Ten questions to ask before you buy a CMS

Every corporate intranet needs a Content Management System (CMS). But buy the wrong one and you could be in years of heartache. Here, Steve Nichols of InfoTech Communications (www.infotechcomms.co.uk) gives 10 questions you should ask before deciding which Content Management System to buy.

A Content Management System (CMS) underpins a corporate intranet. Without one, users are left to produce pages and code HTML themselves. At one end of the spectrum, the result can be a hotch-potch of designs, fonts, colours and sizes as users are let loose with a program like Microsoft FrontPage.

At the other, you could end up with no content at all as users quickly switch off to the complexities of tables, tags and FTP. A CMS is a way around the problem, letting users create pages via their browser with no real knowledge of what is going on behind the scenes.

The design is then fixed, leaving them to worry about the words and photographs. But enter the world of CMS at your peril! There are many on the market, ranging from absolutely free to incredibly expensive. And to be honest, you don't always get what you pay for. Here is a checklist of questions to ask any provider before you sign on the dotted line:

• Is the CMS intuitive? Can you learn how to use it in half an hour? A CMS that is designed with techies in mind and is so complex you can't make head nor tale of it will become a nightmare to implement. The end result will be content that never gets updated or endless phone calls for support. If the CMS terminology make no sense to you then it was not designed with the end-user in mind.
• Can you paste in text from MS Word and retain all the formatting? Most corporate users will want to prepare their text in Word and then paste it in. If they then have to go through the whole document and use HTML tags to re-add bold, italic and bulleted items they will soon get fed up. Some systems work by uploading MS Word documents that are then converted to HTML. These can produce bloated HTML code and the finished item often looks nothing like the original document. The acid test of any CMS is to create a table and then import it. Table conversion can be a nightmare and will soon show any deficiencies.
• Does the CMS let you preview the page before you publish it? With the best will in the world, everyone makes mistakes. A headline that seemed like a good idea at the time, or a caption that runs to 100 words, can look hideous when viewed as the finished item. A good CMS should let you preview the page in all its splendour. Only then will you easily spot mistakes. This is also essential where you need pages to be approved before they are published.
• How good is the search facility? Does the CMS generate proper URLS that can be searched for in the future? Some systems generate the URL when the page is selected and can create hideously long URLs. These are not user-friendly and do not work well with some search engines. Others produce real ".html" addresses that are easier to remember and work with.
• How easy is it to integrate the CMS into my site design? Most CMS systems work by using a database to hold the content. This is then called onto the page at the time a page is selected. Some languages are horrendous to code and a simple change to a home page will have you running to a specialist developer. Make sure you have access to someone who can make the changes that you require. Some CMS are extremely difficult to incorporate changes.
• Does the CMS have a WYSIWYG editor? Does it work with all the platforms used in the company? Most WYSIWYG systems tend to work with later versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. If you use Apple Macintosh machines or Netscape's Navigator software the editor may lose its WYSIWYG capabilities.
• How easy is it to incorporate site redesigns into the CMS? Some systems keep the content and the look and feel very separate. A change of font, say, from Arial to Verdana can be accomplished with a single five-minute change of code. Others hard code font size, colour and type into the document which means site redesigns (which happen on a regular basis) become a nightmare.
• What is your upgrade policy? Is the CMS upgraded on at least an annual basis? Do you have to pay for upgrades? Does the provider operate a wish-list service where you can influence the development of the CMS?
• Can I have a copy of all the manuals and training materials for the system before we buy? While one-to-one training is ideal, when the trainer has left the office you are going to be on your own. A good manual should let you find out how to access many of the functions yourself. Good self-training materials will also let new users learn how to use the system in their own time. If training is left to an existing member of staff you will get a dilution of skills. That is, the new entrant will only learn about the functions that the existing user understands, not the whole system.
• Can you give me the names, addresses and telephone numbers of five existing users in this country? Make sure you get five and make sure you ring them all. Find out how long they have been using the CMS, what they think of it and what the back-up has been like from the provider. The only way to really get to know if a CMS does what it says on the tin is to use it over an extended period. Those phone calls, or perhaps even visits, could save you from big headaches later.