Features
A CMS is just one way of publishing a website, however the CMS we have at The University of Melbourne has many features which are designed to make the process of publishing easier and more streamlined.
Content Creation
- Simple authoring environment: The CMS has a standard WYSIWYG editing tool which can be easily accessed by non-expert users.
- Cross platform: The CMS can be used on Windows, Mac or Unix/Linux, requiring only a recent browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox.
- Immediate preview: Draft content can be previewed as it will appear on the live site. The changes remain private until the page is made live.
- Extranet access to authoring tools: Users outside of the University network can access content.
Content Management
- Workflow: A system of content control from creation to archiving through user roles and permissions. Workflows can be customised to reflect the business processes in an organisation, and alerts sent to users notifying of pending tasks as the content moves through the workflow.
- User Permission Management: Access to view, change and approve content to be restricted based on the user's role in an organisation.
- Version Control & Archiving: Changes to content can be tracked and archived for legal accountability, and accessed through an interface.
- Document Expiry Management: Expiry dates can be attached to content, and automated alerts sent to relevant users for content that needs to be reviewed.
- Metadata Management: The CMS can automatically populate metadata fields using existing data, and require compulsory metadata fields when creating content.
- Content Re-use/Syndication: A piece of content can be used in multiple locations on a website, or syndicated to sites outside of the CMS repository via RSS.
- Link Management: The CMS produces user-friendly URLs for dynamically generated webpages. The system manages changed links to other pages within the CMS.
- Reporting: A large range of reports can be produced, containing data about CMS users as well as the website end users. Data can be exported for analysis into third party software such as Excel.
Content Publication
- Page templates: Design of pages is controlled using templates, allowing for the overall appearance of the site to be revised without having to migrate content. Templates can be customised and flexible, using standards compliant mark-up or programming.
- Publish Accessible Content: A CMS can aid in publishing accessible web pages, by supplying content authors with prompts for adding information to access related tags, and maintaining the level of access initially produced in the templates.