MCMS

New Central Resource for Web Content Management

Heather Solomon — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:25:00 GMT

Andrew Connell has put together a great resource for Web Content Management (WCM), which is the next generation of Content Management Server. He has organized articles, blog posts, downloads, docs and URLs into categories for quick and easy reference. Great job AC!

Web Content Management Links and Resources

MCMS News... the why behind the move to O12 and new terminology

Heather Solomon — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 19:02:00 GMT

I know I don't post often about MCMS, probably because it doesn't require much secret sauce to successfully customize it, but a couple notable things have cropped up about MCMS vNext.

For those of you who are completely immersed in SharePoint, MCMS is heading over to Office 12 and will integrate with WSS. MCMS is yang to SharePoint's ying. For as loose and free as SharePoint is, MCMS is that much structured and templatetized (and I love it). Seeing these two come together in some state will be very interesting (and promising!).

Via AC and via the SharePoint Team and WCM Blogs:

Gerhard Schobbe, Group Program Manager for the CMS Team, added a lengthy comprehensive post to the SharePoint Team Blog today that goes into the details of how Microsoft came to the decision to integrate CMS and WSS, or as CMS will be known (at least as it is today) in O12 as Web Content Management (WCM). To start, he details the three high-level goals:

Provide much deeper integration between CMS and SharePoint functionality.
Make creation of dynamic, highly customized, content-centric web sites dramatically faster and easier
Address the miscellaneous collection of 2nd order (compared to the call for integration) feedback that had collected up.

How they team addresses these goals and the evaluation process of how to “rewrite” CMS to include all the needs of customers vs. having CMS be more closely integrated with WSS (that is, O12 WSS… or WSS v3). WSS provides a ton of things OOTB for CMS:

Versioning
Check-in/check-out
Backup/restore
DAV support
Security
Recycle bin
Alerts
Storage (WSS is already scalable to “handle hundreds of thousands to millions of items”
Personalization
Search
Workflow

He goes on to discuss other items close to CMS developer’s minds such as transistioning their current MCMS environments to O12 WCM:

Migration (both content & custom code) from MCMS 2002 -> WCM in O12
MCMS 2002 PAPI forward compatibility (spoiler: it won’t be)

It’s a fantastic read for anyone who works with MCMS 2002.

» Content Management Server and SharePoint

And Mark Harrison has explained the new names WCM will take on to be more in line with SharePoint technologies. I am not sure if this is more of a curse or a blessing, it will be hard to reprogram the ole noggin for the new terms, but maybe switching from MCMS talk to SharePoint talk won't be so jarring now. Via Mark:

As part of MCMS vNext becoming a component within O12 Server, there has been a need to change the name of some of the core entities to be consistent with the SharePoint technologies.

Here are the new names to learn :

Posting -> Page (see below)
Channel -> Site (see below)
Template -> Page Layout + MasterPage
Template Definition -> Content Type
Placeholder -> Field Control
Placeholder Definition -> Column Templates
Channel Structure / Top Level Channel -> Site Collection
Template Gallery -> Master Page Gallery
Resource Gallery -> Image Library ; Document Library
Resources -> Images in the Image Library; Documents in the Document Library
Site Manager -> Site Manager Tool (now web based !)

With MCMS / SharePoint today we have three types of containers - MCMS Channels / SPS Areas / WSS workspaces. vNext will introduce a single new container (a Site) that provides a superset of all existing functionality.

An MCMS web page (previously a posting) will be stored as a WSS list item (in a list called Pages). The MCMS placeholder content will be stored in the columns in the WSS list item. By storing the MCMS content within a WSS List, we can have same consistent workflow / metadata / versioning / checkin-out that SharePoint utilises.

MCMS v.Next info posted

Heather Solomon — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 17:05:00 GMT

With all the SharePoint hoo-rah, the MCMS news was of little interest. Let's not forget that the future of these two will be very much connected. Stefan has some great posts about MCMS v.Next:

» MCMS v.Next - The curtain has been lifted at PDC
» Office 12 will have API completeness
» PDC Slide Deck of Content Management Session of Ryan Stocker

And Arpan posts about WinFX and how to prepare for the next version:

» The Future of WSS, SPS and CMS revealed at PDC

UPDATE 9/19: Angus's braindump about web content management:

» Web Content Management information from PDC (Braindump)

Comparison chart of Site Manager and MCMS Manager

Heather Solomon — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 23:25:00 GMT

Via Angus, Via Chester

I've listed the features of Site Manager and MCMS Manager - to have a better understanding of MCMS Manager's features. Now MCMS Manager seems to fill most of the gaps between Site Manager and MCMS Sites!

