Requested features
Members of the CMS discovery group are encouraged to suggest and evaluate CMS services and products based on our scope and evaluation criteria.
| Vendors (in alphabetical order) Features Available on or before 1/1/03. *=requires custom development. [restricted to students and staff] | Evaluation Criteria | Product/ Service 1 | Product/ Service 2 | |||
| Rank 1= Top | Value 10= Top | (Yes= 10, Maybe= 5, No= 0) | ||||
User/Roles/Workflow | ||||||
| Can roles and users be easily managed? (i.e., vacation back-ups) ? | 01 | 10 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can enough workflows can be defined? (goal: 25 per site) | 05 | 6 | Yes, infinite | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can workflows be assigned at the section *and* page level? | 05 | 6 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can enough stages can be included in a workflow? (goal: 5 per workflow definition) | 05 | 6 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can enough users can be activated? (goal: 25 per site) At what cost? (per seat cost?) | 06 | 5 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can workflow roles be separated from users to facilitate changes in personnel? | 06 | 5 | Yes | 10 | No | 0 |
Information Architecture | ||||||
| Can sections and pages be moved easily by novice users? | 01 | 10 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can site structure outline be reordered, as opposed to alphabetical? | 01 | 10 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can access be easily restricted (username/password or Kerberos) to sections? | 01 | 10 | Yes, But Kerberos Is Custom | 5 | Yes, But Kerberos Is Custom | 5 |
| Can multiple sites be managed? If so, how many? (goal: unlimited) | 06 | 5 | Yes for Subsites | 10 | Yes, Unlimited | 10 |
| Can site structure be imported or exported? As XML? | 10 | 1 | Yes, Full XML Import/Export | 10 | With CMS 300 Model (?) | 10 |
Templating | ||||||
| Can multiple, nested templates be used? If so, how many? (goal: unlimited) | 08 | 3 | Yes, Unlimited | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can templates be uploaded by designers? | 08 | 3 | Yes, Also Local WebDAV | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can CSS files be uploaded by designers? | 08 | 3 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can templates include automated navigation: left-side, bread crumbs, current section? | 08 | 3 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can a site map or a-z index be generated automatically? | 08 | 3 | Yes, From Template | 10 | No | 0 |
| Can a previous/next page footer be generated automatically? | 08 | 3 | Yes | 10 | No | 0 |
| Can a print version (using a separate template with no navigation) be generated automatically? | 08 | 3 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
Content Entry and Editing | ||||||
| Is WYSIWYG entry available? Cross-platform? Cross-browser? | 01 | 10 | Yes, Windows IE 5+ Only | 10 | No, Windows Only | 5 |
| Is light markup required? (No is preferred) What tags are supported? <b>, <I>, <a href> | 01 | 10 | No | 10 | No | 10 |
| Is full markup required? (No is preferred) | 01 | 10 | No | 10 | No | 10 |
| Can RTF or SYLK documents be automatically transformed to valid HTML? Can Word, Excel, or tab-delimited documents be imported and cleaned up? | 01 | 10 | Yes, Via Cut/Paste | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can the code be transferred to visual editing tool? Without breaking tags? | 01 | 10 | Yes, Standard html | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Is there a wizard for uploading images? | 01 | 10 | Yes, Browse to Upload File | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Is there a wizard for uploading pdfs? | 01 | 10 | Yes, Ditto | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Is there a wizard for uploading other binary files (flash, audio, video)? | 01 | 10 | Yes, Ditto | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Is there a wizard for creating image galleries? | 01 | 10 | No, By Admin | 0 | No | 0 |
| Is there a wizard for creating forms? | 01 | 10 | No, by Admin | 0 | Yes | 10 |
| Is template and user-entered code compliant to XHTML 1.0? | 02 | 9 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can the markup be validated for standards compliance? | 02 | 9 | Yes, Errors for Bad Code | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can the markup be validated for universal design? | 02 | 9 | Maybe, Depends on Definition | 5 | Yes | 10 |
| Is there a wizard for <meta> generation? | 02 | 9 | Yes, Input Form | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can there be separate <meta> sets for home and inside pages? | 02 | 9 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can internal links be checked? | 02 | 9 | Yes, With Atomz Search | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can external links be checked? | 02 | 9 | No | 0 | No | 0 |
| Is the Web-browser interface supported on Windows, Macintosh, Linux? | 03 | 8 | Yes, Win, Mac | 10 | Yes | 10 |
Staging/Publishing | ||||||
| Can a page be embargoed until a release date and time? | 05 | 6 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can a page be deleted and replaced with an appropriate redirect? | 05 | 6 | Yes, Syndication Supported | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Is page-level versioning (undo) available? How many steps? | 05 | 6 | Yes, Infinite | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can a full site edition be archived? | 05 | 6 | No, Site Basis | 0 | Yes | 10 |
| Can stakeholders be notified by e-mail when page is published ? | 05 | 6 | Yes, Full Workflow With E-mail Notification | 10 | Yes | 10 |
Infrastructure/Administration | ||||||
Can additional modules be added by in-house developers?
| 3 | 2 | 10 | Yes, Using PHP, ASP, or Cold Fusion | 10 | Yes* |
| Can system be adapted to support various authentication (basic authentication, Kerberos, certificates – PKI) and security (sftp, ssl WebDAV) options? | 09 | 2 | Web Site: Yes, Application: No | 5 | Yes, With ADSI Module (12/02) | 10 |
| Is application hosted on campus? | 09 | 2 | No | 0 | Yes | 10 |
| Is Web server hosted on campus? | 09 | 2 | Yes | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can content be exported via XML or XHTML? | 10 | 1 | Yes | 10 | Yes, With CMS 300 (?) | 10 |
| Can system be integrated with Blackboard 5? | 10 | 1 | Yes*, Via XML Import/ Export | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| Can legacy databases be integrated into content? | 10 | 1 | Yes*, Custom Project | 10 | Maybe, With Some Extra Code | 5 |
| Is content storage accessible by super-users? | 10 | 1 | Yes, by Admin | 10 | Yes | 10 |
| If system is hosted off-campus, can system be installed on local machines? | 10 | 1 | No | 0 | Yes | 10 |
| Total score | Perfect: 3110 | 2615- Disqualified | 86% | 2685- Disqualified | 86% | |
Document history: 10/2/02; 10/8/02; 10/10/02; 11/1/02; 11/5/02; 11/6/02; 11/8/02; 11/20/02; 3/6/03; edited 7/15/08