Software Capabilities

You use IBM Workplace Web Content Management to develop, manage and deliver Web content in the form of Web pages and portlets. To streamline the process of creating Web content, Workplace Web Content Management provides the capability to first create site frameworks, taxonomies, workflows and authoring templates. You may also determine the most appropriate access control, workflow control and profiling strategies for your Web content.

Workplace Web Content Management provides:

• End-to-end Web content management – Content can be created (using a WYSIWYG rich text editor), managed and published to multiple Web sites as well as Workplace.
• A collaborative environment that makes it easy for users of all levels to work together and complete review and approval workflow processes.
• Content creation through "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG) rich text editor or by importing from another application (such as word processing)
• Built-in content lifecycle workflow - review and approval capabilities, automatic expiration of old content to be dynamically delivered to your employees, customers, suppliers and partners via the WebSphere Portal environment

Libary Support

Before creating Web content, you may create a set of libraries to help organize content in Workplace Web Content Management. You also define the role that users and groups will have when working with different item types in libraries. Library features include:

• Allowing large sites to be split up and managed separately
  • Each library has its own security settings
  • Each library has its own syndication settings
  • Each library can store each of the different types of Web items, etc.
• Sharing items across libraries as the partitioning is virtual
• Separating site data managed by different groups
• Splitting design & content across libraries
• Authored in one place, and then deploying to multiple delivery environments
• Isolating test content

Profiling of Content

You use the profiling features of IBM Workplace Web Content Management to group content items into different types of content. You use the following profiling methods to group content items:

• Site Frameworks
  A site framework is a similar concept to the "site map" of a traditional Web site. Whereas a site map is based on a directory structure or the links between pages in a Web site, a site framework consists of a set of Web Content Management items. Each site framework consists of a single site under which a set of site areas and content items are grouped.
• Taxonomies and categories
  A Category refers to the subject matter of your content item. For example, your content item may be of the category New Products or Latest News. You use taxonomies to group categories. Users select from a predefined list of categories when profiling a Content item.
• Keywords
  You also use Keywords to profile content. Unlike categories, which are chosen from a predefined list, you can enter any keywords you like when creating content items.
• Authoring templates
  Authoring templates can also be considered as a profile-type as they are used to group content items and, like categories and keywords, can be used as search parameters in a menu element.
  

Workflow

The IBM Workplace Web Content Management application uses workflows to control the access to, verification and eventual approval of Web content. Only if an item is approved at all stages up to a published stage can it be viewed on your web site. Workflow stages are the building blocks of a workflow. You need to create at least one stage before you can create a workflow. Stages determine:

• What actions to execute when entering or exiting a workflow stage
• The access levels of users or groups within that stage.
  

Each stage contains sets of actions; those that are executing when entering the stage and those executed when exiting the stage. Actions include:

Publish

• Changes an item's Status from Draft to Published. I.e., the item is available on the rendered site.
• An item will only be published once it has entered a workflow stage containing a publish action, and when the selected published date and time has been reached.

Expire

• Changes an item's Status from Published to Expired. This means the document is no longer available on the site.
• An item will only be expired once it has entered a workflow stage containing an expire action, and when the selected expired date and time has been reached.

E-mail

• This sends e-mails when executed. You can create new e-mail actions and specify who the recipients will be. You can select to e-mail approvers, authors and owners. You can also create a list of other users or groups to e-mail.
• A link to the Item to be reviewed is included in the e-mail.
  

Scheduled Move

• Performs a scheduled move to the next stage on a specified date. A list-box will allow you to select one of four date types that are entered on each individual document (i.e. the date will come from the document itself, not the action), or you specify a static date.
  

Access Control

You can restrict access to selected users and groups to the views within an authoring portlet, the items managed by the authoring portlet, and to elements and pages displayed within a Web site. You can assign roles to both a whole library, and the item types within a library using either an additive or subtractive methodology.

For example, with an additive methodology, you apply the User role to the entire library and deselect the propagation check-box. You then apply Contributor, Editor, Manager or Administrator roles to specific item types to grant additional access to specified users or groups.

With a subtractive methodology, you apply the Manager or Administrator role to the entire library. You then apply Editor, Contributor or User roles to specific item types and deselect the inheritance check-box. This reduces the access to different item types for specified users or groups.

Content Authorin System

Base level content authors may not create anything but content items. You can modify the authoring portlet to hide different sections of the authoring portlet from different users and groups. You can also use authoring templates to simplify the content item form itself so that content authors are only required to complete a small number of fields.

The authoring template provides features that help you simplify the presentation of the content form and screen the content author from unnecessary complexity.

