Six Ways to Improve the Content Contributor Experience in SharePoint

Content drives websites, so making content contributors comfortable in the editing environment is essential to the successful adoption of a SharePoint WCM experience.

Here are just a few ideas for simple improvements that can make a world of difference in adoptability. 

1. Design for Both Contributors and Visitors from the Start

For any Web CMS project, there are two end user audiences to consider: regular site visitors and content contributors. Approach the project with those two audiences in mind — not as an afterthought. While designers typically focus on the visitor experience, designers and developers need to work together closely to construct usable experiences for content contributors.

2. Customize Contribution Experiences

SharePoint allows a lot of flexibility in customizing the editing experience. Not every experience requires extensive customization, but many key experiences do.

Sometimes this means normalizing the experience so that the content contributor doesn’t have to worry about what piece of content goes where or how to format it consistently. Sometimes it means using form-based editing instead of in-context editing. Sometimes it means automating some sequence of native SharePoint capabilities. And sometimes it means creating custom editing controls, custom site actions or specialized web parts. Successful customizations will save time and simplify decisions for content contributors.

3. Remove Extraneous Options Where Possible

When creating a page in SharePoint within a site’s “News” section, it’s unlikely that you’ll need to choose a “Product Description” layout. So why is it even an option?

Removing contextually irrelevant page layouts, ribbon options, site actions and other such options will help contributors to create the right content using the right tools in the right place, not to mention that it’ll help keep the branding police off your back. These simple configuration changes in SharePoint can dramatically simplify and improve the page creation experience.

4. Plan a Clear Content Reuse Strategy

Content can be reused in SharePoint in a variety of ways (CQWP, metadata, custom lists, etc.) and can make small contributions go a long way. Automatically surface teaser content on landing pages, blog entries on your home page and “related” content on any page. 

Content contributors will be grateful if portions of the site effectively maintain themselves. Just remember to be clear about where the content originates (don’t make them hunt for the place to make a change!). With a thoughtful content reuse strategy, content contributors can feel like they’re making a real impact on the overall site.

5. Provide On-Page Guidance

Adding content to a SharePoint page experience should never be a guessing game for content editors. Clearly labeled fields with brief descriptive and/or instructive text can help the editor know what content is expected, how to use metadata tagging or why certain fields are required.

6. Use Homegrown Training Materials

All content editors should receive some basic level of SharePoint training, but generic training materials have real limitations. If you have customized the look and feel of your SharePoint site or have followed any of the above contribution customizations, the editing experience will differ from that reflected in the generic training materials.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Wrike Debuts Live, Project Management Tool with Real-Time Collaborative Text Editor, Email Sync

Project management system Wrike has debuted a new collaborative editing platform called Wrike Live. The new platform offers real-time shared editing of documents and tasks to keep teams on task and in the loop, so to speak. Here's what you need to know.

Modern Tools for Teams Large + Small

Online collaboration tools are key to a business's success, and one of the best features of Wrike Live is how well it syncs up with email. Wrike Live can turn emails into project timelines (illustrated in a Gantt chart format). Email a task to someone and cc it to wrike@wrike.com — the task will automatically be added to the project plan and displayed in chart format. It's a nice visualization that is easy to understand and process.

Wrike's Dynamic Timeline feature is a handy tool for managing tasks.

Wrike Live features a simultaneous co-authoring tool for teams working together on any project. There's no saving, no refreshing and all participants see updates as they happen. That goes for document collaboration as well as tasks and projects, something Wrike says is a first in market feature.

Furthermore, Wrike debuted its Activity Stream that displays a three-pane view to navigate between a live overview of project updates, details of a task and a project's structure. In this shared workspace, people can share files and images, discuss work and see each others' actions. The Wrike team likens it to feeling the pulse of a project.

Activity Stream shows an overview of a project and all the updates needed to stay on top of things.

Don't Forget the Cloud

There's a 30-day free trial of Wrike available, and the full release package for teams of 50 or more is US$ 200 per month. That allows for unlimited projects and collaborators and 100 gigabytes of storage. From there, prices range down to US$ 50 per month for up to 5 users.

Additionally, Wrike is available as a Google App for syncing even more workflow items. We posted a video below to demonstrate the real time updates of Wrike Live. There's no audio, so don't be surprised when you press play and it's silent.

 For more on project collaboration, check out this recent CMSWire article.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

OpenCms 8.5 Released: Adds CMIS Standards, Solr Integration

Alkacon Software's OpenCms released version 8.5, a major update that includes inline editing, Solr integration and adoption of CMIS standards.

It's been a year since OpenCms version 8.0.2 came out, and that was only an incremental update. For those eager to view the latest version, there are free demos available and because it is open source, the entire system is ready for download now.

Major Update

One of the main hightlights of OpenCms 8.5 is the inline editor, an edit in place option that speeds up quick page edits with a simplified, non-technical interface. Additionally, the form based content editor, the more formal tool, has been rebuilt to be faster to use. When content is saved into a page, there is no longer a confirmation required as the info is saved directly.

Inline editing allows for quick edits without going through the dashboard.

There's a new undo option for all changes done on a page that hasn't been published, and an option to edit content directly from the clipboard favorites. Even the text editor itself is new (based on CodeMirror). Version 8.5 is backward compatible to all prior 8.x and 7.x versions. For those using OpenCms Enterprise Extensions, to use OpenCms 8.5, OCEE v3.5 is required. OCEE must be updated first to run the new OpenCms version.

CMIS Standard + Solr Integration

Solr integration is good news for enterprises who are going the open source route and want to include a solid search infrastructure. As for the included CMIS standard, it shows the OpenCms community is serious about adopting accepted practices regarding document management using Web protocols. 

CMIS is a valuable tool for creating interoperability between data repositories, and its adoption here is important. It's all the more relevant becuase there is already talks underway to adopt a new standard called the Web Experience Management Initiative. 

This new OASIS initiative kicked off discussions in April, and as it moves forward, more vendors will no doubt take notice. The OpenCms community is an active one, so if they aren't already following along, they likely will be as WEMI gets closer to adoption. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com