Deane Barker of gadgetopia got me thinking with his post about how content makes it from an idea to an html document on a website:
"Someone thinks up some content, they bring it up in a meeting, people talk about it, they discuss it with other people, they may write something in Word and send it around, etc. After all of this, they then crack open the CMS, enter the content, perhaps leave it in draft to be reviewed, etc."
WCM system vendors pay a lot of attention to version control, publishing approvals and content creation workflows. The intended result is high quality content and an audit trail. The unfortunate trade-off is an interface that involves many dialogs, keystrokes and sometimes confusing steps for content authors to get their job done. Collaboration requires a simple interface with the minimum of steps. This requirement does not easily fit with CMS workflows and version control. I call this the collaboration versus control conflict. Wiki's are great for collaboration, WCM systems are great for fine grained control over content creation and delivery.
Collaboration options in a WCM environment are limited to document version comparison. Authors can see the differences between versions and may select one version in its entirety.
Alternatively, as in Deane's earlier description, authors can collaborate on a document outside the WCM and copy a draft into the WCM. Some of the ways to do this include:
- Live screensharing, around a desk or via the internet - great for live interaction, but costly and difficult to achieve, especially for globally spread teams; no version control; changes accepted/rejected during screensharing.
- Zoho, Google Docs and similar web based document editors - great for live and asynchronous interaction with automatic version control and version comparison; not so great for sensitive documents that belong behind the firewall; no ability to accept/reject discrete changes within a document.
- MS Word + email, phone calls or face to face meetings - Track Changes gives the ability to accept/reject discrete changes to the document, ok for asynchronous interaction; no version control.
Track Changes delivers the ability to immediately see what changes have been made to a document and to accept or reject each change individually. This is the best way to collaborate on a document and replicates the way people have always collaborated on documents using pen and paper.
But how does Track Changes affect your WCM system workflow, in particular version control and approvals? To answer this we spoke to the experts: our customers. In summary we found two distinct approaches, both of which can fit into a traditional WCM workflow:
- Keep the Track Changes markup in the document through the approval workflow. Certain people have authority to accept/reject changes while others can only make content changes. Before the document reaches the final workflow step all changes have been accepted/rejected; OR
- Have all change markup accepted/rejected before entering the workflow. Collaboration only occurs on the draft version, once the final changes have been accepted/rejected the document goes to the next step in the WCM workflow.
WCM version control can still function as usual with Track Changes. A new version of the document can still be created every time there is a change (including an accept/reject action) because the document is already inside the WCM.
In summary, adding Track Changes to a WCM system gives you the best of both worlds: WCM version control and workflow with the best document collaboration tool all within a single application.
Recent Comments