Site Manager MCMS Manager

Channels & Posting

Create, Copy, Delete, Move Channels Get the Guid of the Channels / Postings / Template Guid of the Posting

Copy, Move, Delete Postings Search inside a Channel (Search has many features)

Import/Export Channels Generate Statistics for Channels

Import/Export Postings Edit Posting / Posting Properties / Custom Properties

Work with Properties of Channels Open the posting in Published / Unpublished / Update mode

Kill lock on Channel/Postings Kill lock on Postings

Rename Channels Submit/ Approve/Decline a Posting

Clear Revision histories Get the posting State

Preview postings

Get all the connected postings

Resource Galleries & Resources

Create, Copy, Delete, Move Resource Galleries Get the Guid of the Resource Galleries / Resources

Copy, Move, Delete Resources Preview /Browse Resources

Import/Export Resource Galleries Save the Resources

Import/Export Resources Get the postings which uses a Resource

Rename Resource Galleries

Edit Properties of Resource Galleries

Template Galleries & Templates

Create, Copy, Delete, Move Template Galleries Get the Guid of Template Galleries / Templates

Copy, Move, Delete Templates Preview Templates

Import/Export Template Galleries Get the postings depend on the Template

Import/Export Templates View the connected Templates

Rename Template Galleries Get the state of Templates

Edit Properties of Template Galleries Submit Templates

Generate Dependent Report for Templates

Approve Templates

User Groups & User

Add / Remove / Modify Rights groups -

Add / Remove / Modify Users

Also MCMS Manager includes few tools. They are,

IIS Log Converter & MCMS Log Viewer
Health Checker
Incremental Export Script Generator
Incremental Import Script Generator
UserGroup Backup-Restore Script Generator

NB: MCMS Manager 4.0 can be used from remote machines.

New Book for MCMS

Heather Solomon — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 13:48:00 GMT

Via MCMSFAQ.com, there is a new field guide available for MCMS administrators. Topics include configuration, architecture, admin tasks and it is geared for maintaining a production MCMS site.

» Microsoft Content Management Server Field Guide

My beef with SharePoint/MCMS layout and control regurgitated through AC + my extra thoughts

Heather Solomon — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 15:48:00 GMT

It is nice to have someone listen to your design heartache and understand. It is nice to not have them roll their eyes when you hang your head when you see one of your SharePoint pages look like absolute crap because some user found the formatting buttons. It would be nice to rant about this on your site, but second best is having your bud do it instead. AC beat me to my next soapbox topic of the need for the middle-of-the-road control with design in SharePoint.

Basically, SharePoint is like a water hose turned on with a spray gun whipping wildly around while you try to catch it. And MCMS is as rigid as the British (jk I love Brits). Seriously, SharePoint overly provides customization abilities for the end user who has no business doing any design. And MCMS is so structured that it is very difficult to go off the beaten path. The content fits the mold, or it doesn't. AC and I often argue about whether our Intranet should have been deployed using MCMS (we used SharePoint). I say as much as I love my structured MCMS templates, SharePoint provides the user what the need, the ability to stick whatever list, library or text wherever they deem it necessary on the page. It would be very difficult to duplicate that functionality with MCMS. Down side is that they then in turn paste like crazy from Word, break my site, slap in 5 font faces at 6 sizes and make everything fuchsia.

I want the middle of the road. I want to give them the ability to shift web parts around on the page, and to maintain their own text, but damnit you need to use my styles and any Word junk is stripped out automatically from whatever awful thing you paste in. This isn't about power and control, this is about consistency. It's about not having that window available for a user to be able to toast a site because they didn't follow Heather's rules sent out in an email 6 months ago. It's about having a site that is both usable and looks nice.... on every page.

