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Subject:Re: A market survey (sort of) From:Susan W Gallagher <susanwg -at- gmail -dot- com> To:Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com> Date:Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:29:16 -0700
On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 8:13 PM, Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
> I have to make some decisions on software buying and some other things, and
> I could really use some input. I would be very appreciative if you folks
> could provide responses to these questions:
>
> Have you ever used a content management system? How did it perform?
>
A company I used to work for had a contract to distribute Ektron CMS.
Customers used it to manage workflow, making sure that all approvals were in
place before content was published. This was for digital downloads, and the
CMS allowed them to schedule the release of material they were contractually
obligated to release at a certain time.
Where I'm working now, we're about to adopt TriSoft CMS to accompany XMetal
and DITA-OT. When you take DITA-OT out of its plain brown wrapper, it can be
very difficult to locate material that can be reused, which defeats a major
part of the purpose. We're hoping that TriSoft will make the DITA content
more visible and easier to reuse. I've only been here 6 months and had no
part in the decision-making process.
>
> Have you used any commercially available plugins for conditional text in MS
> Word? How well did they work for you?
>
Nope - never used one.
>
> If you have used these systems, what where their benefits and flaws?
>
> About CMS software - in what situations do you think they are or are not
> useful?
>
I think that a CMS is very useful when you have a rigid or complex workflow.
Just as a bug tracking system maintains a task order (open, assign, fix,
test, close), a CMS maintains a workflow order (write, review, edit,
approve, publish).
We are all hoping that the new CMS will give us more visibility into
existing DITA topics to make them easier to reuse.
>
> If you do not use a CMS or conditional text plugin, would you like to?
> What would you need to know about it to decide you?
>
> HTH!
-Sue Gallagher
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