• Content form layout options. You can control the general layout of the fields on the content form by specifying a content form layout option. Depending on the layout option you select, this can reduce the vertical space required to display the elements on the content form.
• Hidden fields. In addition to organizing a content form with a layout option for the fields, you can further simplify the form presented to the content author through the use of hidden fields. With the exception of those fields that are required for a content form, you can designate any other field in the authoring template to be hidden. A field marked to be hidden in the authoring template is not displayed on the content form, thereby streamlining the form's visual appearance. This is particularly useful when used in conjunction with a default value for a field because it enables you to specify a setting for a field and then hide the field on the content form to ensure that the field's value cannot be changed by the content author. For example, you might want to set access control levels for content generated from the authoring template in the Access Control section of the template and then hide that section on the resulting content form. When a content item is generated from the template, the access control levels for the content item will be derived from the default values in the template.
• Custom form help text. You can define help text for the entire content form that is generated from the authoring template. This help text can be used to describe the purpose of the form, for example, or to explain at a higher level how the form contributes to the site content that the form supports. Because it is fully customizable, you are free to include whatever specific information you feel would be of use to the content authors using the form.
• Custom field help text. In addition to the HTML text you can add to describe the entire content form, you can also specify in-line help text that is displayed with each element on the form. This help text can provide targeted information for a particular field on the form, explaining possible values or noting special conditions related to the field.
  

Web Sites for Different Localities

When creating a multi-locale solution, Workplace Web Content Management supports the following:

• Create a separate library for each locality.
• Create another library for any content that will be shared across localities.
• Create a separate site for each locality.
• Create a separate search collection for each locality.

Multiple libraries allow the same names to be given to corresponding items in each library. This will simplify the navigation between localities as only the library name will be different in URLs pointing to the same content in different localities.

For example, only the library name will be different for content displayed in French and German localities:
http://host/wps/wcm/connect/frenchlibrary/site/sitearea/content
http://host/wps/wcm/connect/germanlibrary/site/sitearea/content

A workflow can be used to assist with the synchronization of content between localities by using the joint approval feature. You can add a stage to a workflow that would require joint approval from a member in a group representing each locality. You would configure this stage to send an e-mail to notify each joint-approver that an item has been updated. Each joint-approver would not approve the item until they had updated the same item in their locality to match the changes in the primary locality.

Highlights of the Software Architecture

Content Management content to users, including rendering portlets, a specialized servlet, and pre-rendered sites.
There are four different methods available to deliver Web Content Management sites.
Local Rendering Portlet (Web Content Viewer)
Workplace Web Content Management content can be delivered via a Local Rendering Portlet located on the same server as a Web Content Management application.
Remote Rendering Portlet (Remote Web Content Viewer)
Workplace Web Content Management content can be delivered via a Remote Rendering Portlet located on a IBM WebSphere® Portal server. A Web Content Management application is not required.
Web Content Management servlet
Workplace Web Content Management content can be delivered as a standard Web Site via the Workplace Web Content Management servlet that is installed with the application.
Pre-rendered sites
Workplace Web Content Management content can also be delivered as a standard web site via a pre-rendered site.

Figure 2. A set of delivery applications can be installed as a cluster.

A set of delivery applications can be installed as a cluster. This provides in-built redundancy. A load-balancer can be used in-front of a clustered set of delivery applications.

Figure 3. Syndication is enabled between the staging application and all delivery applications.

Figure 4. Staging applications can Syndicate to more than one cluster of delivery applications allowing separate delivery clusters to be installed at different locations.

Features and Benefits

IBM Workplace Web Content Management is a powerful and sophisticated Web content management product that helps accelerate the development and delivery of critical business information across your enterprise and to your customers. Despite its power, it's remarkably easy to use. Instead of tying up IT staff, it simply requires standard office skills to rapidly harness and optimize the flow of information across your Internet, intranet, and extranet assets.

Time can be saved because content creation is simplified and streamlined allowing business users to build entire sites using powerful content templates and reusable components without development skills.
Features:

• End-to-end Web content management so content can be created, managed and published to multiple Web sites.
• A collaborative environment that makes it easy for users of all levels to work together, and complete review and approval workflow processes.
• Content creation through a WYSIWYG rich text editor or by importing text from another application (such as word processing).
• Built-in content lifecycle workflow that gives you review and approval capabilities, and automatic expiration of old content.
• Versioning and rollback to previous content versions.
• Personalization that delivers content relevant to the users and their roles.
• Better managed business content that is immediately available in the portal. Users create, manage, and publish information straight into the portal for high availability of accurate, relevant, and up-to-date information across all organizational boundaries.

Benefits:

• Streamlines the creation, publication, and lifecycle management of content for internal and external Web sites
• Publishes information on demand in minutes, not days, for improved responsiveness to customers, partners, suppliers, and employees
• Personalizes Web sites to deliver targeted information and services based on a user's profile or actions
• Ensures consistent, professional look-and-feel across multiple sites
• Helps deliver faster Web site implementation with component architecture that reuses components
• Distributes the authoring of content to the subject matter experts and frees IT from creating, editing and approving all site content