1.3. Features

Accessible Output

The CMS produces standard HTML files that have been used to power Section 508 sites.

Archive

The CMS includes a system to save older versions of content items, enabling you to rollback if necessary. You can view the differences between versions. See Version Control.

Category Management

Create organizational categories for content items, which are browsable and searchable.

Content Reuse

You can reuse images throughout CMS, using the image authoring step for articles.

Cross-browser Support

The HTML pages produced by the CMS can be viewed by various browsers on different platforms.

Database Repository

The CMS uses a database to store content items (text, images, hyperlinks, and so on), which enables easy retrieval, linking, and searching capabilities.

Extensible

The CMS includes documented APIs.

External Systems Integration

You can integrate LDAP, Kerberos, Web services, RSS, and other portlets designed to be used by developers. See the CMS Deployment Guide.

Form Builder

The CMS includes a form builder wizard for creating online forms.

Integrated Authoring Environment

A easy-to-use form-based interface produces structured content, which includes text, images, hyperlinks, and so on. Content creators add information within fields, which prevents incorrect structure and formatting, and can upload content from other applications, such as Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.

Lifecycles

The CMS has a highly flexible publishing model for managing content lifecycles, enabling users to schedule publishing and removing of content items, and their durations and date ranges.

Linking

The CMS includes a RelatedLink type, which allows any content item to have a sortable list of "related links."

Managing Users, Groups, and Roles

The CMS can help you manage an unlimited number of groups, users, and roles in a simple, coherent way that is fully integrated with the access control system. It provides role-based permissions at multiple levels including content item granularity, supports integration with LDAP authentication, and provides security and permissions for groups and users.

Metadata creation

The CMS supports the arbitrary import of metadata specifications, including Dublin Core.

Multilingual

The CMS has native support for managing and syncing content in an unlimited number of languages. All static strings in the CMS are globalized, enabling easy localization. Content items are grouped into content bundles, which enables you to publish a single piece of content to different languages.

Multiuser authoring

Users can create, edit, and modify the content they are responsible for while others are working on their items. The CMS tracks which users are working on specific items and prevents other users from making simultaneous modifications to the same piece of content.

Notifications

Include automatic email notifications for workflows and tasks. You can configure the CMS to send emails when a task is overdue, enabled, disabled, finished, or rolled back.

Publishing and Removing Content Items

The CMS includes a default publishing interface that can produce customized output. You can schedule content for publication and removal by using content lifecycles. Preview content items before publishing, using the associated templates.

Scalable

The CMS, built on proven J2EE architecture, has built-in support for HTTP cache headers and publishing to a file system to maximize the scalability. Extensive testing has shown the CMS to be capable of handling large numbers of users and administrators in a variety of roles.

Search

The CMS supports full-text searching of all content, regardless of the database. This includes Intermedia on Oracle® for full-text search of text and binary files, the open source Lucene search engine for database-independent searches, and support for navigation to content based on categories.

Security

A single access control system allows administrators to specify which groups, users, and/or roles can perform specific actions by assigning permissions. Administrators can delegate administrative privileges to others. The CMS provides a standard content contribution wizard for authors that uses workflows to determine the content creation process.

Separation of content and presentation

The CMS includes a standards-based Cascading Style Sheet template system which uses either XSLT or JSP™ templates to consistently format content. The CMS supports an unlimited number of custom content templates for publishing to any channel (for example, Web, WAP, and PDF). You can upload your own HTML templates and the CMS supports pre-populated and user-defined content types.

Stylesheets

Use the default stylesheets or customize them to match your corporate branding.

Support for Multiple Output Formats

The CMS produces XSL output, which can be transformed to HTML pages, PDF files, and more. It also supports RDF/RSS standards for syndicating content.

Version Control

The CMS includes the WAF versioning system that recognizes the differences between iterations of content items, which are displayed on the History tab in the user interface. Developers can use this data to build conflict resolution and branching capabilities.

Workflow

Content moves through a series of steps during the creating process. Each step can be assigned to a different role or user. This lets you design a customized, role-based workflow that includes routing, email notification, and task assignments. The CMS documents a full audit trail.