The document discusses key considerations for choosing a content management system (CMS), including functionality needs, indexing and retrieval, workflow automation, interface usability, asset management, search capabilities, content presentation, user interaction, access controls, versioning, multi-site support, multilingual support, integration capabilities, and vendor expertise.

1. What to consider
By
Patrick Alfred Ongwen & Koyier Francis

2. • Consider carefully the basic functionality you
need
• Indexing and retrieval
• Workflow-forwarding right information to right
people at the right time (Privacy right)
• A web-based system-One central system
• Scalability-Network/handling growing amount of
work
• Automation of retention and Destruction
schedules

3.  It’s the interface through which content is added
and amended
Managing Assets
 Ensure the CMS you select forces content
providers to add attributes to images
 How it deals with uploading and attaching files
 CMS should provide basic image editing tools

4.  This is where most users start from when looking for
content
 Freshness: how often does the search engine index
your site.
 Thoroughness: does index the entire content of each
page
 Speed: how long does the search engine take to return
results
 Scope: Can you limit the scope of your search
 Customization: can you control how the results are
displayed

5.  You need a CMS that allows flexibility in the way
content is retrieved and presented.
 Content presentation should not be dictated by
technology
User Interaction
 It should allow you to gather feedbacks,
comments, chats, host forums and get user
ratings

6.  You need more control over who can edit you
website
 One can post job advert but not add content on
the home page
Versioning
 Being able to revert to the last saved state
 It allows to quickly recover what might been
posted by accident

7.  You need to be able to run several websites from
the same installation
 New websites that target narrower audience
 Multilingual Support
 It should be able to accommodate several
languages apart from the domestic language
 Integration
 It should allow you to integrate different
departments of the organization

8.  The vendor you consider should have high level of
knowledge, expertise and experience of the software
 Communicate your expectation clearly
 The Vendor should be able to offer staff training, set-up,
consultation and maintenance
 Licensing, Accessibility, Security, training and
much more