In the previous post (and part I) I’ve written about the first 5 of top 10 reasons why some of our customers have doubts about MOSS 2007 as a WCM platform. In this posting I will go into detail for the last ones and give an overall conclusion.
Variations model is not sufficient to support multi language scenarios
“It’s not clear how the variation model works for multi language scenarios. We’ve heard this also a lot from our Belgian relations when the sites are both in Dutch and French language. Content changing/disappearing and synchronization issues are the most common complaints.”
To be honest, we haven’t had many projects with variations. Multi language is something we mostly solve with different virtual servers and host names. As for variations, there is a good overview of some common problems.
For an upcoming project however, we really have to dive into this technology. Hopefully we will have a good answer to everything that has to do with variations afterwards.
The platform is too big and there is too much functionality for content managers
“SharePoint is everything you need! It has collaboration, web, intranet, BI, search, etc, etc. But we only need a CMS. We don’t want the other features and the complexity that comes with it. Because SharePoint doesn’t have a primary focus on WCM you could think that Microsoft cannot be a niche player in everything: there are better CMS products out there.”
Hmm yes this could be. I think Mediasurface, Smartsite, or other professional content management systems (check out the CMS comparison matrix), could have advantages over MOSS WCM. Those systems really feel what you want as content manager. In the case of MOSS 2007, there are many other related features that could have a negative influence on the user interface.
First, to have it said, MOSS 2007 is not the answer to all web related business cases! If a customer wants a simple web site only, stand alone, maybe it’s wise not to suggest MOSS as CMS.
Secondly, I think that when MOSS is chosen as CMS, there should be a vision as well related to that choice. Will it be part of the infrastructure? What about integration with intranet and extranet environments. Do you want a single sign on environment for both enterprise and web content? I think that if the web presence is one of the elements in that vision, you always have to do concessions, and in many cases MOSS is the most complete choice to make.
To finalize, I think we must be happy when a customer’s web site can be taken to the next level by integrating business data and the mechanism is already there to achieve it!
So, pros and cons about this issue. We have distinct ourselves by being able to give this advice to the customer. If SharePoint is not the best choice, we also have alternative options available.
Design and content not completely separated
“The default HTML fields are too loosely attached to predefined styles. It’s very easily to break the suggested design and layout without losing capability to use tables and images in my content fields.”
In my opinion, the way SharePoint deals with layout in the editing controls is something that can be configured depending on the customers’ needs. In this case, the issue is related to the HTML editing fields. These fields let the user create HTML and styles quite loosely; tables, font colors can be changed in those controls. This enables more flexibility to the advanced content manager.
In many cases, also referring to accessibility, content managers, with all respect, could break a lot of the initial styles and layout of the page. A good example is using tables for layout purposes, or set other fonts. Although the default HTML editor has configurable parts, this is a potential risk.
Microsoft has confirmed this by including the Telerik HTML editor control (light version) in the MOSS license. This means everyone that uses MOSS, can also use this control for free. The Telerik control is more advanced and renders the HTML a lot better (XHTML). Many parts are configurable and with this, we can separate the layout the way we want.
Too much time for custom development compared to other CMS systems
“A WCM site is sold as it is out of the box, with master pages, content types, audiences etc. So why do you ask for so much development time when we only talk about configuring a site?”
Funny enough I hear this issue a lot. Why does a platform that is able to create a site out of the box, takes so much time to shape it into a good site? I think this issue has two sides.
First, the out of the box site that you can create, is just an example; putting in customized page layouts, master pages, CSS, content types, etc, just take as much time as creating a new asp.net site. Although many web developers reuse master pages and CSS, there is no standard in designing a web site. This means creating a site takes time. Also the functionality like lists is not likely to be used out of the box in the front end of the site. Items from a lists should be aggregated using a content query web part (which takes XSLT development) or a custom application. To summarize, we use the out of the box elements in SharePoint to build our web site on.
Second, like I’ve talked about in a previous post, the choice to use a ‘single click roll out’ scenario or start working using SharePoint Designer and ‘click the site together’. Especially when we talk about development-testing-acceptance-production environments, the last option is not recommended. From a developer perspective, it’s much more manageable to make sure the complete (basis) site can be rolled out with a few clicks or even fully automated. This means including user rights, audiences, search settings etc.
We’ve been putting a lot of effort in finding out how we should do this the best way. This results in many generic features that only have to be configured using XML. This seems obvious, but there hasn’t been many predefined tools or bet practices for that when SharePoint 2007 has been released.
To conclude from the issue: yes it could take a lot of time to build, although the generic components we’ve built save a lot of time again. You will get however a high quality solution, which will save a lot of time when you want to make modifications in functionality or design. Personally, in most cases, the costs are worth it.
MOSS is too expensive
“The costs of SharePoint WCM are either in hosted scenarios or on internal servers too high. “
I can be very short about this one. Yes, licenses or hosting it is expensive. Compared to other professional content management systems however, it’s quite competitive to what you get!
Conclusion
To summarize, I there are three categories in the issues we hear from the business:
- The issues are based on misunderstanding or lack of knowledge about the SharePoint platform. Our role in this is to give advice and make the customer aware of what SharePoint is and how it works. This could improve the feeling of a customer why to choose for MOSS or not.
- The issues are true, but we have found a way to work around them. There could be discussion on how to deal with them. We think there are ways to eliminate the issue in a good way, without doing concessions.
- The issues are true, and we haven’t found a solution for them. In these cases we will either find a solution in the near future, or the issues will be solved on the next version... hopefully :). Looking at the list, these issues are rare fortunately.
Overall, I think MOSS WCM is a great platform. This is the reason why I spent doing SharePoint things the last 6-7 years! There is always need for improvement, but I’m sure this will happen. As long if you keep in mind that you should also look at it as a platform, you will see that there are reasons for the way Microsoft has dealt with certain challenges. And I think they've dealt with a lot of them in a very good way.
I hope this series of posts help you on the way you look at the WCM capabilities of MOSS 2007.