size doesn’t matter: how to build and maintain huge cms projects
DESCRIPTION
Presented by Tim Yager at Web Content Conference in Chicago, June 17-18, 2008. Are you looking to re-design your site, but are afraid to look into a new CMS? This talk will address real-world solutions to move data from one CMS to another, including real-world problems such as link management, related content, and data import. Most current CMS solutions have methods to import data although they all have different strengths and weaknesses, knowing your business goals and your content will help you in deciding which CMS is right for your project.Remember, size doesn't matter, even if you're building a large CMS project. You can learn how to leverage tools and processes to work more effectively on your own project.TRANSCRIPT
Size Doesn’t Matter
Moving to a new CMS pain free
About the Presenters
Tim Yager & Jim Thaxton are developers at Duo Consulting, a firm in Chicago committed to helping clients get their message across by building great Web sites.
That’s right, we’re developers, ask questions!
What is this presentation?
This presentation is an overview of good-practices when choosing a content management system (CMS) and how to accomplish the feat of moving from one CMS or static site, to a new CMS.
Also, we want to help you not make mistakes we made. We want to show you what we wish we knew when we started!
Why Are You Here?
You know why we are here. Why are you here?
How many of you have a current Web site?
How many of you know what CMS your site is running on?
How many of you are planning to update your site in the next 12 months?
Presentation Outline
Review CMS Solutions
Looking Within
Plan of Attack
Execution!
Post Mortem - or, what would we do better if we started this project knowing what
we know now
CMS Solutions at Duo
eZ Publish (Weintraub)
Serena Collage (American Library Association)
Drupal (The Onion, Illinois Humanities Council)
SiteCore (Lake Forest Graduate School of Management)
Ektron (Zeigler)
Custom CMS solutions (DuoCMS) (Altman Weil)
Don’t trust a demo wholeheartedly
Looking Within - First you audit
Is existing content structured in any way?
Databases on the backend
Does this migration need to occur?
Does the migration fit into your budget?
Investigate your proposed CMS options, review: User Interface, import/export capabilities and general feature set.
What’s the current CMS buzz?
Structured vs. Unstructured Content
Plan of Attack
Resources and Users
Research, Research, Research
Proof of Concept Phase
Plan of Attack – Users
Users
– Work with content contributors. Their buy-in makes your project
– Users are a resource
– Link preservation/management (and expectations)• http://www.fbm.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/attorney.home/attorney.cfm
• http://www.fbm.com/attorneys
Plan of Attack – Resources
Resources– Gather appropriate resources (internal and external)
– Content Audit
– What kind of infrastructure will be needed?• Testing Servers?
• Running New and Old CMS side-by-side
Plan of Attack – Research
Research
– Visit message boards of prospective CMS
– Remember, It’s OK to ask for help
– What kind of support is available?
– Determine how you will handle upgrades
– Consider how to work with 3rd party apps and companies if necessary, think of Google Maps and Facebook
– Link preservation/management (and expectations)
– Know your options before you start
Illinois Humanities Council
From Drupal Import to Google Maps in the proof of concept!
Plan of Attack = Proof of Concept
Plan for proof-of-concept– Look before you leap!
– Investment of budget here pays off moving forward
– Use this phase to finalize your execution steps
– Make mistakes here using a small subset of content
– Refine processes and code in this phase
Plan of Attack – Phased Approach
Phase Approach
Phased Go Live
Iterative Planning/Execution/Review cycle
Improve processes throughout project
Allows easy developer/resource handoff
Plan of Attack - Phase Approach Example
Execution
Look ahead for exceptions beforehand starting
Do you know your workflow?
– Have workflow in place to review content as it is imported
– Workflow is more than just check-in/check-out
If you’re taking a phased approach, loop back and review your Plan of Attack at each step of the process
Execution will be a “single slide” if you plan your attack!
Post Mortem
Why are you doing this? To save money and keep your Web site moving forward!
Plan reviews throughout the project
Review Plan of Attack
How will you move forward
Update processes as you gain new knowledge
Collecting Your Thoughts(and going live)
Learn from mistakes when making upgrades and improvements
Move forward
– Just because a site is live, does not mean you are done working on it.
Questions
Ask ‘em if you got ‘em.
One North Wacker, Suite 950Chicago, 60606 - 312-529-3000
Questions
Ask ‘em if you got ‘em.
One North Wacker, Suite 950Chicago, 60606 - 312-529-3000