What is a content Management System, and why use one?
A content management system (CMS) is critical to the success of almost every website and intranet, and yet many organisations are not familiar with this technology. You are currently looking at a content management system in use on this site. This site is powered by the JOOMLA Content Mangement System.


Our Advanced Package takes advantage of the Joomla Content Management System. Some of the many features are listed below.

Features:

• Completely database driven site engines
• News, products, or services sections fully editable and manageable
• Topics sections can be added to by contributing Authors
• Built in search
• Fully customisable layouts including left, center, and right Menu boxes
• Browser upload of images to your own library for use anywhere in the site
• Dynamic Forum/Poll/Voting booth for on-the-spot results
• Runs on Linux, FreeBSD, MacOSX server, Solaris, and AIX

Extensive Administration:

• Change order of objects including news, FAQs, Articles etc.
• Random Newsflash generator
• Remote Author submission Module for News, Articles, FAQs, and Links
• Object hierarchy - as many Sections, departments, divisions, and pages as you want
• Image library - store all your PNGs, PDFs, DOCs, XLSs, GIFs, and JPEGs online for easy use
• Automatic Path-Finder. Place a picture and let Joomla! fix the link
• News Feed Manager. Choose from over 360 News Feeds from around the world
• E-mail a friend and Print format available for every story and Article
• In-line Text editor similar to any basic word processor software
• User editable look and feel
• Polls/Surveys - Now put a different one on each page
• Custom Page Modules. Download custom page Modules to spice up your site
• Template Manager. Download Templates and implement them in seconds
• Layout preview. See how it looks before going live
• Banner Manager. Make money out of your site

Content creation
At the front of a content management system is an easy-to-use authoring environment, designed to work like Word. This provides a non-technical way of creating new pages or updating content, without having to know any HTML. The CMS also allows you to manage the structure of the site. That is, where the pages go, and how they are linked together. Many even offer simple drag-and-drop restructuring of the site, without breaking any links. Almost all content management systems now provide a web-based authoring environment, which further simplifies implementation, and allows content updating to be done remotely. It is this authoring tool that is the key to the success of the CMS. By providing a simple mechanism for maintaining the site, authoring can be done by anyone at your company. For example, your marketing manager maintains the press release section, while your product manager keeps the catalogue up to date.

Content management
Once a page has been created, it is saved into a central repository in the CMS. This stores all the content of the site, along with the other supporting details.
This central repository allows a range of useful features to be provided by the CMS:

* Keeping track of all the versions of a page, and who changed what and when.
* Ensuring that each user can only change the section of the site they are responsible for.
* Integration with existing information sources and IT systems.

Most importantly, the CMS provides a range of workflow capabilities. These are best explained by giving an example:
When the page is created by an author, it is automatically sent to their manager for approval, and then to the central web team for their editorial review. It is finally sent to the legal team for their sign-off, before being automatically published to the site. At each step, the CMS manages the status of the page, notifying the people involved, and escalating jobs where required. In this way, the workflow capabilities allow more authors to be involved in the management of the site, while maintaining strict control over the quality, accuracy and consistency of the information.