they did when John got started back in 2003. John has heard of the acronym CMS, but doesn't know that it’s the solution to his problem!

How Can A CMS Help John?

Point Dynamics CMS is easy to use, feature-rich, fast to deploy and affordable. This means that if John were to implement Point Dynamics CMS, he would be able to centralize his content and his websites and save money on hosting, web programming, and he could update his sites to current Web 2.0 standards. His team members would have just one user name and password to remember, and if someone leaves the team he can remove their access to everything with one keystroke. Since Point Dynamics CMS utilizes role-based security, John can set access to different parts of the site based on the role that a team member is assigned to. For example, his leaders will be the only ones who can access the leaders training section.

Point Dynamics CMS' WYSIWG editors would allow John to update or change the look of websites, even with his limited knowledge of web programming, Html, and CSS. With a good CMS you don't need to know any of that technical stuff; built in components allow you to place content on web pages where you want them (forms, RSS news, blog feeds, images, etc.). John can easily create a picture gallery of overachieving team members (with descriptions of their achievements) and add or delete their photos on demand. John can also offset his costs by offering his team marketing sites and blogs which can be secured by user and masked with their own domain name.

But what if you need Document Management?

Remember John's training website? Well, John has a lot of Word, Excel, and PDF documents that his team needs to download. He currently stores these documents on several different servers and that's created an entirely different nightmare for him. Luckily, Point Dynamics CMS is a content management system that includes powerful document management features. Documents can be managed from the desktop or via the web browser and also utilize role based security. So for example, John can ensure that only his leaders have access to leader training documents.



John can use Point Dynamics document browser (looks and works just like Windows Explorer - something he uses anyway and is comfortable with) to set up a folder hierarchy for his training documents. Once he has done a copy and paste or drag and drop of his documents into their new homes, he can create links to those documents within his HTML or use the My Documents component to display the documents to his team on his website.


We will discuss the various components of the Point Dynamics CMS in later posts, but I hope that this example has helped to clear up any confusion about CMS' and what they are.