I am excited about the prospects of SharePoint and MCMS joining forces, but I fear this issue won't be addressed. I daresay it is too practical of a request. It doesn't have enough whiz bang and maybe takes away a selling feature for the scores of managers that ohhh and ahhhh over the formatting bar. But it would make this anal designer very happy. :-)

» AC's post for everything else I think about and complain about on this topic

Update: AC posted more great points about controling the UI

Rumors Confirmed - SharePoint and MCMS

Heather Solomon — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 10:53:00 GMT

Via AC:

I’m sure we’ll hear more about this as the PDC approaches.

Microsoft is melding the infrastructure underlying SharePoint Portal Server and Content Management Server (CMS) for the Office 12 wave starting next year.

» Microsoft Today: Microsoft To Ease Integration Of SharePoint Portal, Content Management Servers

New MCMS Book Officially Announced!

Heather Solomon — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 12:55:00 GMT

From Stefan:

New MCMS book officially anounced now!

Lim Mei Ying, Stefan Goßner, Andrew Connell, Angus Logan

This book has the most in depth-coverage of important MCMS development topics found anywhere. Each author of the book is a renowned expert in the area

Learn directly from recognized community experts
Extensive coverage of the Publishing API (PAPI)
Get Sharepoint and MCMS working together
InfoPath, RSS and hot topics covered

Read more on the publishers website

Expected August 2005. Pre-order now!

Metalogix Migration Manager - for MCMS and SharePoint

Heather Solomon — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:27:00 GMT

While at TechEd I sat in on a demo for Metalogix Migration Manager and was impressed with this tool. Metalogix has two tools, one for MCMS and one for SharePoint. I saw the demo for SharePoint. Through one easy file explorer like interface it allows you browse and select content to migrate to SharePoint. Once the content has been selected the migration process is easy – 1) Select content; 2) Select Export; 3) Logon to the SharePoint site; 4) Select destination; 5) Map columns to SharePoint columns. You don’t have to be on the SharePoint box to use this tool, and it even has a creation interface so you can create new SharePoint content containers (a list for example) from within the Migration Manager. Very cool!

» Migration Manager for SharePoint
» Migration Manager for MCMS

MCMS Search Options

Heather Solomon — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 17:07:00 GMT

At TechEd this year, Arpan Shah shared some MCMS search vendors:

Coveo – Free for sites with less than 5000 pages. Coveo also has Enterprise Search for SharePoint.
Snow Valley – Free open source search solution
SharePoint Search

And some stuff I have come across:

Mondosoft
User controls for MCMS to use SharePoint Portal Server search
IXIASOFT - XML-based search

Site Manager	MCMS Manager
Channels & Posting
Create, Copy, Delete, Move Channels	Get the Guid of the Channels / Postings / Template Guid of the Posting
Copy, Move, Delete Postings	Search inside a Channel (Search has many features)
Import/Export Channels	Generate Statistics for Channels
Import/Export Postings	Edit Posting / Posting Properties / Custom Properties
Work with Properties of Channels	Open the posting in Published / Unpublished / Update mode
Kill lock on Channel/Postings	Kill lock on Postings
Rename Channels	Submit/ Approve/Decline a Posting
Clear Revision histories	Get the posting State
	Preview postings
	Get all the connected postings

Resource Galleries & Resources
Create, Copy, Delete, Move Resource Galleries	Get the Guid of the Resource Galleries / Resources
Copy, Move, Delete Resources	Preview /Browse Resources
Import/Export Resource Galleries	Save the Resources
Import/Export Resources	Get the postings which uses a Resource
Rename Resource Galleries
Edit Properties of Resource Galleries

Template Galleries & Templates
Create, Copy, Delete, Move Template Galleries	Get the Guid of Template Galleries / Templates
Copy, Move, Delete Templates	Preview Templates
Import/Export Template Galleries	Get the postings depend on the Template
Import/Export Templates	View the connected Templates
Rename Template Galleries	Get the state of Templates
Edit Properties of Template Galleries	Submit Templates
Generate Dependent Report for Templates
Approve Templates

User Groups & User
Add / Remove / Modify Rights groups	-
Add / Remove / Modify Users