Architects of the User Experience
SharePoint: The Right
CMS for Your Website?

What is Web Content Management?
Managing the text, images, flash, PDFs, and other multimedia that
makes up your website(s)
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What is a Web Content Management System?
A software system that helps you manage the content that appears on
your website(s)
 Has a central repository for your website content
 Publishes content to your website(s)
 Allows companies to exert greater control over the branding and
presentation of their web properties
 Helps to establish a repeatable and tunable process for creating,
testing, approving, and deploying content
 Simplifies content re-use
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CMS Vendors
There are literally hundreds of CMS vendors -- Today, the spotlight is
on Sitecore and SharePoint
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Web CMS-enabled Companies the Most Successful
Why CMS Selection is So Important
 In a survey of 157 companies that were defined as “Best in Class”
(20% ROI on marketing spend, 11% revenue growth in the past year):
 77% of these companies had CMS that did not require intervention
from the IT department for updating
 70% said that the optimization and distribution of online content is
a high priority for 2009.
Source: 2009 Aberdeen Group Survey, “Maximize Business Results Online: How Web
Content Management Technology is Transforming Digital Marketing”
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CMS Evaluation Primer
How do you know which system to select for your website?
 Desired Features and Functionality
 Technical Platform
 Budget
 Ability to Deliver the Design
 Staff Competencies / Usability for Content Authors
 Established Vendor
Using these dimensions, the full universe of CMS choices can be
narrowed down
Making a final decision often requires prioritization
Working with a CMS selection partner who has experience developing
in the tools is a big advantage – There are aspects of a system you
don’t learn until you get under the hood
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CMS Evaluation Primer: Some Selection Factors
 Reputable CMS Vendor
 Highly Usable
 Straightforward Development
 Content re-use
 Produces Standards-Compliant (X)HTML
 Multi-lingual Capacity
 Developer Community, Professional Services
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CMS Evaluation Primer: Commonly Requested
CMS Features
 Usability  Roles / Permissions
 Custom workflows  Integration with Applications
 Content re-use  Development Standards
 PDF  RSS feeds
 Mobile devices  XHTML
 Multimedia  Multiple languages
 Media Library  Manage website user accounts
 HTML editor  Single Sign-On
 Link Checking / Spell Checking  “Faceted Navigation”
 Browser-based interface  Documentation
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SharePoint Evaluation
Content
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SharePoint Intro
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SharePoint Intro
Source: http://trainsignaltraining.com
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Example of a Public Site Built in SharePoint
Source: http://www.kpmg.com/Global/Pages/default.aspx
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SharePoint – History
This is the first version of SharePoint designed for Web Content
Management
Release History
 SharePoint Portal Server 2001
 Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003
 Office SharePoint Server 2007
 Breakthrough Release
 The first version for Web Content Management
Traditionally, an inside-the-firewall server -- Primarily intranet and
collaboration tool
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SharePoint’s Strengths
 Core Web Content
Management functionality
 Document management
focused repository
 Optimized for “classic” web
publishing scenarios
 Excels at assembling
documents and collaborative
content into pages for
publishing and distribution
 Extensible, skin-able interface
Image Source: Sharepoint.net Magazine
to support branding
 Ideal scenarios include:
Intranets, extranets, brochure-
ware sites
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The MOSS Sweet Spot
 Sites that can be supported by
classic publishing approaches
 Best Fits:
 Intranets
 Extranets
 Brochureware sites of
low/moderate visual
complexity and low
turnover
Remember, MOSS is a platform…
With enough time and money,
anything can be accomplished
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SharePoint – Implementation Challenges
Out of the Box:
 /Pages/ urls. E.g. www.yoursite.com/Pages/home.aspx
 Need to hide several items, need to disable some things
 Customization difficult
 Name.dll
 No “taxonomy” metadata (3rd party solution(s) available)
 Lots of pieces: Search, domain accounts, “Alternate Access
Mappings”, “Shared Service Providers”
 “Absurdly voluminous” amounts of Javascript and CSS code out of
the box
 Not trivial to deploy securely to the web
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Sitecore Evaluation
Content
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MOSS and Sitecore – How do they compare?
MOSS Sitecore SEO Tools
WCM WCM
Email Campaign tools Web
Integrated Analytics
Marketing
Features
Multisite Management
Content Reuse and Content Reuse and
sharing sharing
In Context Editing In Context Editing
Workflow Workflow
Publishing Publishing
Branding control and Branding control and Core WCM
support support
Features
Security Security
Multilanguage support Multilanguage support
Multi-device support Multi-device support
Accessibility checking Accessibility checking
and compliance and compliance
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Sitecore Web Content Management
A Marketing Oriented Approach
 Designed for infinite page componentization
 Master -> sublayout -> sublayout -> sublayout …
 Web controls are dynamically loaded on the fly
 Renders pages are clean, light and accessible
 Optimized for search engine placement
 Optimized for rapid and iterative site branding / evolution
 Support for table-less (CSS driven) design
 Support for rich content types and taxonomies through multilevel
inheritance
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The Sitecore Sweet Spot is in Public Website
Content Management
Best Fits:
 Public website content
management
 Integration with other systems
 Multi-lingual, multi-device (e.g.
Blackberry)
 Organizations that demand a
usable CMS
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Sitecore’s Content Architecture
 Authors focus on content
 Developers define appearance
 Sitecore combines content with
presentation when visitors
request a page
 Reuse of content
 Specify once, display anywhere
Why?
 Reduced data entry for content authors
 Consistency
 Sitecore enforces formatting decisions
made by designers
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Content and Templates
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Sitecore SharePoint Connector
 Connect intranet content to your public website
 Manage intranet, extranet documents in SharePoint
 Publish to the web using Sitecore – via the SharePoint connector
 Similarly could be used for other intranet items:
 Calendar events
 Announcements
 Images
 “List” data
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Sitecore SharePoint Connector
Mapping Lists and Media
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Conclusion
 Select the right Web CMS for your organization
 Evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of SharePoint vs
other .NET-based solutions
 SharePoint is excellent for the intranet and extranet
 SharePoint has some challenges for Web Content Management
 There are Best of Breed tools available like Sitecore
 Consider a SharePoint-Sitecore combo
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See also:
 Top 10 Mistakes when selecting a CMS
 http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_selectionmistakes
 CMS Watch:
 The SharePoint Report (proprietary)
 Sitecore Webinar “Is SharePoint the right tool for your
organization?”
 CMS Wire:
 http://www.cmswire.com/cms/cms-reviews/sharepoint-2007-
review-six-pillars-of-moss-000922.php
 Sitecore SharePoint connector
 http://www.sitecore.net/Product/Features/Architecture/~/media/
Products/Fact%20Sheets/Sharepoint%20pdf.ashx
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Questions
Please type your questions using the control panel on your screen
Kristin Hodgson Bill Sapp
NavigationArts Sitecore
703-584-8920 415-380-0600
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