When to use a content management system

In a nutshell, content management systems are server hosted web services which enable the authoring and storage of web content. They are often used to create complex websites for displaying large volumes of information (like job boards for example) and to provide user interactivity. CMS?s come in all shapes, sizes and price ranges including expensive enterprise options like Sharepoint, free solutions like Wiki?s and solutions from third parties. However, regardless of their price tag, all of these systems offer the same benefits, and suffer from the same downfalls.

Before deciding if a CMS is right for your project, lets start with the pros and cons:

Pros:
No editor to install: since everything is ?web enabled?, this usually includes the editing interface, making CMS editing available across platforms. However as we?ll see below, web editing is a double edged sword.

Concurrent editing: multiple authors can work on the same documents/pages at the same time. In fact most CMS?s have built in version control and conflict management.

A website in a box: the CMS will give you a default website out of the box, often with features like security authentication. Customizations can usually be made in the back end (often by programmers or sys admins) as well as at the content editing level (ie: through CSS and html).

Cons:
Primitive web editing: we?ve found that all CMS?s regardless of their price tag provide terrible editing capabilities. This includes clunky and undersized text editing boxes, slow page refreshes, and browser windows that jump around the page.

Browser buttons: the loss of work through the inevitable click of the browser?s back button is very real, especially when it?s unclear if the web page is reloading.

Reliance on the network/internet: if the network or internet goes down, you can no longer work on the CMS. This is particularly bad when you are half way through an edit, and then discover a network loss when you try to save your work. Usually the work will be totally lost, so it?s recommended that authors save more frequently than in a native application. Sporadic performance of the network or CMS backend, will also lead to unpredictable usability of the authoring tools.

Single sourcing: many CMS?s don?t support the concept of single sourcing (allowing chunks of content to be edited in one spot and reused elsewhere). This forces the content authors to write the same content in multiple locations, which makes future editing very difficult and error prone.

So when should you use a CMS? Generally speaking you should choose one when creating a full blown website, especially when user interactivity is required. This will provide an end-to-end solution for storing content and rendering it to the user in some desirable way. CMS?s are also handy when there are multiple authors and it?s impractical to give them each an expenseive authoring tool.

For projects like technical documentation which don?t require user interactivity, you should instead choose a single sourcing tool which can generate web content. You can then integrate or link to that content from your CMS. This will give your authors the best performing editing tools and ensure that repetitive content need only be written once. If providing a tool to each author is impractical, consider having a gatekeeper insert the content. This will help to ensure quality content.

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